Argylle Movie Review: Matthew Vaughn Returns to the Cinema With an Arrogant Spy Story
Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Henry Cavill, Dua Lipa, Samuel L. Jackson
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Where We Watched: In the Cinema
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3/5 (three stars)
Henry Cavill, known for his iconic roles as Superman and Geralt, returns to the big screen with an exciting turn, delving into the spy action comedy with Argylle. Under the direction of Matthew Vaughn, known for the Kingsman franchise, the film promises to be the beginning of a trilogy that will take viewers to multiple locations full of intrigue and action. The star cast, which includes famous singer Dua Lipa, has generated great expectations among fans of the genre. Matthew Vaughn has directed some of the best action scenes in recent years. It is impossible to forget the church sequence in Kingsman – Secret Service of 2014 in which a lobotomized Colin Firth starts a massacre in which everyone, saints, and sinners, will take part, to the tune of Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
There is certainly no shortage of parodies of spy films with an elegant, cool, and infallible protagonist à la James Bond, indeed. Ever since Sean Connery reiterated that his name is Bond, James Bond, many others have set to work to capitalize on that whole series of stylistic features, stereotypes, and exaggerations inherent to the king of the genre, the cinematic spy par excellence. Rarely, however, have we seen someone make fun of something they desperately want to be a part of like Matthew Vaughn, director of Argylle. The first 20 minutes of the film produced by Apple are in every way his audition for the role of director of a future 007 film. A good part of his career, the most successful one, reiterates how much the creator of Kingsman loves this genre, and embraces it with enthusiasm, even in its distortions and contradictions. Perhaps especially in those.
Argylle Movie Review: The Story Plot
Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is an established writer of novels in the spy genre: having reached the fourth volume starring Argylle (Henry Cavill), her superspy assisted by the faithful Waytt (John Cena), she is preparing to please all her fans with the writing of what should be the final chapter of the saga. Introverted, shy, and not inclined to worldly activities, she lives in a cottage on the lake together with her cat, Alfie, and her books, and her ideas. During the writing of the last chapter of the fifth book, however, convinced by her mother that she can give more, she decides to take a train to reach her parents: during the journey, however, she will be forced to live an adventure that will make all this real that she has always written in her novels, discovering that hers could be fortune-telling, or something more.
Vaughn manages, with the support of Jason Fuchs’ screenplay, to make a very simple narrative plot full of twists and turns, perhaps some quite predictable, but still well-paced and enjoyable. The immediate use of certain elements capable of distracting the viewer leads him to create a world in which no one can be trusted and just as the viewer does, Elly does the same in the film: the bigger the spy, the bigger the lie, is the payoff of all the author’s novels. All the characters involved manage to have a second face, perhaps too many times: a coming and going that puts us in the position of not fully understanding who is playing a double game and who is not, especially in the final moments of the film, in which all the knots should come to a head. Beyond this, however, when Vaughn goes to sow some elements to get to the bottom of the plot we inevitably end up appreciating how much effort went into the construction of the entire plot. Especially when any revelation about the plot would risk ruining the twists and turns. Yet, we assure you, it is not so much the screenplay that attracts this film, despite some clever jokes, capable of triggering some tasteful laughter, but how everything is staged.
Argylle in this sense is very ambitious: it wants to be a comedy, a spy story, and an action film, for starters. The story is that of Argylle (Henry Cavill), an invincible spy with a terrible haircut who fights against an evil directorate by carrying out missions around the world, together with his trusted teammates (Ariana Debose and John Cena). However, Argylle doesn’t even exist in Argylle‘s world: he is the protagonist of a series of successful novels written by Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard), an awkward and introverted writer married to her work. Single, romantically linked to her fictional character and her kitten Alfie, Elly will find herself being approached and then protected by Aidan (Sam Rockwell), a spy with the opposite character and appearance to Argylle. Here the fictional frame of the film becomes real, the levels overlap: the plots of Elly’s novels become reality, she predicts the future and the killers from all over the world want to get rid of her because she is ruining their lives.
This is because it is only the background to the premise of a film that enjoys peeling like an onion, layer after layer, a series of lies or Freudian projections, if you prefer, in search of the true identity of Argylle, Aidan, and Elly. To do this it takes us a good two hours and twenty minutes, full of everything: brilliant finds, truly captivating songs (impossible to sit still listening to “Electric Energy” by Ariana DeBose and Boy George: if there is any musical justice, it will be a hit of 2024). The fact that the film stars Dua Lipa but ends up with Ariana DeBose singing, the fact that it plays at transforming the pop star into a sort of sexy and lethal Bond Girl and then makes someone else wear the same shoes (literally) person is one of the thousand signs of how Vaughn loves and appreciates the sense of mystery and deception that is at the basis of the genre itself.
