This film plays on the common theme of art imitating life, focusing on an author writing about espionage. John le Carré is referenced, so we are to assume that we have a female version and Generation X version of John le Carré. Bryce Dallas Howard (Jurassic World and Spider-Man 3) stars as Elly Conway, that female, Gen X, author in question. Yet, the question is if Elly actually is a spy like le Carré was or if she is just good at writing plots that match exactly to real espionage missions.
The premise would have you believe that Elly has some kind of predictive power that has her wanted by espionage organizations because they think she could expose their actions. Director Matthew Vaughn with screenwriter Jason Fuchs (Pan and Ice Age: Continental Drift) would seem to be critiquing spy narratives or critiquing actual real-world plots from real-world spy agencies. Elly's ability to predict what spies will do felt like a critique of Vaughn and Fuchs saying that spies are either predictable or their plots are so outlandish or ridiculous that they only seem believable within the confines of a novel.
Sam Rockwell (Vice and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) co-stars as Aidan Wilde, a spy who comes to protect Elly when she becomes the target of espionage organizations. When he first appears, he defies expectations for how a spy should look. He's the antithesis of James Bond in his presentation. That too felt like a critique of spy stories. Other than being a great fighter and assassin, he doesn't seem to have the deductive reasoning or intelligence of Elly, which again felt like another critique.
If the film had stayed on that track of being a critique of these narratives, then that would have helped to make this film seem more consistent. Yet, there are a lot of twists and turns and the film becomes more about those twists than having consistent themes. The plot ultimately becomes so convoluted and intentionally so in order to affect those twists, which seem like twists for twists' sake because they serve no purpose of critique or anything grander.
Vaughn has done a series of spy films, starting with Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014), and arguably this film is a part of that series. As such, the tone and style are very similar. Vaughn's purpose might not be anything grander than him wanting to put a woman as the lead in one of those adventures. His Kingsman series has always had convoluted plots, but the twists feel so relentless here that it gets to a point where things make absolutely no sense.
At first, Elly seems like Sandra Bullock in The Lost City (2022) where Bullock plays an author who writes fake adventures and then gets pulled into a real adventure, similar to her writing. Elly also seems like Jaime Lee Curtis in True Lies (1994) where Curtis plays a wife who realizes she's married to a spy who pulls her into one of his adventures. Howard feels like she's doing a combination of what Curtis and Bullock did in those. Yet, those films felt empowering for the female characters in them, as an average woman realizes she's capable of more. This film isn't about empowerment, or if it is, it's empowering in the same way as Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity (2002).
Henry Cavill (Man of Steel and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) rounds out the cast as Argylle, the spy who is what Elly imagines as the look of the protagonist in her novels. As she writes her fifth book, we see him acting out her so-called fictional adventures. However, when Elly goes on her real adventures with Aidan, she starts to see Argylle appear in front of her. Often, she'll imagine Aidan is Argylle, especially during fight scenes. Other times, she'll imagine Argylle is her reflection. Seeing Argylle, a fake character, as real suggests a possible direction for this film. I thought Vaughn might go the way of The NeverEnding Story (1984) in which characters from a book, magically come to life, and the boy reading the book is transported into it. John Candy's character experiences a similar thing in Delirious (1991). The idea of fictional characters from a book coming to life is also the premise of Will Ferrell in Stranger Than Fiction (2006).
This is a spoiler alert, but fictional characters coming to life in some kind of magical way would have made more sense than the actual explanation given here. The explanation is telegraphed, so much so that the audience can guess the explanation, which is not far off from the explanation in Amazon Prime's Citadel (2023). The explanation in that series isn't a mystery as it is the premise. Here, it is a mystery, but when revealed, it does feel hackneyed and again feels like a twist for twists' sake.
It also feels late to the party. This goes for a lot of the action. For example, things are kicked off on board a locomotive. With Bullet Train (2022) and Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning (2023) having well done, if not excellent action on board a locomotive, the train sequence here felt late to the party, if not somewhat lame. It did provide for the cameo of Emmett J. Scanlan (Fool Me Once and The Fall), a tall, handsome, Irish actor who has done a lot of UK television like Hollyoaks, but should be in more feature films.
The action scenes are edited to pop, R&B and disco songs, which can make them entertaining. The choreography can be propulsive, if not violently silly. A scene involving ice skating is one such that was really over-the-top. It didn't feel like it had any particular weight, as the opening action sequence didn't have any weight either. It was more or less a cartoon, but even some cartoons feel like they have stakes. The live action in this film had none.
Finally, Elly and Aidan are romantic interests here. In Elly's book, their equivalents are Argylle and Wyatt, played by John Cena (F9: The Fast Saga and The Suicide Squad). Yet, Argylle and Wyatt are never portrayed as lovers. I wasn't clear if the romantic interests are a new development or something that had always been present between Elly and Aidan. It seems like the latter, but that doesn't translate into the Argylle and Wyatt characters. I'm sure Cavill and Cena would have been game for some romance between their characters.
Rated PG-13 for strong violence, action and some language.
Running Time: 2 hrs. and 19 mins.
In theaters.
