Argylle Review: Silly, But Enjoyable

The opening scene of Argylle plays out like everything the marketing promised. Henry Cavill, Dua Lipa, a high-speed car chase, John Cena, and a big-name cast member getting offed to establish the high stakes. Pretty standard spy movie stuff. Except, that’s not what Argylle is. And it’s once that scene ends and we discover what the movie is about that the real fun begins.

Ironically, Argylle is a much better movie for what the marketing hid than it is for what it promised to be. There’s surely a universe where all those previously mentioned elements combine to make a movie we want to watch. But Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, and a cat in a ridiculous movie about a writer who is actually a spy but doesn’t know it? Now that’s something we haven’t seen before, and maybe something that shouldn’t work as well as it does.

The movie’s absurdity works in its favor, and the commitment of the actors is what sells it. You cannot make a movie like Argylle without a cast that understands that you are making something absurd, and for it to work, you gotta believe in the absurdity. Full credit goes to Bryce Dallas Howard, who has the charisma to carry a movie as silly as this one. She’s not the only one, of course, but since this movie is actually about Elly (or Rachel), not about Henry Cavill’s fake Argylle, the buck stops with her.

The actress is a force to be reckoned with, and her chemistry with Sam Rockwell is on point, but she also plays action heroes very convincingly without needing to rely on the usual go-tos for women. She isn’t a femme fatale, and though she looks gorgeous, and isn’t too covered up, the movie isn’t relying on her sexuality. Instead, Elly (or Rachel) is allowed to be smart, and good at her job, without being put in the same boxes women are usually put in.

Perhaps all of this I just said would have been a better marketing tool for the movie than what we got: a whole lot of a Henry Cavill who looks very attractive, but who is only in the movie as a handsome distraction with absolutely no arc whatsoever. Elly (or Rachel) is the real Agent Argylle, and she is infinitely more interesting than Henry Cavill could ever hope to be. And, though, for the sake of the countless twists the movie throws our way, it was smart to hide that fact, the marketing could have still done a better job of selling the idea this was also her story.

Henry Cavill-looking handsome stories are, after all, a dime a dozen. Funny, female-centric stories where women get to showcase different sides of their personalities? That’s much rarer.

Argylle isn’t exactly groundbreaking, and though it is certainly fun, it runs long enough that it ends up dragging near the end. But it delivers enough laughs and twists (not to mention a memorable female lead) to be worth a watch, particularly now that it’s available on Apple TV+.

Agree? Disagree? What did you think of Argylle? Share with us in the comments below!

Argylle is now available to stream on Apple TV+