Comedy Spy thriller Argylle has finally started to receive reviews and it appears to be less comedy, and more thrillingly bad.
Starring Dua Lipa, Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Sam Rockwell, Argylle has managed to pick up some hype due to its mysterious meta-story. The author of the book it is based on is entirely unknown and is also a character in the movie itself. It's a pretty meta situation that has led fans to speculate the mysterious author is actually an alias for someone famous. The reviews give us far more about the movie than any of the marketing has so far.
The BBC’s Nicholas Barber, in his two-star review, said Argylle seems “all too close to Ghosted, Shotgun Wedding, Freelance, Murder Mystery, and the other sort-of action, sort-of romance, sort-of comedy films which have been dumped on streaming services over the last couple of years.”
Disliking the movie even more, Barry Hertz said in his review for The Globe and Mail that Argylle is “one of the most chaotically stupid action movies to torture audiences in ages.” On Metacritic, the movie currently sits with a 40 out of 100 weighted score, suggesting “mixed or average” reviews with just a single point drop to 39 signifying a bad score. On Rotten Tomatoes, Argyle sits at 38%, making it one of the lowest-rated movies of the year so far. Audience reviews are expected to pop up over the next few days as viewers get to watch the movie.
On the bright side
Despite being overwhelmingly negative, there are a handful of more positive reviews sticking out of the pack. One such review is by Collider’s Maggie Lovitt, who gave it an eight out of ten praising its light-hearted tone and fun performances.
To further balance this out, Slashfilm’s Ethan Anderton said: “At the very least, the filmmaker offers up some cool things that we haven't seen in a modern action movie like this”. Argylle, from stunts like turning the Las Vegas Sphere into the world’s largest cat bubble backpack, has shown a very quirky and meta humor that some seem to latch onto. You can watch Argylle for yourself in cinemas as of February 2 or can wait for the eventual release on Apple TV Plus in the future.
