“Argylle” (2024)
Fancy a female Jason Bourne style spy caper?
With 20 minutes remaining of this, the 8th film from London born filmmaker Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, Kick-Ass, The King’s Man), a breathtakingly colourful shoot-out ensues accompanied by a Leona Lewis cover version of Snow Patrol’s iconic song “Run” and although already three or four bowls of popcorn deep into this frankly absurd yet entertaining female Jason Bourne/Manchurian Candidate spy romp I was smiling broadly, going along for the ride and reaching for yet another bowl of cinematic salty goodness. I adore the original song for reasons best left open to interpretation but it also bookends a film full of inspired tracks once more in a Matthew Vaughn film from the likes of The Beatles, David Bowie and Barry White among many, many more and a film I recommend to you.
How about this for an enigmatic and spoiler free taster for the film:
A female fiction writer and lover of cats speaks to Superman akin to Elvis Presley in a True Romance with a previous lover who seemingly wishes to kill her, kiss her, thrill her and dance with her to Snow Patrol. There’s a singer, a rapper and a wrestler, a cat named “Alfie”, an even cooler cat by the same name living in France who’s avoiding detection from someone breaking bad and who pretends to be a Dad and father figure to a mind programmed killer who’s rather fond of cats, writing and a man who used to live by himself on the moon.
My son described the above as “bonkers” and a “roller coaster” and that’ll do for me!
"The Essential Film Reviews Collection" Vol.1
"The Essential Film Reviews Collection" Vol.7
With both a call-back to the “Kings Man” series of films and a film here left open for the no doubt raft of sequels to follow, this is Bryce Dallas Howard at her headlining best, a typically thunderous cameo from Samuel L Jackson, Henry Cavill as your titular hero, Bryan Cranston and Catherine O’Hara brilliantly duplicitous and untrustworthy and any film with the mighty presence of Sam Rockwell gets my vote of approval with or without him dancing to Snow Patrol.
Load up on the popcorn, leave your “serious” head for watching and appraising films at the door and altogether now:
“Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I’ll be right beside you, dear”
Thanks for reading. There’s well over 300 individual articles and conservatively double that number in spoiler free film reviews contained within my archives here. Alternatively, here are my three most recently published articles in this genre: