Film Review: Triple Threat ‘Argylle’ is Uninspired, Idiotic and Boring

Submitted by PatrickMcD on February 2, 2024 - 10:33am

CHICAGO – “Argylle” is a nasty, smelly cinematic hairball coughed up on unsuspecting audiences. It’s a collection of half remembered clichés, atrocious writing, incoherent action, and terrible performances. A flaming dumpster fire of which only the great comic actor Catherine O’Hara emerges largely unscathed.

Rating: 1.0/5.0

Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is a spy novelist, and not a very good one judging from the prose quoted in her books. However her books had become very popular telling the adventures of a super suave international man of intrigue Agent Argylle. She herself is a homebody whose most constant companion is her cat Alfie, and struggling with a bit of writer’s block about to end her next book.

Before you can blink twice she finds herself involved in some real life cloak and dagger business, when a shadowy international organization makes the first of many attempts on her life. She’s saved by a former rogue agent (Sam Rockwell) who looks like the antithesis of the suave spy, showing up looking more like a deadhead beach bum. He too dispatches the bad guys, but without the grace Elly had imagined. So she (and we as an audience) keep getting Rockwell replaced by the image of Henry Cavill as Aryglle instead.

”Argylle” is in theaters February 2nd. Featuring Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Henry Cavill, Ariana DeBose, John Cena and Samuel L. Jackson. Written by Jason Fuchs. Directed by Matthew Vaughn. Rated “PG-13”