‘Argylle’ Movie Review: Espionage Ride Is Too Clever By Half But Still Outlandish Fun
Photo from Apple TV+
From Jeremy Kibler
If the Kingsman movies turned the dapper, sophisticated spy movie on its head, director Matthew Vaughn’s Argylle is very much cut from the same slick-suit cloth. This time, the cloak-and-dagger plot takes on a Romancing the Stone/The Lost City setup with an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach that’s eager to please. There can be a fine line between a movie being clever and a movie being smug, and Argylle constantly rides that line’s ass to the finish. It’s unabashedly ridiculous and very fun, and “fun” is the operative word here.
Bryce Dallas Howard is exactly where she should be, front and center as Elly Conway, a timid, anxiety-ridden author of “Argylle,” a best-selling series of espionage novels. She’s single and resides in Colorado with her cat Alfie and a bad case of writer’s block for her next literary installment. But soon, Elly (and Alfie in a travel backpack with a window seat) gets thrust into the real espionage world with Aidan (Sam Rockwell), a real spy who informs Elly that her books have actually been used to predict real-world events. Of course, nothing is what it seems.
When the film opens, it’s clear we’re in a heightened version of Elly’s espionage story on the written page, where the green screen and CGI are so overt, but that’s part of the fun. It’s all very sexy and stylish and aware of how over-the-top it is, as Argylle (played straight by a square-jawed, flat-topped Henry Cavill) is sent to Greece to capture seductive villainess LaGrange (Dua Lipa). John Cena, Ariana DeBose, and Richard E. Grant even turn up as members of Argylle’s team. Once the fantasy—everything in Elly’s creative brain concerning Argylle—bleeds into this movie’s reality, there is a playful editing device where real spy Aidan in action becomes book spy Argylle every time Elly blinks.
Then screenwriter Jason Fuchs (Pan) changes course and toys with expectations. There is a lot to like about Argylle, but there is such thing as too much of a good thing at 139 minutes. It ends up being too clever by half with a preposterous, if self-aware, reveal on top of another reveal; maybe one less rabbit out of the hat would have sufficed. If there’s one thing director Vaughn does not fall short with, it’s in several of the thrillingly bonkers set-pieces, some of which reach levels of sublime ridiculousness that one hasn’t really seen before. The most giddily entertaining highlights include a fight-turned-dance in colorful clouds of knockout gas and the most graceful showdown by way of ice-skating on an oil slick (just shut up and go with it).
Between a charming, emotionally truthful Howard, a delightfully committed Rockwell, and Chip as Alfie the Cat (when it isn’t a CG furball), the film almost doesn’t even need anyone else, but it has an embarrassment of riches from top to bottom. Everyone is game if a little underutilized (we didn’t even mention Samuel L. Jackson), but Catherine O’Hara manages to find a buffet of comedy in the smallest of gestures and line deliveries as Elly’s mother.
For every inspiredly loopy set-piece or amusing performance, the film is always taking about two steps back with tonal shifts, incessant plot reveals, and visual effects that are so hilariously unconvincing they almost seem to be on purpose. It was probably hard for the filmmakers to not get caught up in their own indulgences, and for the most part, Argylle is confident in its own too-muchness and outlandish sense of fun.
Rating: 3/5
Argylle is currently in theaters.
