2024, Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) -- download
I need to stop putting off my writeups for mediocre movies, as they tend to fade from memory rather quickly. I am only remembering the broad strokes of this movie, the twist and the classic Vaughn aspects of it. So, I'll do my best.
Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard, Black Mirror) writes terrible spyfi adventure books that are very popular. We get introduced to the terribly dressed, flat-top coifed agent Argylle (Henry Cavill, The Witcher) with a wonderful, over the top opening sequence where he squares off against lovely foil Lagrange (Dua Lipa, singer). For those just seeing the trailer, they may think he's real and the movie is about him. It isn't, despite a bit of a playing-the-game. This movie is about Elly Conway whose books are so detailed that they predict real life spy agencies activities. So, that means Elly doesn't live in our world, but actually also lives in a spyfi world, albeit with fewer flashy purple outfits.
Exceeeeept, there is a twist. Kind of. And to be honest, I was kind of annoyed by the twist.
Spoilers Abound.
You see, Elly is not real. Oh, she's a person not a figment like Argylle (because of the spelling, my brain keeps pronouncing it arr-gilley), but she is a fabricated cover identity for an actual agent suffering amnesia and conditioning by the Bad Guys. You see the Bad Guys were pretending they were the Good Guys but actually working to undermine things, as if the Kingsmen from his previous movies were out there robbing banks and toppling countries. And Elly was actually their top agent who was injured, so they created this cover identity, mentally conditioning her into believing it while... well, I don't actually remember WHY they did it. BUT on the other side is her partner and lover Aiden Wilde (Sam Rockwell, Moon), and CIA guy Alfie, played by Samuel L Jackson who is almost identically recreating his character from the OTHER Vaughn movie but is now... a Good Guy? He needs Elly to help him steal the spy agency's agenda so he can... oh, I don't know.... stop them?
You know, I am not entirely sure if writing it up right after would have helped. The movie is meant to be a mind-fuck, full of double-bluffs and misdirection while at its heart being another send-up of Bond films & world. The colourful world of this spy agency is wonderfully depicted in Bond-ian 4-colour style but I had trouble understanding why they existed, and why or who considered them Good Guys. I mean, did they stop crime or cause it? Did they protect governments or topple them? They have a floating secret lair full of jump-suited henchmen so that should have been the first sign they were Bad Guys, but I understood very quickly that the whole agency thing was not the point of the movie, just a prop to give an excuse for all the subterfuge and gun-fu and high-kick hijinx.
And figure skating on oil.
Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell have a blast, while John Cena and Henry Cavill are not real, so only appear in fictional depictions or .... hallucinations? The "Vaughn Sequence" is fun, expectedly highly choreographed but non-sensical. There was more than a nod-nod-wink-wink that the "real world" was even more ridiculous than the Elly Conway fictional world, but in the end, with all the bluffs and not-really-twists, I wasn't impressed by any of it. Everything was fun, but nothing was clever and I was not really impressed by anything.
The cat. You didn't mention the cat!
Oh yes, the cat, the fucking terribly CGI-ed cat from the trailer. Just another misdirection and bluff, playing no real part in the movie other than being a prop for Elly to be stuck protecting. If the Kingsmen movies had umbrellas and posh accents as props, one of this movie's many props was the cat. And like the others it served no fucking purpose.
I guess you could go so far as to say, either did the movie?
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