Action
Rating: 2. Rating scale: 0 to 5.
”to Argy”
Regi: Matthew Vaughn.
Manus: Jason Fuchs.
Starring: Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Henry Cavill, Dua Lipa, and more.
Length: 2 hours 19 minutes (11 years). Language: English. Bio premiere.
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Bryce Dallas Howard’s spy novelist is finishing the fifth book in her series about Agent Argylle (Henry Cavill in helicopter pad haircut and dark green velvet blazer) when her quiet life suddenly turns into a raging action story.
She has become known as a fortune teller of the spy world whose machinations predict geopolitical events. Where does she get everything from? A top secret villain organization wants to find out, led by Bryan Cranston (so parodically evil that his first scenes are accompanied by a doomsday organ). Fortunately, the defenseless author finds a patron in Sam Rockwell’s sassy, more realistic answer to Cavill’s fantasy character.
Poetry and reality intertwine in an all too obvious way and the shocked spy queen can no longer blink without seeing Cavill and Rockwell switch places with each other. Keep flashing, you. Personally, in the end I just want to close my eyes and take a break.
The tone is screamingly hysterical and the findings at kindergarten level, but surely “Argylle” should at least be able to entertain? The film tries to do it with comical over-violence to quick finds that poke fun at all the bloodshed (well, despite the high death toll, these are fairly dry executions). The villainous slaughters are sometimes designed as slapstick, other times as choreographed displays – including an armed couple dance in a colorful cloud of tear gas. On paper, it may sound like heightened movie violence in line with John Woo’s gun operas, but on the screen, the action scenes in “Argylle” are not so much about beautiful martial arts as posing caterpillars and full dance with a fatal outcome.
Silly on purpose? Yes, but no less silly for that.
The British director Matthew Vaugh is best known for the comic book adaptations “Kick-ass” (2010), “X-men. First class” (2011) and the “Kingsman” movies. This time he leaves the sequential narration for Jason Fuchs’ original story, whose adaptation excitement only manages to flatten and erode Vaughn’s style. Despite his twenty years as a feature film director, he comes across here as the pre-programmed synth demo version of his pop-mad genre filmmaker colleague Edgar Wright.
In the casting, they seem to have tried to exploit the meta-levels of the premise and allude to the actors’ genre pasts. Instead, one is only reminded of better films. Sam Rockwell was much funnier in George Clooney’s directorial debut “Confessions of a dangerous mind” (2002) and Henry Cavill is doing better with his hair grown out. His efforts in “The man from Uncle” (2015) and “Mission: Impossible. Fallout” (2018) served as real appetizers for the many fans who dream of hearing him order a vodka martini.
Shaken not stirred? Joy-killing “Argylle” is rather so shaky and messy that you never want to see Cavill play a spy again.
See more. Three other beloved spy(s): “Burn after reading” (2008), “Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy” (2011), “Spy” (2015).
Read other film and television reviews in DN and more texts by Sebastian Lindvall.
