A reclusive author who writes espionage novels about a secret agent and a global spy syndicate realizes that the new book’s plot starts to mirror real-world events in real time.
The tagline on the poster for “Argylle” reads, “From the Twisted Mind of Matthew Vaughn…” In case you didn’t know who Mr. Vaughn was, he is the director behind the Daniel Craig movie that caught the James Bond producers’ eyes, “Layer Cake,” as well as “Stardust,” “Kick-Ass,” “X-Men: First Class” (one of the best X-Men movies), and 2015’s R-rated James Bond homage and highly violent “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” starring a then-unknown Taron Egerton in the starring role. If you’ve seen the film, you know exactly what scene I’m referring to when I say “violent,” if not, sit down and watch for yourself; I promise, you will be blown away.
In “Argylle,” Vaughn brings his customary humor, and while he tones down his signature characteristic over-the-top violence, he still manages to imbue the movie with enough laughs and decorative bloodshed to put the biggest smile on your face.
Bryce Dallas Howard plays Elly Conway, an introverted spy novelist who has just completed her fifth book about Aubrey Argylle, the titular central character in her spy novel series. After a fan book reading, she gets on a train to spend the weekend with her folks in the city (Catherine O’Hara and Bryan Cranston). On the train, she is saved from a would-be attacker by a man named Aidan (Sam Rockwell), who comes to her rescue, killing the attacker in the process. He tells her he is a spy and that she has been targeted by an organization called the Division.
She is unwilling to believe him because the Division is the name of the bad guys’ organization she created in her books, but when several more people try to kill her, Aidan grabs her, and they escape. He tells her everything she wrote in her books, from the names of spies to actual events and criminal organizations, is real, and he takes her to the south of France, where they meet up with Alfred Solomon (Samuel L. Jackson), the former CIA deputy director Aidan works for, to prove it. He tells her that she used to be a spy, working with them, but got amnesia while on a mission in London when an explosion blasted her into the Thames. With no recollection of her former life, she took on a new persona, Elly Conway, and filled her books with fractured memories of her spy life, hence, the Division wanting her dead before she divulges any more information. Now, she must decide: leave her old life behind or take back her true identity and help Aidan and Solomon take down the Division.
The film brought back memories of Robert Zemeckis’ 1984 blockbuster film, “Romancing the Stone,” starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito, where Turner’s Joan Wilder, a highly successful romance novelist, gets caught up in real-life adventures in South America. Here, the added spy element takes the story in a completely different direction, but it’s not difficult to see where the movie’s overall inspiration came from.
The film has a top-notch cast, including Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Henry Cavill, John Cena, Bryan Cranston, and Catherine O’Hara, who all appear to be having the time of their lives. While Howard is pegged as the story’s main protagonist, Sam Rockwell stole the show for me. One of the best actors of his generation, he can flip from serious to goofy and back again at a moment’s notice, and here, it’s great to see him taking on the action genre. Known for more serious roles and off-beat comedies, in “Argylle,” he proves he can hold his own against any other action star, including Cavill and Cena.
The movie never takes itself too seriously, and that is one of its major issues. Even though it’s fun and humorous, I felt some moments needed a little more jeopardy and weightiness, and they were wasted instead on visual slapstick and farcical banter between Howard and Rockwell. While they most certainly exude onscreen charisma, the film’s overall gravity is never truly acknowledged. It’s played more for laughs, which is fine if that’s what Vaughn was working towards, but it almost feels like he wanted the best of both worlds, and sadly, one was more prevalent than the other.
Some of the action set-pieces are impressive, but with an overabundance of unmistakable CGI, it’s not hard to see what’s real and what isn’t, and that’s a shame because if they had shot some of the action scenes for real, there would have been much more investment in the characters and their predicaments. In the film’s finale, Vaughn tries to recreate the insanity of the superbly ridiculous exploding head scene in “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” by utilizing multicolored smoke bombs and Howard skating on an oil-filled floor with the help of knives attached to her boots while she skates around the bad guys, offing them with a bayonet, but the entire scene feels like it is cut from the same cloth as the “Kingsman” scene, and therefore, doesn’t have the desired impact or effect Vaughn was obviously aiming for.
“Argyle” is a fun movie, plain and simple, but it pales in comparison to some of Vaughn’s earlier works. If you just want to be entertained and have a good time, this film is for you. And don’t forget to wait for the mid-credits scene; it ties in nicely with the Kingsman universe.
In Theaters Friday, February 2nd
