'Argylle' is one of the worst movies I've ever seen

Walking out of an early screening of Matthew Vaughn’s new action-thriller “Argylle,” I experienced an emotion I rarely feel after watching a movie: Boiling, white-hot anger.

“Argylle” is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, full stop. It is not “so bad it’s good,” like “Cats” or “The Room.” It is a $200 million abomination whose contempt for its audience is likely only eclipsed by the fury Sam Rockwell, Bryce Dallas Howard, Henry Cavill, Bryan Cranston, John Cena, Dua Lipa, Catherine O’Hara, Samuel L. Jackson, and every other actor involved in this ill-fated atrocity has for their agents right about now.

“Argylle” begins with a scene that wouldn’t be out of place in Vaughn’s “Kingsman” film series. Agent Argylle (Cavill) is trapped in a room of armed baddies, before miraculously escaping and pursuing a fleeing double agent (Dua Lipa) on a high-speed chase through the winding roads of a European hillside town. 

The scene is full of knowingly daffy antics, including Cavill’s spy grinding a car down a railing “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater”-style, and a fellow agent (West Newbury native John Cena) snatching Dua Lipa out of thin air while she rides by on a motorcycle at full speed. This five-minute sequence is far and away the best part of “Argylle.”

But wait, there’s a twist: This scene is actually being read aloud at a book event by spy novelist Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard). To her adoring fans, Elly seems to have it all, but in reality she is an anxiety-ridden recluse whose only friend is her cat Alfie and whose writer’s block may prevent her from finishing her popular “Argylle” series.

On a train ride to visit her mother (Catherine O’Hara), Elly finds herself sitting across from a drifter type named Aidan (Sam Rockwell), who claims to not only love her books, but also be a real spy. Elly has her doubts, until — plot twist! — every other passenger on the train tries to kill her.

But wait, there’s another twist! Elly begins hallucinating that Aidan and Agent Argylle are the same person. Every time she blinks, the shaggy Rockwell disappears and the suave Cavill reappears. The ensuing action sequence uses this technique dozens of times, resulting in a thoroughly disorienting fight that completely destroys any momentum the movie is building.

Somehow, the plots of Elly’s spy novels are oracles that predict the future. There really is a shadowy government syndicate who betrayed Argylle (or Aidan, in this case), and all of them are chasing a McGuffin (a thumb drive inside of a silver bullet) that will expose the syndicate’s crimes.

But wait, there’s a twist! And then another twist! And then five minutes later, another twist! Over “Argylle”’s daunting 139-minute runtime, there are probably 15 or so “game-changing” twists, each more implausible and unearned than the last. 

Vaughn and screenwriter Jason Fuchs try to have it both ways, winking at tropes of the action-thriller genre without descending into full parody. The end result is that by around the 30-minute mark, audiences won’t care about any of the double-crosses, red herrings, secret identities, or generally what happens to any of the genuinely talented actors who were roped into this train wreck.  

Of all the assembled on-screen talent, the Oscar-winning Rockwell comes off worst. He’s stuck playing a spy who doesn’t know if he’s a mellow stoner or a grumpy taskmaster, a doofy klutz or the world’s greatest killing machine. No matter which mode he’s in, his chemistry with Howard’s novelist is nonexistent. You’ll be praying for a plot twist that places them on opposite ends of the Earth. 

In general, the cast’s performance quality is inversely proportional to their screen time, which means Marblehead comic Rob Delaney, playing a mid-level syndicate stooge in a single two-minute scene, might be the best thing about this movie.

One of Vaughn’s few redeeming qualities as a director is his flair when choreographing action scenes. From a pure style perspective, there are individual moments in “Argylle” that are technically impressive, including the aforementioned opening chase sequence. But when the film’s final bravura set piece arrives, you’ll be so sick of this movie that the only logical reaction to the characters dancing, pirouetting, and even ice skating through legions of bad guys will be a collective shrug.

As a final bit of housekeeping, I must dissuade fans of pop stars Dua Lipa and Taylor Swift from buying tickets to “Argylle” in some misguided sense of stan solidarity. Dua Lipa is barely in five minutes of the movie, which, as noted earlier, is lucky for her. And despite the weird online conspiracy theories, Taylor Swift does not make a cameo and almost certainly did not write the novel “Argylle” that the movie is based on. I’m duty-bound as a film critic to not spoil the actual plot twists of “Argylle,” but I can’t allow anyone to buy a ticket based on TikTok misinformation.

I saw more than 100 new movies in 2023. Not one of them was as ill-conceived or as stunningly awful as “Argylle.” If it were legal, I would camp outside of AMC this weekend and beg people to see any other movie instead of this affront to cinema.

Rating: ½ star (out of 4)

“Argylle” is in theaters February 2, and will begin streaming on Apple TV+ at a later date.