Argylle: Movie Review

Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Henry Cavill, John Cena, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O'Hara, Dua Lipa, Samuel L Jackson
Director: Matthew Vaughn

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

It's a line uttered maybe two thirds of the way through Kings Man director Matthew Vaughn's latest, a spy pastiche, and yet it may be the most pertinent thing spoken throughout the entire 2 hours and 10 minute escapade that unspools.

With its mix of dodgy FX, dodgy one-liners and dodgy haircuts in Henry Cavill's case, this latest is the kind of film that encourages you to leave your brain at the door to the cinema and still in parts manages to treat you like an imbecile.

Trading on meta edges, it's the story of super spy writer Elly Conway (Howard, easily the film's MVP along with Rockwell) who finds herself targeted by the very agency she appears to have been writing about in her wildly popular Argylle book series. Snatched into a world of espionage by Rockwell's Aidan during a seemingly random encounter on a train, Elly soon finds herself fighting and writing for her life as the conspiracy unspools around her.

A weird pastiche of Bond and also the Bourne films, Argylle never quite catches fire in the way it wants to even if it is blessed with some inventive action sequences that riff on Vaughn's trademark formula and editing.

But with lines being blurred all the time between the fictional and the real, it's hard to cling on to any real emotional edges in the story, despite fine work and chemistry between the ever-impressive Rockwell and the equally up for it Howard throughout.

A lack of anything serious and perhaps one too many action sequences set to disco songs make Argylle come dangerously close to feeling like Vaughn is just repeating himself - and while there are flashes of insanity meshing well with the visual audacity occasionally happening, it's not quite enough to render Argylle - and its awful CGI cat - in anything other than the kind of film you watch after indulging in too much excess during the festive period.

However, thanks to Rockwell's ever present charisma and his connection with Howard in their Odd Couple routine, Argylle may just do enough to satiate those looking for something brain-dead to complement the start of 2024.