From the twisted, messed up, deranged, insane, psychotic, PERVERTED mind of Matthew Vaughn, Argylle is the story of Ellie Conway, a spy novelist that becomes targeted by a shady organization when her written stories start to come true. Teamed with spy Aiden and her trusty cat Alfie, Ellie sets out on a globe-trotting adventure to discover the true secret behind her beloved character, Agent Argylle.

The one and only trailer for this film came out sometime in September and I swear it played before every single film I saw up until now. Maybe it was the nature of the trailer of the frequency, but it honestly made me hate this movie a little. I hated the CGI cat, I hated Henry Caville’s stupid haircut, and I hated that bit at the end where they make it seem like the characters are saying “Oh My God”. 

Now, I don’t hate Matthew Vaughn. I actually enjoy quite a few of his films like X-Men: First Class and the first Kingsman film, but I have started to wonder if he’s begun to start drifting into style over substance territory. His action set-pieces aren’t afraid to get outlandish and colorful, which I do respect. Yet the roads to get to these moments often feel sluggish and underwhelming, which is no different in Argylle. This is a film banking on its twists, turns and over the top violence, yet the impact of all of these elements is undermined by a convoluted and poorly-paced narrative that fails to deliver on likable characters or coherent storytelling. At times it seems like it sets its sights on parody, but the film never does enough to entertainingly play on the genre’s tropes while failing to avoid the pratfalls that makes films like this feel so samey. Vaughn’s gaudy sheen only manages to be a positive in very small moments, while the rest of the film suffers from unfunny writing, impactless violence, and rough CGI that hinders this film from being the pulpy, explosive piece of espionage comedy that Vaughn has been more than capable of making in the past.

This film seems like it’s trying to break a record for fumbling the most talented actors it can. Good, solid actors are reduced to unfunny, sleepwalking husks of what they could be, and honestly it’s a shame to see. I do think Bryce Dallas Howard is probably the best of the bunch as writer Ellie, but that’s mostly because she’s the only one I find believable in their role for the most part. Half-baked writing aside, I think she manages to be fairly likable despite being fed some truly heinous lines. Man, then there’s Sam Rockwell. I just don’t buy him in the role, which should be advantageous considering he’s playing a spy. Despite him usually delivering the biggest laughs, I just never bought into his performance, which, similarly to Howard’s character, suffers from the script’s shortcomings and even from a directing standpoint. His moments of hand-to-hand combat are at least fairly impressive to see considering he’s not really know for this kind of role, but I guess it can be hard to tell sometimes where his and his stunt double’s performance swap out. The rest of the cast doesn’t bring a ton more to the table, either because of poor direction or just overall underutilization. Henry Caville’s fictional Agent Argylle is integrated into the main plot in a decently fun way, acting as a hallucination manifested by Ellie during moments of spy shenanigans. His character is unfortunately stiff as a board and doesn’t really take that stereotypical suave spy archetype anywhere all that interesting. And that goddamn haircut. Someone needs to be jailed for this heinous de-rizzing. Other actors like John Cena, Dua Lipa, and Samuel L. Jackson don’t really leave much of an impact on the story despite having some of the more interesting performances, which aren’t given a ton of legs because of their sparse screen time.

As for the story, it’s all over the place, which is both a kinda good and kinda bad thing. The film’s twists and explanation for events is so convoluted and unnecessarily complicated, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hold my interest. Truthfully, that interest was very similar to my interest in watching a car crash; it’s simply too messy and wild to look away. That biting question of “who is the real Agent Argylle” isn’t exactly the hardest to decipher, even if the film isn’t intentionally trying to leave breadcrumbs for you to discover it on your own. Which is fine, because I think the road to the big reveal can be more important than the reveal itself. Unfortunately, this road is a bit of a bumpy one. There’s just so much to juggle and take in, like alliances, timeframes, and a truckload of exposition. I’m fine with complicated films, but just not the kind 

The action set pieces start out okay but eventually they do get doused in Vaughn’s signature sauce. Early scenes don’t necessarily have very interesting setups, from a fist fight on a train to a shootout in an abandoned apartment. Yet the fluid camerawork and little doses of humor injected into these scenes keeps these moments from being downright uninteresting. As we near the end of the story we are treated to some delightfully goofy action scenes that are way more up Vaughn’s alley, completed with vibrant colors and off the wall approaches to violence. It is a shame though that these fight scenes don’t possess many visceral moments as they do in something like Kingsman, which can be chocked up to that darn, dirty PG-13 rating.

While these moments of action are fun, they don’t always feel like a suitable enough reward for having to sit through a story full of underwhelming character moments and obviously written conveniences. The transition from unwilling partners to budding lovers between Ellie and Aiden never really felt believable, mostly because I didn’t feel like Howard and Rockwell had the chemistry to really sell this. A forced proximity relationship can definitely work, but you’ve got to have at least some sense of believability, and these two just didn’t sell it for me. Outside of the romance stuff, there’s quite a few contrived story moments that feel so shoehorned in order to move the plot forward. A few of these examples include a character deciding to dance for no reason in order to accidentally stumble across a hidden item in a room, or a character speaking loudly and within earshot of a character while divulging info they don’t want that character to hear. It all feels rather cheap and lazy, and I definitely think there could have been a more creative way to get from point A to point B. Another issue I had that can be found in both action and non-action scenes is the pacing. Some scenes go on for far too long, stretching moments far beyond the length they should be. This happens a lot with slow motion in this film, where it is used in a way that really warrants it. There’s one scene where a character pulls a gun on a character who isn’t expecting it, and the slow motion needlessly prolongs this moment, failing to apply the emphasis I think was intended. Even without the slowmo, some scenes just don’t know when to cut, losing steam yet still chugging along. This leads to an over 2 hour runtime which can definitely drag at points. It shouldn’t have to feel like this much work just to get rewarded with a decently cool stretch of final action sequences, but more often than not that’s what it felt like. It doesn’t help that I found the writing to be mostly unfunny, while some of the directing absolutely fumbles the comedic timing of some lines that I think could have otherwise been humorous. Finally, the CGI feels pretty rough at times, mostly with the environments. Everything kind of just looks like a sound stage, even areas that could have been very easily shot practically. I can forgive it a bit when it’s capturing something that’s hard to physically create, like the film’s opening car chase scene. But look, last year another action film also had a chase with a small yellow car through European city streets, and they managed to find a way to make it look real. Sounds like a skill issue to me.

There’s a somewhat decent amount of fun to be had with Argylle. I do think the over-the-top structure of the film’s mystery is a ridiculous strength, even if it’s one that I feel the film doesn’t completely take advantage of. The action is fun at times, but everything in between feels very half-baked, from the comedy to the performances. I think most people will have a good time with this, but I just found Vaughn’s style to lack any real depth. For me, it was a very weird mixture of being colorful and silly without really being all that creative or unique. But hey, the good news is I won’t have to watch that trailer ever again. And as for that burning question the world has been wondering for the past few months, I think the real Agent Argylle was the friends we made along the way.

Rating