Arriving under a veil of mystery that accidentally (or purposefully?) roped in Taylor Swift, the new spy thriller Argylle is having a rough go with critics. Directed by Matthew Vaughn and featuring an all-star cast that includes Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, and Henry Cavill with an inexplicable haircut, the film is apparently loaded with plot twist after plot twist that proved to be way too much for most critics.
However, Uproxx‘s Mike Ryan found himself surprisingly won over by Argylle‘s clever misdirection as he gave into the film’s conceit:
I’m always wary of anything approaching an all-star cast. You know, one of those movie that boasts a bunch of great actors, but they are all barely in it and the movie has no actual main characters. Argylle is not that. Argylle‘s main characters are very much Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell (which, come to think of it, might come as a surprise to some peeople). And Argylle is a such a knowingly ridiculous movie that, around 45 minutes in, I had been beaten into delight.
Unfortunately, Ryan appears to be one of the few critics sold on Argylle. Although, at least one other review didn’t entirely write the film off:
Peter Debruge, Variety:
At 160 seconds, the film’s ridiculous trailer gives a reasonable idea of what to expect, but that off-putting amuse bouche leaves out how the human brain starts to adjust to such an unabashedly kitschy approach when immersed in it for nearly as many minutes (in what’s becoming an exhausting norm among Apple co-productions, “Argylle” runs well over two hours). While common sense and good taste may be inclined to resist Vaughn’s garishly over-the-top style at first, the movie eventually finds its groove.
But things only went downhill from there as critics were clearly not feeling Argylle and the cavalcade of twists crammed into its unnecessarily long runtime:
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian:
What could have been a fun movie is instead self-admiring with a dull meta-narrative, phoned-in cameos and an awful lead performance. The rectangle of the screen itself seems to bend and twist into a giant self-satisfied smirk for an unbearably smug caper from director Matthew Vaughn. It has all the interest of a men’s magazine cover-shoot: thin, flimsy, lumbered with a dull meta-narrative and dodgy acting, and boasting a blank parade of phoned-in cameos from the supporting cast. Argylle is a high-concept elevator pitch stuck between floors.
Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter:
Although allegedly made with a $200m budget and featuring what looks on paper like a fancy-pants cast, Argylle may mark a new low, with jokes that struggle to land; an attenuated running time that tests patience; cartoonish, stylized violence that is, almost literally, little more than smoke and mirrors; and Apple product placement so aggressive it feels like a kind of assault.
Nick Schager, The Daily Beast:
As a director, Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class, the Kingsman series) is like a brasher, more cartoony version of Guy Ritchie, all “crazy” badass bluster and pop genre posturing, and he doesn’t alter his over-the-top ways with Argylle, a scattershot and empty-headed spy story that futilely tries to tap a Romancing the Stone (or even The Lost City) vein. Its comic touch almost as heavy-handed as its slow-motion-drenched action is dull, it seems primarily designed to answer the question, “How many movie stars can one fiasco squander?”
Jesse Hassenger, IGN:
Perhaps the strangest thing about Argylle is that throughout its derivative, distended spy adventure, it does manage to nevertheless feel like a passion project for Vaughn. It’s premiering in theaters before heading to Apple TV+, and it has that carte-blanche-from-a-streamer energy, excitedly creating a new world and hinting at baffling new installments to come in a mid-credits scene. Yet for an expensive indulgence, Argylle is shockingly drab (every color but gold appears muted) and unpolished; the passion derives from the fact that it got made at all. This would-be wild ride tries to make heart-eyes at its own absurdity. Instead, it shrugs and reverts to upping the body count.
Argylle opens in theaters on February 2.