Director Matthew Vaughn’s spy thriller, Argylle, has been shrouded in mystery ever since it was announced. At first blush, it looked like an espionage flick starring Henry Caville and Dua Lipa. It turns out that is not the case.
Instead, the film follows author Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) in a weird hybrid of The Lost City and Stranger Than Fiction meets James Bond, through a series of wild hijinks alongside a spy named Aiden (Sam Rockwell).
When Argylle was first announced it was revealed to be based on a book by an author named Elly Conway. This trailer makes it clear that this was only half-true, and that Conway is a fictional author and protagonist of the film, with agent Argylle (Caville) a fiction-within-a-fiction.
It’s a clever idea! I’ve already mentioned several of the cast members, but this only scratches the surface of the all-star cast. Catherine O’Hara, John Cena, Ariana DeBose, Bryan Cranston, Sofia Boutella and Samuel L. Jackson star as well.
As for Vaughn, I’ve enjoyed a number of his movies, including Kingsman and Kick Ass.
But man, the actual trailer just looks terrible. Check it out:
I don’t mind the CGI cat, however silly. It’s just everything else about the film: It looks like it was made direct-for-streaming in all the worst ways. Generic cinematography that feels overly polished and completely uninteresting. Action scenes with no vim or vigor. A twisty-turny spy thriller that feels unoriginal and predictable. This is the exact kind of movie you make to appease the algorithm, which isn’t shocking at all given that it’s an Apple TV+ flick.
I started watching this trailer with a grin but it didn’t last. Are they really chasing this woman down so that she can write another chapter in her book that apparently predicts the future? That’s the plot?
For all its wonderful cast, Argylle feels totally, relentlessly bland. A muddled, forgettable movie that tries too hard to be hip and ironic at every turn, doing its best to appeal to the widest audience possible while crutching on all the big celebrities to draw in viewers (and Apple TV+ subscribers).
I could be wrong—I’m basing this off a trailer, obviously—but I’m going to make a prediction that this fairs about as well as Vaughn’s most recent film, The King’s Man, which currently rocks a 40% on Rotten Tomatoes despite its talented cast. I say this with no small amount of sadness. I love a good spy thriller! I love Sam Rockwell! I want this to be a great film, but like Caville’s bad hairdo in the trailer above, some things are probably better left unseen.
Argylle comes to theaters and Apple TV+ in February.
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