Earlier this year, a novel by the name of Argylle innocuously dropped on unsuspecting readers. Ostensibly by Elly Conway, the in-universe hero of Matthew Vaughn’s film ARGYLLE, the Internet immediately set about speculating who actually wrote it. With names like Taylor Swift thrown into the mix, the debate became more interesting than anything in the book. Or, as it turns out, the movie.
Already established as a kinetic action director – with a series of Kick-Ass, Kingsman and X-Men films under his belt – Vaughn wastes little time throwing viewers into the fray. Aubrey Argylle (Henry Cavill) cavorts around in Greece with partner Wyatt (John Cena), but it turns out that they are just characters in Conway’s (Bryan Dallas Howard) bestselling books. Or are they?
When spy Aidan (Sam Rockwell) arrives and tells Elly that her books are a little too close to the truth, the shy author and her cat are whisked off on a global adventure. Pursued by an evil syndicate led by Ritter (Bryan Cranston), every new encounter gets her a little closer to reality.
ARGYLLE sets itself up as a fun action adventure filled with dancing, action and often dancing and action together. Yet beyond these opening scenes, and all known publicity, the film is a very different beast. Which, for a time at least, is a very good thing. A sequence set on a train – in which Rockwell fights off a horde of baddies – is a slick, albeit long-winded, affair.
Which might just be a good summary of the film. Swinging from one locale to the next, Jason Fuchs’ script is an often exhausting series of encounters. Borrowing liberally from prominent spy thrillers (think The Bourne Identity through to The Winter Soldier and pretty much every spy film in between), Fuchs and Vaughn aren’t interested in the bigger picture so much as the moment-to-moment gratification. It scarcely matters that it’s continually revealing things that force us to throw out everything we know so far, contradictorily dragging its feet and constantly moving through the back half of a bloated runtime.
This kitchen sink approach, reportedly backed by a $200 million budget, is aggressively reliant on CG even in otherwise unextraordinary location shots. There’s an especially egregious sequence on a rooftop in London, where a cringeworthy digital kitty is thrown from a rooftop. There’s no attempt to even hide the clear green screen work that follows. So, while much has been made over the last year about the poor conditions that digital artists are forced to work under – a plight highlighted by 2023 films The Flash and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – it seems little of that big budget has gone to supporting them.
The film’s climax continues the descent down the digital rabbit hole. There’s a staggeringly bad series of moments, from ice skating on oil to more CG cat work. Yet the climactic action sequence bottoms out with a piece shrouded in colourful smoke bombs, ones that not only obfuscate and muddle the action but highlight how artificial it all looks. (Indeed, the aesthetic is more phone commercial than action film at this point).
Much was made in the lead-up to the film about keeping its secrets, but the film never gives us any worth remembering beyond a scene or two. (Indeed, a central ‘secret’ was revealed in the publicity over three years ago). Fuchs and Vaughn compound matters further with a confusing ending that appears to set up in-universe crossovers and follow-ups in a series of stingers that seem almost smugly proud of their own impenetrable illogic. So, as the first major studio release of 2024, ARGYLLE sets an incredibly low bar for entry.
2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Matthew Vaughn | WRITERS: Jason Fuchs | CAST: Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, John Cena, Samuel L. Jackson | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures, Apple Original Films | RUNNING TIME: 139 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1 February 2024 (Australia), 2 February 2024 (USA)
