I had seen a couple of trailers for Argyle and truthfully, I couldn’t make head or take of what the film was going to be. Was it about a cat that was a spy? Why was Henry Cavil sporting a haircut to make his Superman moustache seem a masterpiece of design? Either way, I went in mostly blind.
Within the first few minutes of action so over the top I realised that a bunch of what we were seeing was going to be non literal and some kind of dream or fake reality. As it is, a bunch of times what you see in the film is Henry Cavill and John Cena playing pretend spies. I think at this stage Henry Cavill must feel there is zero chance of playing James Bond as if he ever did get a chance to play it seriously, I think people would have a hard time forgetting this “purposely bad performance” that he does here.
The main character is actually Bryce Dallas Howard as Elly Conway who is the author of the Agent Argyle books who is recruited to solve a real life spy situation because of her ability to write spy stories. To be honest when I realised this was the concept I rolled my eyes and they continued to roll for the following two hours.
Sam Rockwell then plays Aiden, who is the real super spy who doesn’t look like a spy. After the first scene with him in he just a lot less likeable and comes across like an idiot. For some reason whenever there is a big action scene the action has edits so that Sam Rockwell is replaced back and forth with Henry Cavill as Elly is imagining Aiden as Agent Argyle. There’s honestly no purpose to this and Henry Cavill is there just to be a smirking imaginary special effect.
Maybe it’s meant to be fully parody. The film is like the late 90s and early 2000s action films where you never get the sense that the main character is ever in any real danger. Aiden can leap and fly about giving commentary on what he’s doing and this kills any sense of urgency or threat. Sam Rockwell is just unredeemable and annoying throughout.
Bryan Cranston has fun playing a parody Bond villain, and whilst his performance is enjoyable to see, but the character and dialogue is about as deep as Rita Repulsa from Mighty Morphing Power Rangers.
The film does have some significant twists and turns and whilst these do help explain away some of the cheesy badness, by the time certain twists happen, you’ll realise that the film is approaching half over.
So in the interest of discussing the film fully, this will be your one and only spoiler warning…
So, the big twist is that Elly is actually Rachel Kyle, a super spy and the books she writes are actually based on memories. So Rachel Kyle is R Kyle…Argyle…get it.
One weird factor about the whole film is I’d say that as awesome as the cast is, the line up are all ten years older than would have been ideal for the roles. Like literally, everyone is ten years too old.
Ultimately Henry Cavill and John Cena are just playing action man dolls who are seen as dumb and devoid of personality. Their inclusion and being featured in the trailer and poster is almost bait and switch. What were left with is people who are unconvincing as spies and action stars doing action stuff. Why this trend of playing against expectations is always being pushed these days I don’t understand. It’s just bad casting. The characters still do all the kick ass stuff, but just doesn’t fit the picture.
The inclusion of the cat in this movie is just beyond pointless. It adds nothing meaningful and a weird amount of time is dedicated to it in the movie.
Maybe this will be a film that grows on me if I were to see it again, but I kinda doubt it. It wasn’t the movie I thought it may be and was actually much worse.
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