If you’ve ever watched a spy movie, or spy comedy, you know that things aren’t always what they seem. Argylle is a spy action-comedy film directed by Matthew Vaughn. Argylle stars Bryce Dallas, John Cena, Dua Lipa, Henry Cavill, and Sam Rockwell.
The movie starts out with secret agent Argylle (Henry Cavill) infiltrating a club where he goes up to a dressed up LaGrange (Dua Lipa) and begins a sensual dance with her. They then proceed to do the “Whirly-bird” which looked a bit awkward to me as LaGrange got on top of Argylle’s shoulders and caressed his head. La Grange then revealed herself as an enemy and the two engaged in a dramatic chase.
The chase ends in a cliffhanger as it is revealed that Argylle and LaGrange are both characters in spy novelist Elly Conway’s (Bryce Dallas) best selling series “Argylle.”
Experiencing writer’s block, Elly decides to take the train over to her parents house in hopes that a little getaway will help her write her next novel. When, unexpectedly, she runs into an unshaven average looking man (Sam Rockwell) that reveals himself as a spy and tells her everything she’s written in her books is true and her life is in danger.
All of this can be seen from the official trailer and summary and initially this is what drew me in to the movie. That along with seeing the names and faces of known stars in the trailer. But despite Dua Lipa seeming like a significant villain in the trailer, in reality she was only in the movie for about 5 minutes.
Although I felt like the trailer itself gave away the whole plot from the movie, I decided to keep an open mind while watching. I must admit it did not go the way I was thinking at all. In fact, when it looked like it was going somewhere, it took a left turn and went somewhere else.
It became more clear to me that the movie served as a parody of other spy movies with corny dialogue, unexpected plot twists, and action-filled scenes. Looking at Matthew Vaughn’s other works it seems like the spy genre is his go to. I enjoyed the parody aspect of the movie, but I can see how some people may not like it since it does run long because of all its plot twists. The movie runs for 2 hours and 19 minutes.
Many of the scenes felt contradictory. Like when Aiden and Elly talked about being careful not to fire at an oil leak only for them to shoot aimlessly seconds later and nothing happens. Other scenes were more not credible. For example, one scene (SPOILER) where Conway decided to randomly know how to master ice skating despite no prior knowledge of the skill and a scene where the two dance while fighting the enemies.
Other scenes I couldn’t quite get past were the awkward CGI, mainly surrounding Alfie, Elly’s cat. I think it was unnecessary and cheap. It seemed like they were trying to get the audience to fall in love with Alfie or see him as a comedic character.. I also think the romance part of the movie between Aiden and Elly was very random and shoved in there for a bigger plot.
Overall, I did enjoy Argylle and I would watch it again if it came out on streaming platforms. I give it a solid 7/10. I would like to see more movies parodying popular genres, but hopefully with better CGI.
