The highly anticipated action comedy, Argylle, does not quite live up to the hype that its star-studded cast and viral hoax marketing campaign created. Directed by Matthew Vaughn of the Kingsman series, the film arrives in theaters appearing to be an espionage pastiche.
Argylle’s plot centers around Bryce Dallas Howard’s character, Elly Conway, a bestselling author who writes about Agent Argylle, played by Henry Cavill. When her fictional stories begin to narrate the real operations of a rogue intelligence unit, she finds herself on the run, accompanied by a spy named Aidan (Sam Rockwell).
The film’s marketing campaign cleverly hyped up the identity of the real Agent Argylle and stirred up a conspiracy theory suggesting that pop star Taylor Swift was the clandestine creative force behind the movie. However, the film falls short in its delivery, focusing on tangled plot threads and lackluster chemistry between the leads.
Despite its shortcomings, Argylle is truly a testament to the power of movie marketing. It showcases impressive action set pieces and plays on the director’s excessive postmodern style. The metafiction elements may seem compelling, as they question what the creation of a character like Agent Argylle means to the author. Yet they ultimately fall flat, leaving the characters feeling like a mishmash of clichéd traits.
The film’s marketing campaign has undoubtedly sparked an online firestorm but the movie itself falls into the category of fizzy forgettable entertainment. Argylle is now in cinemas.
