Grade: (2.6/10)
Argylle goes from silly to bad to comically bad to so-bad-it’s-good? to outright awful. Early contender for most disappointing movie of the year.
Plot (2/50)
The movie starts off with some structure that devolves into nonsensical chaos as the story progresses. The central mystery should be the identity of the real agent Argylle, but the writers don’t build enough intrigue for the audience to care. Towards the end of the second act, the movie gets stuck between its excessive silliness and a need to close out its story seriously. It ends up jumbling both tones together and adding a romcom element, for good measure. As a result, the movie completely collapses in its third act.
Life Imitates Art
The first act follows Elly Conway, the writer of a popular spy novel called Argylle, as she finishes up her fifth novel. She experiences writer’s block but is spurred on by her mother to write one more chapter. Elly’s life is flipped upside down when she’s attacked by spies on the train ride to visit her parents. Luckily for her, the rogue spy Aiden is there to protect her. When they get to safety, he explains to her that the events of her books are real. The Division is after her because they want to find out where the Masterfile is before anyone else does so they can destroy it and preserve their anonymity.
The Real Agent Argylle
Aiden and Elly’s pursuit of the Masterfile takes them to London. Aiden continues to protect Elly from the Division until she overhears him in the bathroom and thinks he’s going to betray her. Elly runs away and meets up with her parents, but when Aiden arrives, he exposes them as frauds. Aiden then takes Elly to Alfie, their former mentor, in France.
There, they reveal that her true identity is agent R. Kyle. Several years ago, she had an accident that left her in a coma. Director Ritter and Ruth ran a psyop that convinced agent R. Kyle that she’s Elly and that they’re her parents. They then fed her information about her past and encouraged her to pursue her writing career in the hopes that she might reveal the location of the Masterfile.
Chaos
The third act features more unimpressive twists and turns. Agent R. Kyle and Aiden retrieve the Masterfile but are captured by the Division. Ritter destroys the Masterfile and reveals that R. Kyle was always loyal to the Division. The two remaining loose ends are Aiden and Alfie. R. Kyle seemingly kills Aiden to prove her loyalty and even hands over Alfie’s location. Soon after, she reveals that she’s actually working against the Division. Because Ritter gave her access to the Division’s database, she was able to access the Masterfile. However, she’s unable to send it to Alfie because of Ritter’s new security protocol.
Several silly action sequences and convenient twists later, Aiden and R. Kyle manage to send the Masterfile to Alfie and take down Ritter and co. in the process. R. Kyle goes back to being Elly. She successfully publishes her fifth novel. At the a press conference for the release, a member of the audience that looks just like Argylle as she imagined him asks her a question to close out the movie. Oh, and there’s a mid-credits scene that ties Argylle into the Kingsman universe that I didn’t particularly care for.
Overall Thoughts
This was by far the worst movie I’ve seen in a while. I had to force myself to sit through the whole thing because of how annoying it was. There were too many twists that were either too convenient, too obvious, or too convoluted. The movie was completely devoid of any sort of suspense because its central mystery never materialized in a coherent manner. It felt like Matthew Vaughn couldn’t make up his mind on whether this was meant to be a parody, a spy thriller, or a romcom, so he just mushed them all together into one giant mess. Truly atrocious movie.
Character Development (8/15)
There wasn’t much development besides Elly. The execution wasn’t crisp, but there’s something in Elly coming to terms with her dual identity. There was also her relationship with Aiden. At least that part was straightforward.
Theme/Messages (1/5)
It’s hard to draw themes and messages when you have a story as messy as this. I suppose there’s something to be said about self-confidence.
Acting (13/15)
If there’s one redeeming quality about this movie, it’s the acting. Bryce Dallas Howard (Elly) does a fantastic job as Elly, even if she did feel a bit out of place as agent R. Kyle. Sam Rockwell (Aiden) absolutely nailed his role. Bryan Cranston (Ritter), Catherine O’Hara (Ruth), Henry Cavill (Argylle), John Cena (Wyatt), Sam L. Jackson (Alfie), and Sofia Boutella (Saba) round out this stacked cast. It’s too bad their talents were wasted.
Cinematography (2/15)
There were some good cuts in this one, but there were also some dizzying ones (especially the cuts from Aiden to Argylle). I didn’t like some of the choices with regards to color. At times, the juxtaposition was jarring and whiplashy. The scene with the smoke bombs was particularly egregious. The action sequences didn’t look good either. The skating scene didn’t look as good as they thought it would.