Argylle
Published 2024-04-12
Film info
- Title Argylle
- Director Matthew Vaughn
- Year 2024
- Run time 2hr 19m
- Genres Action, Adventure, Comedy
- Tagline The greater the spy, the bigger the lie
- Cast Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O'Hara, John Cena, Samuel L. Jackson, Richard E. Grant
When the plots of her books get too close to the activities of a sinister underground syndicate, introverted spy novelist Elly Conway and her cat are plunged into the real world of espionage—where nothing, and no one, is what it seems.
Live blog
| Time | Comment |
|---|---|
| 1:36 | Huh, Dua Lipa. |
| 4:20 | Incredible twisting Greek road but that does make it the slowest getaway ever. |
| 10:58 | I would be so bad at an author Q&A. |
| 14:43 | "It's called a cliffhanger, mother." "It's a cop-out!" |
| 17:49 | The backpacks with cats sticking out of them are mad/adorable. |
| 29:42 | So many people popping up in this film! |
| 33:15 | "This lot make Darth Vader look like Mary Poppins." |
| 39:11 | I love the word 'deploy'. |
| 53:11 | Don't risk jumping in the Thames, dudes. |
| 1:01:52 | This twist has broken my mind. |
| 1:07:19 | She'll be reunited with the cat, Hollywood is sentimental like that. |
| 1:16:37 | He said they had to let her memories flow back but they absolutely didn't do that. |
| 1:25:57 | "Alcohol and keeping secrets do not pair well." |
| 1:38:11 | Definitely some twists and turns I wasn't expecting. |
| 1:44:59 | I could do with some adrenaline sticks sometimes. |
| 1:49:03 | Is the heart hole thing true? Not much else here is. |
| 1:57:27 | I feel like steel blades on a concrete floor would also be a spark risk. |
| 2:02:02 | Samuel L Jackson is channelling me watching software updates right now. |
Thoughts
I was really looking forward to this, Matthew Vaughn, spy movie, great cast, tick, tick, tick. Oh my god, it was SO bad. The pacing is all over the place. The start is so slow, if I didn't have a crush on Sam Rockwell (who held up this film pretty single-handedly) then we wouldn't have got past twenty minutes. It got a bit better in the middle (although that may be related to the gin & tonic I had on hand) and then a chaotic and ultimately embarrassing ending.
I wanted it to be good for BDH because she's awesome, and this should have been a great vehicle for an awesome, if unexpected, kick-ass female spy. But it wasn't. Ice skating on oil at the end. What? A villain standing there in a lab coat holding up a music box? Er, okay. A bullet smashing into a catpack but not going through into the person behind... hmm.
There were a couple of moments that were really good, and a few of the twists were unexpected, but put it all together and it was a big, sprawling, disappointing mess.
Rating: 1 / 5