Argylle… Is It Worth Your While?

A spy action comedy about a writer, Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is writing the next installment in her best selling Argylle book series. The series has given Elly quite the reputation as the books also seem to link to actual world events, as well as uncovering identities of dangerous spies. While traveling to visit her mother, Ruth Conway (Catherine O’Hara), Elly gets caught up in her own spy story as she is pursued by agents from an organization called the Division, headed by leader Ritter (Bryan Cranston). She is rescued by a spy named Aidan Wilde (Sam Rockwell), who explains that the Division is after her because of her ability to predict the future.

This movie was directed by Matthew Vaughn, who – for the most part – is one of my favorite filmmakers. Vaughn brings such a style to his films, especially in the action, which I absolutely love. However, he has made one of my least favorite films, and it’s a shame because I love the first one in the series, but Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) really killed some of my love for Vaughn. Part of that had to do with the cheesiness in the action in that movie and a major use of bad special effects. Why am I bringing that up in this review for Argylle? The movie starts off with an action scene, as Agent Argylle (Henry Cavill) is compromised in his mission, which then ensues in a chase scene. During that scene I was having some really bad Golden Circle flashbacks and was getting a bit worried. I kept telling myself, “This part takes place in a fantasy world, it’s from the book, not the actual real world of this movie, it will be okay, keep going.” And that ended up helping me get through the beginning, and I am glad that ultimately it did not check me out of this one.

I really liked the setup for this: meeting these spy characters in the fictional world, we have Agent Argylle and his partner Wyatt (John Cena) plus their partner Keira (Ariana DeBose). Their story is very brief, but it is fun and we get to know this spy universe in a quick and memorable way. We then enter the real world and get to meet Elly, who comes off as very strong while she is promoting the latest book in her series, but when we see her at home, she is insecure and incredibly odd, but in a great way. When she is first brought into the true espionage world she reverts back to her fantasy world, and envisions Argylle there saving the day, instead of Aiden who is actually saving her. Is that a healthy coping mechanism? Probably no, but it is very interesting to see someone in distress revert to that, and it is handled in a fun way. I did enjoy seeing Henry Cavill show up and kicking these dudes butts, however it is shown quite a bit in multiple scenes, and it does get old quick.

Sam Rockwell is always fun. He does a great job at playing a tough spy, but not mister macho man. The way he enters the story with his long hair and beard, just adds to the don’t judge a book by its cover type of character. Bryan Cranston plays a great supervillain. He does get a little unhinged in this, but his opening scene, you really feel his unpredictable nature. It is actually pretty difficult to talk about this without getting too much into spoilers, and that’s something I am very happy to say the trailer did not give too much away. In this day and age, I’m always a little bummed how much the trailer actually shows.

I am not going to go into the spoilers of this movie, because I think most of the fun is witnessing the story unfold, but with that being said, this movie has a lot of twists and turns throughout it. In fact, I feel there is a bit too many, and they don’t always make sense at first. That is something that I dealt with while watching this – the back and forth of how I was feeling throughout it. There were times when it felt very generic and was a bit of a mid level movie. Even after the setup, as it progressed I actually was beginning to feel the length and starting to get bored. But then about an hour in, the twists began, injecting some life back into this. However after some of those twists, I found myself playing catch up, because a twist would happen and it didn’t quite add up, but then it is cleared up after a reveal and I was back on track.

Something I don’t get a lot of from films anymore is the sense of surprise – I usually can see things coming or put it together before the end, which is great, but takes away the magic sometimes. I don’t know if I was just tired or if I was not in the right headspace, but this movie surprised me in a good way. I didn’t see any of the twists coming at all. And with that, I have to give this credit.

So, is this worth your while? The movie is not perfect, and probably could have used another draft or two, but by the end of it I had so much fun that I cannot wait to see it again. Again, I almost fell off this one, but it won me over in the end. I give this a 9 out of 10.

Also, side note and maybe slight spoiler: there is a mid credit scene. As much I love this movie, I wish that scene was cut out, because it made absolutely no sense. I had to read up about it afterward, and Matthew Vaughn mentioned that it is meant to be the start of a new trilogy and connected franchise. I am interested to see how it plays out, but I wish Argylle was a one and done standalone.

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Colin Clark

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