“BS!” exclaims Bryce Dallas Howard’s spy novelist Elly Conway when she learns the real identity of the titular secret agent in “Argylle.” For once in the film, her character’s savant-like gift for understanding exactly what the audience should feel tracks. Here, that’s disbelief tinged with disappointment.
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The ubiquitous marketing of “Argylle” billed the film as “from the twisted mind of Matthew Vaughn,” a moniker that only works insofar as it makes any sense of edginess easy to see coming. After the omnipresent trailer turned the revelation of agent Argylle into a meme, the unmasking was always destined to underwhelm. Yet, it’s worse than just a misguided plot hinge unable to meet the hype.
Sure, that’s partially because there’s still an entire hour of the film left once the shoe drops, but the problem runs deeper than duration. Jason Fuchs’ script builds its spy pastiche around a central question: who is the real Argylle? Once viewers have the answer, it both exposes the unoriginal thinking that came before and allows viewers to shrug off the uninspired hijinks that come after. “Argylle” proves hollow from the inside out.
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Fuchs starts from a compelling concept that’s at least strong enough as a marketing hook. Elly makes for a twist on the Hitchcockian “wrong man” archetype as her novels take on an air of clairvoyance so convincing that some believe she’s not pulling these yarns entirely from her imagination. One such reader, Sam Rockwell’s shaggy-haired undercover agent Aidan, pulls her into a world of espionage under the presumption that Elly can write the resolution to a real-world conundrum he faces. (This story has to be at least a second cousin, cinematically, to 2022’s “The Lost City.”)
When trying to establish this synergy between Elly and her protagonist on the page, the suave covert operative Agent Argylle (embodied by Henry Cavill), director Matthew Vaughn at least makes an effort to do something novel. The rare moments of inspiration in “Argylle” come from exploring the slippage between the two worlds. Elly’s grand illusions of espionage she conjures for Argylle clash directly with Aidan’s hardscrabble manner of fighting. Vaughn toggles between these amusingly between the two for comedic effect, though the “expectations vs. reality” bit wears out quickly.
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“Argylle” lacks the spark that made Vaughn’s “Kingsman” series – ok, really just 2015’s “The Secret Service” – such standout action comedy. Fuchs’ cookie-cutter script shows no great knowledge of the genre it sends up. Irreverent humor does require some level of reverence, even if it’s just attention, to the lineage in which it operates. It’s dire when the most specific callback the film makes is Elly removing her high heels to run, a winking nod to Howard’s controversial footwear in “Jurassic World.”
Fuchs tries to hit the individual notes of a spy comedy. But without understanding the resonance of their larger structure, attempts at deviation land with a resounding thud. The film has little to offer other than its one mystery, a MacGuffin of a plot driver, and many opportunities for monotonous madcap action.
Vaughn pulls from just one Tarantino-lite style to stage the film’s fight sequences: drop the needle on a slick pop track, kick the frame rate into slow-motion, and let the characters go to town in combat. Cinematographer George Richmond compounds the soulless sensationalism by shooting the action in such an in-your-face fashion that it all but begs for a corny 2010-era conversion to 3-D. The duo already beat the format to death in the “Kingsman” films, and each successive iteration plunges them further down a vortex of smugness and silliness. The third act of “Argylle,” which slams together scene after scene in this register, feels outright interminable.
At least Sam Rockwell, who has not allowed himself to be this goofy since “Galaxy Quest,” gets on the film’s wavelength and has a good time with the material. Everyone else, be they in Elly’s wild story (John Cena, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose) or her weird reality (Bryan Cranston, Samuel L. Jackson, Catherine O’Hara), insists on some aura of gravitas “Argylle” neither needs nor deserves. They’re trying to accommodate the wild tonal swings Vaughn and Fuchs throw at them. Rockwell is smart enough to just play as dumb as the movie is.
The 139-minute runtime features wall-to-wall examples of what legendary director Mike Nichols dubbed “the expensive laugh.” This type of joke, which he always cautioned against, comes “at the cost of believability, consistency, or emotional honesty.” Nichols’ definition is clear, but which member of the transaction incurs the cost for the expensive laugh isn’t. “Argylle” provides damning evidence that it’s the audience, not the film, who truly pays. [C-]
“Argylle” arrives in theaters on February 2 via Universal Pictures.