‘Argylle’ Review: Matthew Vaughn Lost the Plot of the Spy Satire Genre
(L-R) Dua Lipa as Lagrange and Henry Cavill as Argylle in Matthew Vaughn’s “Argylle”.
If you’ve seen Matthew Vaughn‘s Kingsman movies, you probably already know by now about the director’s sensibilities for making fun of the spy genre, as well as his creativity when it comes to eye-popping action sequences. With that resumé, he may have seemed like the perfect director on paper to direct Argylle, a unique take on a series of spy novels written by Elly Conway that brings the author of the books into the center of the narrative, a mix between North By Northwest and James Bond, as he describes it on the film’s press notes. But was he?
If Kingsman succeeded at being a satire of the genre, in many ways Argylle tries to poke fun at Kingsman, thus becoming a victim of the same tropes it’s trying to criticize. It’s a mishmash of tones that never figures out what it actually is, mostly because of the ever-evolving nature of its story, which packs in enough twists and turns to make the audiences’ heads spin (I must admit that I didn’t see many of them coming, which at least made for an enjoyable experience on that front). And though that was the beauty of the original idea, it was something that either really worked or it didn’t at all — in this case, it was the latter.
The marketing campaign, through its trailers and other tools, barely scratches the surface in terms of what the actual story of the film is — which is a good thing for those looking to be surprised at the movies. The basic concept is as follows: Bryce Dallas Howard plays the lead of the film, the real-life book author Elly Conway, who is about to put an end to his fifth novel in the Argylle spy series, which focuses on Agent Argylle (Henry Cavill), who is suddenly found at the center of a massive conspiracy in which part of his spy organization has gone rogue and he must find the master file to uncover it all.
Elly, concerned about how to finish her next book, goes to visit her parents, but Sam Rockwell‘s Aidan Wilde intercepts her on the train and drops a bomb on her while fighting two dozen faceless thugs: her stories are actually real, and she’s predicting the real-life clashes between a rogue spy corporation and the small resistance, which for the majority of the movie is just him. But what the bad guys actually want is never a concern for Vaughn or Jason Fuchs‘ script, which turns out to be a microcosm of so many other things in this movie.
(L-R) Sam Rockwell as Aidan and Bryce Dallas Howard as Elly Conway in Matthew Vaughn’s “Argylle”.
At its core, Argylle aims to be a fun, laid-back time at the movies filled with movie (and music industry) stars, but instead, it feels like Vaughn lost the plot of those initial intentions — kind of like the movie, honestly. There is such a convoluted mess of different tones that it’s never clear what Vaughn actually wanted to accomplish, and all of the creative energy he infused into the first Kingsman (and even the second one, to a degree) is reduced this time to a third-act colorful stunt that was CGI’d to oblivion. (We’ll talk more about that third act later.) During the first act, Elly imagines Aidan as the real-life version of Agent Argylle, which leads to a highly edited action sequence in which she keeps swapping Aidan and Argylle in her mind. And though that may have seemed pretty original on paper, the shtick quickly ran dry and it made the scene less enjoyable.
At the very least, the actors understood that this is supposed to be a fun experience, and no one heard the message better than Bryan Cranston, whose underwritten, one-note, mustache-twirling villain is at least enjoyable to watch thanks to his charisma. But he’s a supporting character at best; the actual charm of the movie is brought by the two leads, Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell, the latter being the best part of the movie by far (and another one who perfectly understood the assignment). He never takes it seriously and if this movie ever succeeds at parodying James Bond, and not the parody of James Bond, it’s because of him.
(L-R) Henry Cavill as Argylle, Dua Lipa as Lagrange, and John Cena as Wyatt in Matthew Vaughn’s “Argylle”.
Neither of them are the standard figures you expect from a spy thriller, the muscular types embodied by Henry Cavill and John Cena in Elly’s imagination. Rockwell’s Aidan is confused with a homeless drunk when Elly first meets him on the train, and Bryce Dallas Howard is two rewrites and a director swap away from being at the center of a romantic comedy, not a spy action comedy. Leaving the context out of the conversation due to spoiler concerns, Howard is given a lot more action scenes in the second half of the movie — yet the ridiculous wig she was wearing prevented me from even enjoying them in the least. All of the girl-next-door magnetism she put on display during the first half of the movie went away immediately, and though there might be a narrative reason for that, I just never bought any of that because of the new look of the character. Imagine if James Bond shaved half of his head and the other half was painted with the colors of the rainbow during the third act of his next movie. (While we’re at it, Henry Cavill dressing like a barber for 80% of the movie was pretty distracting too.)
At the end of the day, charismatic performances and seeing top-billing actors having some fun weren’t enough to salvage a movie that had so many twists and turns it got lost in its own narrative.
Argylle is available in theaters worldwide.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
