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Argylle is the latest action comedy from Matthew Vaughn, the man behind some greats like Kingsman & Kick-Ass as well as my favourite superhero movie X-Men: First Class. Despite being bombarded with the trailer for months like so many other moviegoers, I was actually still quite excited for this thanks to the man behind the camera and a pretty fun premise to go along with a stacked ensemble cast. The end result has left me... underwhelmed a bit.
There is a lot of fun to be had with this. Without giving too much of the plot away, the film basically follows an author of spy thrillers who discovers she has accidentally predicted a bunch of real life espionage in her books, thus throwing her right into the conflict. As a fan of spy movies and the kind of meta-narrative that comes with media about other media this is right up my alley, especially with the Matthew Vaughn touch. For basically the first half of the film it does good on the premise, delivering a really fun comedy with some solid action scenes sprinkled throughout. As it goes on though and we're put through twist after twist it just kind of becomes stale. The second half still has its fun but it also has too many moments that become overly goofy to the point of detriment. I love some good twists and turns but these wind up feeling cheap at a certain point. It's ultimately overlong at well over two hours and I think tightening up the screenplay and shortening it a bit would stop it from losing steam.
The cast is overall pretty great. If you're there for Henry Cavill or Dua Lipa they aren't there much, but if you're there for Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell you're in for a treat. This kind of role is right up Rockwell's alley and he nails it as always. Dallas Howard is really great in the beginning of the film, but as the film goes on she loses some charm and at times struggles to carry the film for me. I still liked her, but I loved the performance we got in the ultimately stronger first half and was a bit let down with how her performance adapted. As far as supporting performers go, Cavill is quite good, but Catherine O'Hara and Bryan Cranston are terrific.
As far as the technical elements go, the set design is pretty great. There is a book signing early on that has a bookstore decked out in Argylle decor and there's tons of detail. There are also bases or operation, one of which includes a pretty cool man cave, all of which are brought to life really well. The action is also a consistent strong point, occasionally getting quite silly but choreographed well from start to finish. One gripe I do have is with the VFX. There is sadly a lot of green screen where you can clearly tell the environment isn't really and that's something I never enjoy.
So all in all, I don't think this is terrible by any means. I had a lot of fun with the first half and parts of the second half, but sadly it becomes too messy and loses a lot of steam as it goes on. I wouldn't recommend rushing out to see if but if you think it looks fun I'd say it's worth giving a shot to see if it's your cup of tea.
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