Bryce Dallas Howard (Jurassic World franchise) is Elly Conway, the reclusive author of a series of best-selling espionage novels, whose idea of bliss is a night at home with her computer and her cat, Alfie. But when the plots of Elly’s fictional books—which center on secret agent Argylle and his mission to unravel a global spy syndicate—begin to mirror the covert actions of a real-life spy organization, quiet evenings at home become a thing of the past. Accompanied by Aidan (Oscar® winner Sam Rockwell), a cat-allergic spy, Elly (carrying Alfie in her backpack) races across the world to stay one step ahead of the killers as the line between Elly’s fictional world and her real one begins to blur.
What We Thought:
I genuinely wanted to like Argylle, but unfortunately it’s a hot mess. There’s times it’s Bullet Train or Spy or The Kingsman franchise or any of the Jason Bourne films. It’s too long and too convoluted for me to really like and it’s a shame because there is a lot in it I did enjoy.
The biggest problem with the film is that it just keeps going and going. It opens with the introduction of Bryce Dallas Howard’s fictional characters played by Henry Cavill and John Cena. It jumps into the real world and Howard’s Elly is trying to finish writing the next book when she gets caught up with Sam Rockwell on a train. He’s a spy who’s trying to save her or so he says. There’s a great action sequence ala Bullet Train and so far so good.
Elly learns about a secret organization who’s been monitoring her because her books involve elements of things they are doing, or so she’s told. Rockwell takes her to London because he needs her author intuition to figure out what went wrong on a mission. We are introduced to the bad guys and good guys and still so far so good.
As it continues there is a big reveal I won’t spoil, but this is when it loses steam. This turn works as a surprise twist, but the movie continues on way too long. It should have at least 30 minutes trimmed from it. Honestly, you could cut all of Henry Cavill’s Agent Argylle scenes because ultimately they are meaningless. Howard is the star and an author getting caught up in the spy life works perfectly fine, you don’t need any of the fake spy scenes. I get they are supposed to mirror what is happening and what happened in the past, but the movie is too long and they are unnecessary by the end. Cavill and Cena are fun and get laughs, but they really could be axed completely.
And it’s a shame the film drags on because Howard and Rockwell are great together. Howard plays the fish-out-of-water perfectly and gets laughs like Melissa McCarthy in Spy. Rockwell “Sam Rockwells” the hell out of it as usual because he’s one of the best leading men today. You firmly believe he’s a spy and of course he charms the pants off the audience. The man is a treasure. But we also get Bryan Cranston and Samuel L. Jackson and Catherine O’Hara and more. There is just way too much going on.
Argylle should have been a home run. Cavill has grown on me and I was hoping he would be great in this. Unfortunately I would have cut all of his scenes although he’s not the reason for that. Howard and Rockwell make a great pair, but everything is excessive and runs too long. Even the cat could be removed and you’d still get the same movie and the cat is part of the freaking marketing for it. There were times I was laughing out loud. There were times I wanted to look at my phone to see how much time was left in the movie (I didn’t, that’s rude). There is a great movie somewhere in there, but what they released isn’t.
Genre: Fantasy Spy Thriller
Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Henry Cavill, John Cena, Dua Lipa, Bryan Cranston, Sofia Boutella, Ariana DeBose, Catherine O’Hara and Samuel L. Jackson
Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
Screenplay by: Jason Fuchs
Producers: Matthew Vaughn, Adam Bohling, Jason Fuchs, David Reid
Executive Producers: Adam Fishbach, Zygi Kamasa, Carols Peres, Claudia Vaughn
Argylle – In Theaters February 2
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