Argylle Flops With Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes has declassified the critical consensus on Argylle. The new spy comedy from Kingsman: The Secret Service director Matthew Vaughn — which boasts an all-star international cast that includes Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, John Cena, Dua Lipa, and Samuel L. Jackson — debuted on the review aggregator with just a 37% approval from critics. The green splat marks three consecutive rotten scores for Vaughn as a director following his 2021's The King's Man (40%) and 2017's Kingsman: The Golden Circle (50%).  

"With Argylle, Vaughn continues to dabble in the realm of the spy thriller, which is filled with half-cooked characters and convoluted narrative threads," writes Patrick Cavanaugh in ComicBook's 2/5 star review. "There are moments of joy in the final act, though it takes nearly two hours to get to any of the familiar fun that he has delivered more effectively in previous outings."

Critics seem to agree that Argylle's plot twists are too many and the "Vaughian" action too late. Here are excerpts from reviews from around the internet:

The Hollywood Reporter: "it's entirely possible that the film will find a constituency who will love its mirthless, shouty performances, its tortured random plot twists and its appallingly shonky-looking CGI. But there is also a distinct possibility audiences will turn up their noses at this like it's a fresh litter box deposit... Although allegedly made with a $200m budget and featuring what looks on paper like a fancy-pants cast, Argylle may mark a new low, with jokes that struggle to land; an attenuated running time that tests patience; cartoonish, stylized violence that is, almost literally, little more than smoke and mirrors; and Apple product placement so aggressive it feels like a kind of assault." 

Rolling Stone: "There is indeed a secret at the center of this rehash of other movies involving spy-vs.-spy shenanigans, international intrigue, and triple-crosses. Whether you find it shocking or shockingly predictable is totally subjective. Ditto the lack of concrete confirmations regarding certain aspects of the movie's alleged origin story. What we can tell you is that there's another, even more profound revelation long before that 'gotcha!' exposition gets dropped. You start to suspect it before you've even transitioned out of the first act, and it's more or less confirmed by the time the big whoa moment shows up. The spoiler is: Argylle is a bad movie. A very, very bad movie." 

Empire: "While the director's signature excesses are out, his playfulness remains. As telegraphed by Argylle's unnecessarily convoluted origins (the film is seemingly based on a real novel by author 'Elly Conway', who is actually the film's lead character, played by Bryce Dallas Howard), this is a film that wilfully freefalls down its own narrative rabbit hole, unspooling an array of twists across its runtime while paying homage to the fun, frivolity and fashion of '60s spy flicks."

The Film Verdict: "The studio has asked critics not to reveal the multiple plot twists. This is unsurprising, since those twists underscore the weakness of the screenplay: It's constantly pulling the rug out from under viewers, only to reveal no floor underneath."

USA Today: "Matthew Vaughn is a proven commodity in the spy-movie biz with his Kingsman universe, and Argylle boasts a notable cast and a sensational premise that traverses a fine line between what's fiction and what's not. Yet the movie disappoints by fumbling away most of its wins and piling on double- and triple-crosses and other trappings of a bespoke espionage world... Argylle weaves an intriguing narrative until the major twist happens in Jason Fuchs' screenplay when the movie takes a turn for the predictable and muddled."

RogerEbert.com: "There are several convenient twists this review will not divulge. But suffice to say, the more Vaughn tries to explain, the less fun this becomes (the inconsistent switching between color photography to black and white does not help matters) ... It all culminates in a big hallway set piece, meant to be quirky and operatic, but in reality, might be the dreariest action scene committed to film. Vaughn doesn't understand how bodies move through space, instead turning up his usual desire to warp fight choreography into overstretched plastic to unstable levels."

In Argylle, Bryce Dallas Howard (Jurassic World franchise) is Elly Conway, the reclusive author of a series of best-selling espionage novels, whose idea of bliss is a night at home with her computer and her cat, Alfie. But when the plots of Elly's fictional books—which center on secret agent Argylle and his mission to unravel a global spy syndicate—begin to mirror the covert actions of a real-life spy organization, quiet evenings at home become a thing of the past. Accompanied by Aidan (Oscar winner Sam Rockwell), a cat-allergic spy, Elly (carrying Alfie in her backpack) races across the world to stay one step ahead of the killers as the line between Elly's fictional world and her real one begins to blur.

Argylle is playing only in movie theaters February 2.