Film Review - Argylle (2024) *Second Opinion

An amazing frivolous sprawling dynamic cast wasted, despite the reportedly huge budget this is overcooked rubbish like watching money burn on screen. A dreadful mess. Hardly entertaining despite the potential that Matthew Vaughn brings as an over the top action director with pizazz, he’s lost it here.

It’s stupid all round, dead on arrival, a meaningless incoherent jumble of famous faces on auto-pilot and substandard visual effects. So called comedic moments fall with a shattering thud and only get louder during the two-hour-plus running time. Trying to enjoy it and going with the uneven flow becomes excruciatingly unimpressive, there’s intention to entertain but few audiences will adapt to flashing lights and droll dialogue, a living cinema nightmare.

Geek culture and inspired references are wonderful if correctly executed. This stings, disappointment rings true when a globe trotting odyssey (007-lite) becomes emphatically complex more confusing as it happens. Caring about an unimaginative plot evaporates.

Henry Cavill, Samuel L. Jackson, Bryan Cranston, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jing Lusi, Richard E. Grant, Sam Rockwell, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, John Cena and so many more magnificent actors with creative perfection in their heart, are sadly, mostly just embarrassing here.

The fictional character who comes to life as the novelist writes adventures has been done much better years ago in, The Lost City (2022).

This disastrous flop may over-time become a so bad it’s good movie, however, right now, sober, avoid this catastrophe at all costs.

I’m sure there will be some who enjoy this deluge of everything that’s wrong with big budget Hollywood fare, but as an Apple production, it will be the transition to streaming that’ll make Argylle feel loved by couch dwelling viewers able to press pause or drink more.