Argylle review – I’ve had more fun at den­tal appointments

Matthew Vaughn made his name by super­charg­ing the com­ic book genre with a bit of the old ultra­vi­o­lence in his adap­ta­tion of Mark Millar’s graph­ic nov­el Kick-Ass. It wasn’t his first film, but it arguably launched him into the main­stream. This was in 2010, right at the begin­ning of the super­hero boom, and a rude, lewd R‑rated (15 in the UK) action-com­e­dy that aped the blos­som­ing, earnest genre felt quite nov­el at the time. He tried this schtick again in 2014 with Kings­man, his take on the British spy movie, in which Taron Egerton plays a lov­able oik recruit­ed into a super secret spy organisation.

Vaughn appears to have found his groove with the spy stuff. After three Kings­man films, he’s in sim­i­lar ter­ri­to­ry with Argylle, cen­tred around shy author Elly Con­way (Bryce Dal­las Howard) who lives a reclu­sive life in Col­orado with her cat Alfie (played by Vaughn’s wife Clau­dia Schiffer’s cat, Chip) and spends all her time dream­ing up adven­tures for the tit­u­lar super­spy (Hen­ry Cav­ill with an incred­i­bly unflat­ter­ing hair­cut) and his part­ner Wyatt (a poe-faced John Cena). Things take a turn when Elly is accost­ed on a train by Aidan (Sam Rock­well) who claims to be a huge fan of her work…and in the busi­ness of espi­onage himself.

Aidan informs Elly she’s in grave dan­ger, set­ting in motion a spy caper across the world as the pair attempt to under­stand why the events of Elly’s spy series appear to hap­pen­ing in real life. A pas­tiche of spy fod­der such as James Bond, The Avengers and The Man from U.N.C.L.E, there isn’t much here in the way of orig­i­nal thought (The Lost City did the whole ​‘neu­rot­ic female author gets sucked into the world of her books’ with more charm back in 2022) and the cliché-rid­dled dia­logue feels so dat­ed it’s as if Jason Fuchs’ script was found down the back of a sofa after ten years among the crumbs and lost pock­et change.

Speak­ing of dat­ed – ​“the final Bea­t­les” song, Now and Then, fea­tures heav­i­ly in Argylle (per­haps in a syn­er­gy move between Apple Films and Apple Music, who’s to say). Now and Then very famous­ly was only released in Novem­ber 2023, which makes it baf­fling that Argylle attempts to pass off the song as an estab­lished clas­sic. ​“This used to be our song,” Aidan com­ments to Elly, rem­i­nisc­ing about their past. Argylle is a con­tem­po­rary film (Samuel L Jack­son spends almost all of his screen time watch­ing a Lak­ers game on a giant tele­vi­sion) which makes this a par­tic­u­lar­ly glar­ing anachro­nism that is at best lazy script­ing and at worst painful prod­uct place­ment. Maybe it’s both! At any rate, it feels indica­tive of how slap­dash and forced the whole thing is.

Rock­well and Howard, bless their hearts, real­ly try their best with the awful script. Both are charis­mat­ic screen pres­ences, even if their char­ac­ters don’t exact­ly stretch them abil­i­ty-wise. At least Howard gets a lot more to do in this film than she ever does in the Juras­sic World fran­chise she’s been shack­led to for a decade. Less charm­ing is the charis­ma vac­u­um Dua Lipa, who appears heav­i­ly in the film’s pub­lic­i­ty mate­ri­als but mer­ci­ful­ly only turns up on screen for two short scenes. She’s a great pop star, but no Cher when it comes to line delivery.

There are a few decent action set­pieces – notably one where Elly skates around on a load of oil, and anoth­er baf­fling­ly set to X‑Factor win­ner Leona Lewis’s cov­er of Snow Patrol’s Run – but they lack the grim car­toon­ish edge of Kick-Ass or Kings­man, and by the time you’ve seen your sec­ond ​‘Ooh they’re not real­ly dead’ fake­out of the film, the stakes start to shrink dra­mat­i­cal­ly. Throw into the mix a bloat­ed run­time, at once over­com­pli­cat­ed and gener­ic plot, and a shock­ing­ly cheap-look­ing aes­thet­ic for a film that sup­pos­ed­ly cost $200 mil­lion, and there’s not a whole lot to real­ly enjoy here. To Vaughn’s cred­it, at least Argylle isn’t as glee­ful­ly misog­y­nis­tic as the Kings­man films, but that’s a bit like say­ing ​“Well, at least the pigeon shit didn’t get in my mouth” after a pigeon has shat on your face.

Most omi­nous of all: a mid-cred­it sequence ties the film into the Kings­man fran­chise, set­ting up some sort of hor­ri­fy­ing Matthew Vaughn Extend­ed Uni­verse (what tim­ing, just as everyone’s los­ing patience with Mar­vel and DC). ​‘Argylle: Book One — The Movie — Com­ing Soon’ a title card reads, which feels like more of a threat than a promise.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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