Argylle is a spy-action-comedy directed by Matthew Vaughn and starring a whole bunch of A-list actors and actresses including Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, John Cena, and Samuel L. Jackson. The film is one of the worst movies I have seen in a very long time due to it being not funny, incredibly contrived, generic and cliché, and stylistically boring. Almost every element of the film is either crazy to the point of stupidity or bland and tasteless. The comedy also falls flat with the dialogue being painfully cringe and the physical comedy being so over the top that it feels farcical. The plot disintegrates under the slightest scrutiny to the point where absolutely nothing makes sense. Saying there are plot holes is an understatement as the movie is borderline incoherent. It is almost comical how the movie continually outdoes itself with contrived and increasingly ludicrous events so that the viewer is baffled by how such insanity was every greenlit by a studio and created by a human who calls themselves an artist. One would think that a movie with such an acclaimed cast would at the very least have good acting but unfortunately this is not the case. No performance stood out as being particularly bad but this was likely because no one had anything to work with due to the script being so incomprehensibly terrible. After seeing the movie and ruminating for a little while, I realized that what I had seen was essentially a live-action Illumination studios movie in the vein of the Despicable Me franchise. However, this comparison does not entirely work because the Despicable Me movies themselves are infinitely more entertaining with characters that are much more fleshed out and relatable. In an animated medium, it is also easier to make insane stuff happen without making the audience feel the film is corny and just plain idiotic.
The premise of Argylle (shown in the trailers) that an author’s writing actually happen in real life has some potential but the way the movie explains this phenomenon is so lame and full of plot holes that it makes no sense and manages to make the concept seem boring. Additionally, the characters all have about as much dimension as a piece of cardboard so all that the movie is left with is cartoonishly bad action sequences which grow increasingly nonsensical. For example, near the end of the film, Bryce Dallas Howard’s character is stuck in a warehouse-like room where the floor is covered in crude oil and about twenty assailants are creeping up on her. Guns have been declared obsolete because no one wants to cause a spark that ignites the oil. In order to beat the bad guys, Howard’s character (who was established to have previous skating knowledge) takes two double edged knives, sticks them to the bottom of her boots, and proceeds to glide across the gasoline like an Olympic figure skater bayonetting opponents as she passes them. This entire display lasts what feels like several minutes and if it seems mind-bogglingly dumb, that is because it is. The entire film has so many moments that are similarly brainless that trying to make sense of any of it will only sour viewing experience even more-so. As another note, it seems interesting to me why the film starts out portraying the fictional side of the spy world as more “cartoonish” and unrealistic than the real world only by the end to have abandoned this distinction. It begs the question what was the point of the whole “author writes things that actually happen” gimmick if nothing ever comes of it.
In conclusion, Argylle is a mindless idiotic film that is definitely not worth watching even once. Save your money or find something else to watch in theaters.