The long awaited, highly advertised agent movie Argylle has finally arrived. And by highly advertised, I mean HIGHLY advertised. It seemed like before almost every single movie I saw in the theater; Henry Cavill’s hairline would pop on the screen and a cat would get thrown out of a bag. Bryce Dallas Howard is joined by Henry Cavill, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara and many other notable faces to bring a slog of a spy film. Although performances from many of them were solid, it isn’t their fault the movie currently rates a 33% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The story starts off with our main protagonist Elly Conway, who just finished her latest book of her spy series “Argylle.” She is a secluded author living in the middle of the mountains with her beloved cat “Alfie”. Her quiet life gets interrupted when she gets stuck on trying to figure out the story for her next book. She then decides to visit her mother. While on a train ride, as seen in the trailer, Elly is greeted by a mysterious character which soon reveals himself to also be a spy and that the series that she has been writing actually happened and are based on true events. The two characters and their feline friend adventure together and try to solve another mystery while evading another group that is hunting her down because of her predictability skills.
The beginning sets up a promising hook; however, I found myself looking at my watch several times during the middle third of the movie. The movie just got so bland and was not backed up by great CGI. It was terrible.
The action was not up to par even for being a “spy” movie and showed some very unrealistic sequences. The only thing I enjoyed about the story was the twist towards the end. I was not expecting it at all and actually got me back into the movie.
As a huge Henry Cavill fan, I was very much looking forward to this film. I was slightly disappointed to find out that he barely has any screen time since he played Argylle, the spy from the book that Elly Conway wrote. Which in fact is not real. Cavill stole the show whenever he was on and truly so. The only person that I think gave a bad performance was Bryan Cranston and it wasn’t even because it was fault, just poor writing.
Minus the poor plot, it was a semi-fun movie to watch and some of the comedy did hit. There were ups and downs and it actually got me even more into reading than I already am. Maybe more into writing? We will see.
Final Thoughts:
Obviously, this was no James Bond or Jason Bourne, but it did have a unique twist to the noir genre. A disappointment to some but to others, an action-packed comedy. What Argylle has in a talented cast, lacks in a mundane story. I enjoyed the idea of the movie, just not the execution.
