Argylle is a non-sense comedy with twists being more the focus of the script than an actually meaningful story. The Apple TV Plus production features a large cast, trips around the world, and a rhythm characteristic of director Matthew Vaughn, best known for Kingsman. In general, the humorous spy adventure has been criticized by critics, but, without reinventing the wheel, it is entertaining. A little, at least!

In a universe of spies, an inspiration from the 1980s

After Romancing the Stone, which in turn is very reminiscent of the proposal of The Magnificent, from 1973, to have a writer (or writer) unexpectedly living the adventure he imagines on paper has become a Hollywood stand-by formula for romcoms or, as is the case here, a way to play around with spy adventures.

In the 1973 French film, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jaqueline Bisset, Francois is an author of spy novels whose hero, Bob Saint Clair, is extremely popular (clearly an allusion to James Bond) and the opposite of his personality. The success of his work awakens the academic interest of Christiane, a beautiful English sociology student, who inspires François to innovate in the book she is writing which should be the last with Saint Clair.

More than half of the film’s ‘jokes’ are canceled these days, but The Magnificent was, for a long time, hilarious. However, it was not as successful as Romancing the Stone, released in March 1984 and one of the great recent cinema classics. In it, Joan Wilder is a lonely and shy writer, who sells best-sellers of exotic and fantasy adventures, until she is accidentally led to live an adventure in real life that not even she could have imagined, when her brother-in-law is murdered by Colombian drug traffickers and his sister is kidnapped. To save her, Joan sets off for Colombia, where she accidentally meets adventurer Jack Colton, who helps her find the titular emerald and save the day.

In Argylle, Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is a reclusive writer of best-selling spy books, always with agent Argylle (Henry Cavill) and his team. In a moment of lack of inspiration to finish the current book, Elly’s life takes a turn when she becomes the target of spy agencies who have identified in her works extremely accurate details of illicit acts by a sinister criminal organization, so they want to know first of the time the book ends. This triggers a series of events that take Elly out of her apathy and throw her into a universe where only her books made sense of jets, bombs, attacks, and suspense where fiction and reality are no longer different.

Argylle also remembers Lost City

We’ll talk more about the twists, but yes, if you thought that Argylle was also reminiscent of Lost City, with Sandra Bullock, Brad Pitt, and Channing Tatum, you’re not alone. Although the 2022 film is openly a revisitation of the 1984 film, it does have a lot in common with Argylle: from the plot to the aesthetics to the jokes.

Take note: brilliant but reclusive author Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock), who writes about exotic places in her popular adventure novels featuring hero Dash (Brad Pitt), is kidnapped by an eccentric billionaire (Daniel Radcliffe) because she gets it right in the description of a city lost in a rainforest and can help you find treasure. However, the model used on the covers of Loretta’s book, Alan (Channing Tatum), who believes he is the real Dash, tries to rescue her and so the two are forced to live an epic adventure in the jungle.

Returning to Argylle, Elly is helped by Aidan (Sam Rockwell), a real spy whom she doesn’t know if she can truly trust. Sorry for the spoilers, but after using the known basis that I listed here, the film then embarks on a series of pranks to invert the story and try to bring originality to it. But EVERYTHING has been in a movie before.

The biggest revelation is Elly Conway’s true identity. Like Jason Bourne, she suffered memory loss and was manipulated by an evil organization, The Division, into working for them. Her books are actually retellings of adventures led by her and her latest book holds the secret that everyone wants most, a flash drive with sensitive information from the Division and several governments.

Sam Rockwell always manages to navigate easily between comedy, drama, and adventure, obviously with his signature dance, and he supports much of Argylle‘s craziness. Bryce would have the less obvious choice of a perfect spy, but it doesn’t bother her. What fans loved is the post-credits scene in which there is Argylle‘s connection to the Kingsman universe. In other words, if you don’t have anything to see, there is a significant list in a film of even more interesting titles to enjoy Vaughn’s story. The difficulty? Find on platforms. An adventure that this author is venturing to decipher!

Pesquisar

Pesquisar