Rockwell can’t save the expensive, misguided ‘Argylle’
This image released by Apple shows Dua Lipa, left, and Henry Cavill in a scene from "Argylle." (Peter Mountain/Apple via AP)
The off-kilter presence of Sam Rockwell (an Oscar-winner for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”) can usually disrupt even the most stilted, barren material. In “Argylle,” the action-comedy from “Kingsman” director Matthew Vaughn, Rockwell gets lost (alongside several other A-listers) in a hokey and strained spy adventure that would be labeled as amateurish if not for its inexplicable $200 million budget.
Vaughn, with “X-Men: First Class,” “Kick-Ass” and the first “Kingsman” movie, once seemed like a filmmaker with a clever, subversive perspective on action-oriented genre fare. However, with his recent “Kingsman” installments, and now “Argylle,” Vaughn is emphasizing and repeating his worst impulses as a storyteller, prioritizing twists and absurdity over narrative functionality.
The premise of “Argylle” carries potential. The movie begins inside a cheesy spy novel written by cat-loving shut-in Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard, doing her best with an impossible character arc). In her story, Agent Argylle (Henry Cavill, with one of the worst haircuts ever committed to film) realizes his espionage agency is populated by double-crossing evildoers and goes on the hunt for a “Masterkey” of incriminating evidence. Turns out, much of Elly’s fictional books predict the future, and Lead Evildoer Bryan Cranston (actively bad in the role, surprisingly) attempts to capture Elly and probe her brain for real-world advantage.
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