Argylle

Matthew Vaughn may claim that Argylle is his homage to Eighties action flicks, but this is the work of a man who loves classic spy movies. He cut his teeth on the obligatory London crime drama of Layer Cake before heading into literary adaptations with Stardust, X-Men: First Class, and Kick-Ass (yes, comics are literature), but that all seems to have just been a back door into international espionage. He's already launched one commercially successful franchise in his Kingsman series and seems to be trying for a second with Argylle, a wild action-comedy that dabbles in meta comedy without ever going full multiverse-level of head scratching.

Vaughn clearly loves the classic Sixties and Seventies spy flick, but not the stylish violence of the James Bond movies or the morally murky machinations of Michael Caine as trench-coat-clad Harry Palmer. Vaughn loves the tongue-in-cheek spoofs of that era, the Our Man Flints and Carry on Spyings. Indeed, it's hard to imagine him not indulging in a little chortle that he hired Henry Cavill to somewhat mock his more straitlaced turn as a superspy in Guy Ritchie's The Man From U.N.C.L.E. reboot. The former Superman plays Argylle, a velvet-suited and high-collared throwback to the golden age of smoldering superspies, armed with endless supplies of quips and concealed weapons. However, there is no Argylle: He's the granite-fisted and cleft-chinned hero of the bestselling books by Elly Conway (Howard), a hugely successful author who is more than a tad reminiscent of J.K. Rowling, whose side hustle churning out the Cormoran Strike spy-ish detective novels has proved to be quite the post-Harry Potter money earner.

Rowling has published those books under the nom de plume Robert Galbraith – another point of resonance with Argylle, because hidden identities stack up around Elly. This includes the random well-dressed strangers on a train who all turn out to be deadly assassins, and her scruffy seatmate, Aidan (Rockwell, always in on the joke and playing along perfectly), who saves her and explains that he is a real spy, sent to rescue her. It turns out that her books are eerily close to real-life events in the espionage community, and a rogue agency (headed by a suitably vile and soulless Cranston) is out to get her because of it. Oh, and she has a cat, which doesn't really serve much of a narrative purpose except give Vaughn some space for some CGI-amplified sight gags. And none of this is helped by the fact that, every time the squeamish Elly finds herself in another gunfight, she keeps seeing Argylle and he keeps chatting with her.

If that all sounds a little goofy, well, it's Vaughn and that is his métier. He still has a certain eye for absurd action sequences set to inappropriate needle drops, and Argylle is stuffed with those, including a memorable gunfight/dance routine that is too ridiculous not too enjoy. Indeed, much of the film’s humor comes from seeing the unbreakable Argylle being juxtaposed with the very breakable Aidan. But while Argylle’s stunt-filled antics are suitably loaded with those Vaughnian action sequences, it’s also bloated by more plot twists and reveals than a breezy action comedy can or should be forced to endure. When Elly’s mother (O’Hara, doing a weird impression of herself in Home Alone) recommends that her new book needs one more chapter, it’s hard not to think that scriptwriter Jason Fuchs should have been given the opposite advice. Maybe next time (and this is clearly setting up sequels) Elly and Aidan need fewer side missions.