Argylle is carried by that cat

Argylle (2024)

Argylle is a story about a person who is making up a story that isn’t really made up at all.  The movie is about a fictional(?) author, Elly Conway, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, who writes spy novels that shadow real events in the spy world.  Her leading man in the books is Agent Argylle, played by Henry Cavill with a haircut that is trying its best to make him not handsome, but her leading man in real life is Aidan Wilde, played by the always charming Sam Rockwell.  There is a sharp contrast between them physically, which is played up in what is the true strength of the movie; the gorgeous combat and fight choreography.  The story itself gets bogged down in its cleverness, at times becoming a chore as I waited for the next battle sequence.  The director, Matthew Vaughn, most notably directed Kingsman: The Secret Service and every fight was filmed with the same artistic integrity and vision end fight scene of that film. (Nothing holds a candle to the church scene).  Vaughn would show the dichotomy between the male leads by seamlessly interchanging them in fluid combat or set a mood with color and music during a battle.  Each fight was unique, fun, and complex, cleansing the palette between scenes being equal parts over and underacted as the story progressed.  There were some interesting twists along the way, but some were very obvious.  The movie also was too long, stretching its climax with false ending after false ending after false ending.  It made the end of Return of the King feel hasty.  But for all of these problems, it was mitigated by the fact that there was a cute cat on screen for much of the movie.  Without the cat, this movie belongs in the litter box.  Overall, I enjoyed this movie, but mostly because there was a cat.  I give Argylle 6 out of 9 lives.