Even the parallel between Rockwell and Cavill, in their respective roles, is a testament to his ability to embrace the inconsistencies of spy stories but at the same time look at them with a critical eye. If it stopped here, with its series of continuous twists, and characters who become avatars of people who reveal themselves as proxies for other identities, Argylle would be a great film. One could also forgive him for his taste for bad taste, for the constant shortcuts he takes when he dips his arms into the action genre, letting (bad) special effects do the dirty work, whereas the genre gives great satisfaction precisely because of how well it handles chases and fights. much and more than the “serious” parts of the plot. Vaughn could be the first director to make a truly visually unpleasant film for Apple, which has so far become the standard-bearer of an increasingly impeccable aesthetic and technique.
Argylle Movie Review and Analysis
There is a clear desire on Vaughn’s part to throw it into confusion, to embrace the deliberately scruffy and unrefined side of the parodic genre of spy stories. Vaughn likes the genre so much that he first quotes John Le Carrè and then looks at Austin Powers, also attempting to come up with a romantic comedy with non-conforming characters and bodies at its center. Of course, he risks moving from an unattainable aesthetic model to another equally cloying one; all cats, wooden villas by the lake, soft cardigans, and red hair with even softer waves. Taylor Swift, but not in an ironic sense. Congratulations indeed to Vaughn for having been able to make certain stereotypes out of him, certain trivializations that belong equally to the world of romantic comedy and fan fiction. Vaughn knows what fans of the “laughable spies” genre want, he knows what studios looking for a very “meta” and very contemporary franchise want, and he even knows what the female audience wants and what he wants (obviously: directing a 007, as much as Christopher Nolan).
The problem that he chooses not to choose, trying to do everything, trying to please everyone, keeping a film at a fast-paced narrative pace that leaves you a little exhausted. Thus, the film ends up going a little deeper into the good (sometimes excellent) it has in store for the viewer, equally giving space to what is bad. The real balance for Argylle will be public: if the operation goes through and the box office is conspicuous, Vaughn will be able to go back to work on it, calmly and give himself priorities. Just like his colleague Zack Snyder with Rebel Moon, Vaughn’s film is weighed down and sometimes crippled by enormous aspirations and a narrative hyperactivity that certainly doesn’t bore, but perhaps doesn’t allow you to fully enjoy the fine work of the story when there ‘And. It’s a shame that Vaughn, almost always by choice, opts for an aesthetic far from the refinement of some of his narrative choices, often giving us an ugly plastic film, which could easily have still been tacky and excessive, but satisfying.
Why yes, Argylle is a spy story about spy stories. A highly playful pop operation where you play with the stories, with the characters and (as mentioned) with those who are watching the film. You understand talking about this film without ruining the party for those who haven’t seen it yet is very, very difficult. So, forgive us if we keep it vague. Suffice it to say that Matthew Vaughn occasionally returns to the glories of Kingsman with rhythmic action scenes, where music, kicks, and punches become a single symphony, pleasant to listen to (music plays a fundamental role in the film) and to watch. Sequences are edited and shot with a truly engaging dynamism, which however almost seem like bursts in a film that is too discontinuous. Unfortunately, Argylle is a film that is too stretched, sometimes sits too long, runs in circles, and above all falls into a fatal error: now and then it ends up taking itself seriously.
A contradiction for a film that gives its best precisely when it becomes a brilliant parody of spy stories when it sows refined nerd quotes (one from Jurassic World will make many smile) and relies both on over-the-top characters (Sam Rockwell is exceptional and Bryce Dallas Howard very at ease) than a couple of sequences so crazy and over the top that they become adorable. All seasoned with an irresistible cult cat, which seems to have been put there on purpose to become a meme. But we told you: Matthew Vaughn is a smartass, and who knows maybe Elly Conway is him. When in doubt, one thing is certain: at the end of this ride, those who cheated and bypassed were certainly not the characters, it was us. Take or leave. Play the game or get pissed off. To you the choice.
