Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
Starring: Bryce Dallas Howard, Henry Cavill, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Dua Lipa, John Cena, Catherine O'Hara, Samuel L. Jackson
Argylle is not a movie as much as scenes killing time until the next plot twist or reveal. It's whiplash to the tenth power. The movie is bloated nonetheless, with whole scenes dedicated to trying to explain the plot, and overchoreographed action scenes. At the end of it all, do we really care about the outcome?
The main plot focuses on writer Elly Conway (Howard) who writes a popular series of spy novels featuring Agent Argylle (Cavill) as her protagonist. Encountering writer's block, Elly boards a train soon to visit her mother (O'Hara) when she encounters a real spy named Aiden (Rockwell), who informs Elly she's in danger because her novels cut to close to reality. Aiden thrashes a series of thugs while Elly helplessly (with her cat Alfie in tow) looks on. Can Aiden be trusted? He says he and his archenemies The Division, led by the ruthless Ritter (Cranston), are after a flash drive containing the names of agents from all over the world. Wait, haven't roughly three-quarters of spy movies, including Mission: Impossible, already used such a drive as the item the good guys and bad guys are chasing?
Argylle contains modest surprises and an entire scene in which a retired CIA man (Jackson) explains Elly's true nature and why she writes spy novels, all while Ritter relentlessly pursues her and Aiden and dispatching hundreds of nameless, anonymous assassins to kill their quarry and retrieve the flash drive. One scene creatively shows an agent dispatching these poor souls by ice skating on floor frozen over like an ice rink. But, Argylle mostly delivers a thud instead of thrills. This is quite a cast to assemble for what feels like a warmed-over spy adventure we've seen more times than we care to count or remember.
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