Worth: $7.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Dua Lipa, Henry Cavill, John Cena, Ariana DeBose, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara
Intro:
For a film that advertises such extravagance and intrigue, it ultimately offers viewers very little.
Matthew Vaughn’s latest film opens with a wide-shot of Dua Lipa as femme-fatale, LaGrange, sitting under glittering club lights in a tight, spangly gold dress. The chiselled, dapper agent Argylle (played by Henry Cavill) approaches her from across the room. They dance, she turns on him, he chases her through a sun-drenched Greek island, there is much discussion of a “master file,” and he and his crony Wyatt (John Cena) soon emerge victorious.
However, the opening gambit, viewers will quickly discover, is merely an imagined scene from writer Elly Conway’s (Bryce Dallas Howard) newest book in her highly successful series of spy novels. Having established its central conceit, Argylle’s first ten minutes set the tone for the remainder of the film, which will prove equally as excessive and cliched.
Back in the real world, Elly soon meets an actual spy named Aidan (Sam Rockwell) on a train and, while clad in tartan instead of a crisp velvet suit, he immediately reminds her of her novels’ protagonist (for reasons that later become clear). Aidan explains that the events of Elly’s books have begun to come true in real life, before saving her from the swarm of evil agents hoping to extract valuable predictions from the novelist. From there, the plot snowballs into a meta-cinematic explosion of real and fabricated storylines that ripple with ridiculous twists and turns.
Rockwell’s performance is one of the few redeeming aspects of the film. His comic timing manages to transcend the script’s many unfunny jokes and he is characteristically charismatic in spite of his unimaginative dialogue. The other performances, by contrast, are tired and flat.
The movie’s showpiece is a well-choreographed shoot-out scene suffused with sugary pink, blue and yellow smoke that amusingly fuses the style of Busby Berkeley with the action of Mr and Mrs Smith. Unfortunately, however, this melodic spectacle of guns and technicolour cannot save Argylle from itself, which is otherwise replete with inelegant set pieces, poor, plasticky CGI and an endlessly ludicrous plot. Vaughn’s film, to its credit, does seem aware of its own absurdity, but because it lacks the wry sarcasm of a film like Starship Troopers, its self-conscious attitude inevitably comes across as trite.
There is romance and action and plenty of big reveals, but Argylle is largely overblown and predictable. For a film that advertises such extravagance and intrigue, it ultimately offers viewers very little.