We talked about that unmistakable, easily recognizable stylistic mark, and here it is again. From the first shots, from the first scenes, Vaughn manages to make us understand what kind of film we are in: they are not two hours and little more of fisticuffs, but we are faced with a riot of chases, of pickups chasing a motorcycle (driven by Dua Lipa) on the roofs of houses in Greece, knocking down any concrete construction (at this point, plasterboard perhaps). Between shootouts in which everyone can survive, and the protagonists are never hit, Argylle as a film always has the opportunity and time to joke about the dynamics of espionage, perhaps even with a hint of irony: crushing the head of an enemy on the ground becomes a twist step, shooting a partner becomes a diversion only because the writer becomes omniscient. But after this explosion of pure stage arrogance, Vaughn decides, in the last act of the film, to push the bar even higher.
To the tune of Run by Leona Lewis, the two protagonists, Elly and Aiden (Sam Rockwell) let themselves go in a dance to the sound of smoke grenades which fill the air and the scene with kaleidoscopic colors, accompanying each dance step, the rhythm of music, a shot or a machine gun fire. That scene, lasting a handful of minutes, becomes a riot of scenic beauty, granting Vaughn a moment of total cinema, which ends up also giving a culmination to the screenplay, which up to that moment had sown the question regarding the dance, denying it and then welcoming it in the best possible way. To some it may seem like pure stage onanism, totally redundant for what was the couple’s objective, namely salvation, but Vaughn’s style is precisely this: making even the simplest and most banal of actions to be performed scenically flashy, to highlight that stylistic signature that belongs to him. On the other hand, already in Kingsman 2, we had the opportunity to witness a good mix of music and acting, thanks to the iconic scene from Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver.
And in this Argylle never shies away from a series of directorial experiments that sometimes manage to give us subjective shots, especially in the moments in which the camera decides to play with the protagonists’ eyelids, perhaps before falling asleep: it is an expedient to jump the boring parts, to let us enjoy only the key moments. Between shots from above, the unbridled luxury of private jets, and first-rate hotels, it is always in stunts that Vaughn finds his favorite weapon, because since the days of Kick-ass, there is no doubt that his greatest quality is that of building scenes that would be unthinkable in reality, also filled with an irony of its own towards the feline Alfie, a constant presence in the entire film. Alongside him is an ensemble cast of the highest level: Sam Rockwell is the true star of the film, capable of taking on the role of the spy but at the same time the disenchanted lover and ready to sacrifice everything to get back what was taken from him. Not to be outdone is Bryan Cranston, increasingly immersed in the best possible way in the role of the power-hungry antagonist: Walter White, in short, set the example. There’s nothing out of place, not even Dua Lipa’s cameo, although it doesn’t last long.
Everything seems perfect, in short, but it is clear that we are talking about a film that is aimed at a very young audience, eager to watch something that not only has perhaps an excessive duration, affected by the fact that the screenplay worries about itself with the comings and goings that we were talking about earlier, but which also has a fairly smoky plot. On the other hand, Argylle‘s spies don’t have a real objective, but it seems that they have to answer for their actions in some way, acting only based on the fact that they first acted in a way that someone else didn’t like in short, something quite redundant and unnecessarily verbose, especially in the explanations provided. With few truly fascinating dialogues, with most of the clever lines entrusted to Sam Rockwell’s character – the best written one – it is obvious to tell you that Argylle is an action film that was not created to make cinema history but to entertain and entertain with great serenity.
Argylle Movie Review: The Last Words
If we wanted to be aggressive towards Matthew Vaughn, we could tell him that he has never changed from film to film, and he has not decided to advance his style: it is clear, however, that that is his tone, that is his will, which is perpetuated from film to film to give us always very arrogant, aggressive adventures. We won’t tell you that this is the fourth similar film in a row by the director of Kingsman, but nor that it’s too far away: we’re always talking about spies, we’re always talking about super-secret conflicts to be foiled. But this time Vaughn’s goal is to tell us a more psychological plot, putting us in front of a plot twist that seems to be more convincing than the non-mysteries of Kingsman. Approach Argylle to see a light-hearted film and have a few laughs in front of a CGI used in a less-than-perfect way and with the arrogance of a director who wants to touch on the absurd: he will give you some satisfaction.
Argylle Movie Review: Matthew Vaughn Returns to the Cinema With an Arrogant Spy Story - Filmyhype
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Date Created: 2024-02-01 17:56
3
Pros
- Some fascinating directorial choices
- Matthew Vaughn has an explosive, unique style
- An ensemble cast that doesn't make a single mistake
Cons
- The plot is a coming and going of sides
- The starting plot is quite weak
