The title character in Stanley Kubrick’s film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) is a former Nazi, once going by Merkwürdigliebe (Peter Sellers).  You do not need to rehash the entire movie to understand that though he is now working for the American government, he is having difficulty forgetting his allegiance to the Third Reich.  This attitude manifests itself in a variety of ways, such as a predilection towards giving the Hitler salute.  As I walked out of the theater after seeing Argylle, I thought of this off cinematic figure.  You see, today’s piece is directed by Matthew Vaughn.  If that name does not sound familiar to you, the previews might remind you.  He is the person responsible for the Kingsman series of movies, which have become increasingly silly since the first, Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014).  They are full of action, but they usually add some kind of imaginative twist to the kicking, punching, and shooting.  This was refreshing with the first, but has gotten increasingly tiresome since.  Given how poorly recent installments in the franchise have done, I thought, while watching Argylle, that Vaughn might have learned his lesson and played things straight.  Yet, like Dr. Strangelove pining to show his loyalty to his dead führer, Vaughn could not long resist going off the rails.  Read on to discover how we get to that point.

The trailers for Argylle pretty much give away the entire plot, save for one twist which I will cover before too long.  Yes, Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is an author writing spy novels about the eponymous secret agent (Henry Cavill).  We meet him first while on a mission in Greece, where he has an encounter with the beautiful and deadly LaGrange (Dua Lipa).  It turns out to be a trap, though he manages to get out of it with help from his two associates.  The initial assistance comes from his close friend Keira (Ariana DeBose), but she dies trying to stop LaGrange from getting away.  The other is provided by Wyatt (John Cena), who is able to physically get a hold of LaGrange after a short chase.  She reveals the existence of a traitor in the Directorate, the organization for which they had been working, and the turncoat is their boss.  This is where Elly’s story ends as she has been telling this to a group of fans at a book signing.  It is also meant to set up her next tale, though she finds she is having trouble with its ending.  When she sends the draft to her mother, Ruth (Catherine O’Hara), Ruth encourages further edits.  Indeed, mom volunteers to do this in person by coming to her daughter’s place, but Elly decides to take the train to Ruth instead.  While in transit, a rough looking person with long hair and a beard sits across from her and starts reading her book.  This is Aidan (Sam Rockwell), but he is not the typical fan.  He is a spy, and he is there to protect Elly from a train full of people who are there to kill her.  In the midst of his skillful moves, her subconscious overlays Argylle over Aidan.  Despite this confusion, and her sheer panic, she manages to keep her cat Alfie with her in its carrying case as her and Aidan parachute to safety.  She passes out mid-flight, and awakens in his cabin.  This is when he reveals that what she writes is actually happening in the secretive world of espionage.  Not only this, but he wants her to write the next chapter because he believes it is key to finding information he needs to take down the Division, the non-literary analog to the Directorate.  Speaking of which, its head, Ritter (Bryan Cranston), is also keeping tabs on Elly, hoping to be led to the same information.  After conversing with Aidan, he says that the stuff she had been putting on paper had been his activities, so they decide to travel to the place that her most recent work had been about to take Argylle, that being London.  Once there, he had been supposed to meet with a computer hacker with the “Masterkey” that could bring down the Division.  Elly is brought to the spot where the meeting was supposed to have taken place in order to figure out, using her writing process, why the hacker never appeared.  Her deductions bring them to an abandoned apartment on the Thames.  There they find a notebook with the information they are looking for, but are attacked by more henchmen sent by Ritter.  They are able to get away once more, but Elly overhears Aidan talking on the phone about wanting to do away with her.  She leaves while he is in the shower and calls Ruth, asking for her mom to come save her.  When she arrives, along with her father, it turns out that Ritter is her father, or so she thinks.  Aidan shows up, claiming that they are both Division agents, and that mom and dad are a ruse.  Once more on the run, Aidan takes Elly to see Alfred “Alfie” Soloman (Samuel L. Jackson).  He is the former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who had been betrayed by Ritter.  Alfie wants the files previously discussed, and Aidan is helping him.  Further, the big twist comes when they show her that she is actually Agent Rachel Kylle (“R. Kylle, get it?), and that she had been brainwashed by the Division to think she was a famous author.  Thus, Alfie sends her and Aidan to Saba Al-Badr (Sofia Boutella), also known as the Keeper of Secrets, to get the long sought after Masterkey.  Unfortunately, this is a trap, and they are captured by the Division.  Further, Elly learns that she had secretly been working with the Division all along, or so they want her to believe.  In reality, she plays both sides, though she remains loyal to Aidan and Alfie.  There is a whole bunch of action silliness here that I will discuss in a moment.  Anyway, they manage to send the Masterkey to Alfie, thus allowing him to return to his role in the CIA and putting the world right.  It ends with a mid-credits scene that is meant to tie this all to The Kingsman franchise.  Sigh.

I was with Argylle for the first three-quarters.  Yet, as soon as Elly’s big reveal comes, it seems to decide that it had enough of being serious and decides to get goofy.  At the same time, I cannot say that I was thrilled by what I had seen up to that point.  Recently, I have been going through the entire James Bond franchise.  The comparisons between the two are fair.  They deal with the world of espionage, one where you are not entirely sure who to trust.  It is not just the spy craft, though, that invites the comparison.  If you have not done so already, go back and read the reviews I have written thus far for the Bond films.  I did not expect this level of hokeyness from them, especially from the run with Sean Connery as 007.  Granted, you do not get the womanizing of Bond in Argylle, but the female depictions are less than inspiring.  So, what makes the last quarter of the film so crazy?  For starters, the action goes from mostly sensible to over-the-top.  The example that keeps coming to mind features Aidan and Elly getting pinned down in a room where the floor becomes covered with crude oil.  They think they are trapped until she remembers that she is basically an Olympic level ice skater.  Wait a second, you may ask, how does this relate to their predicament?  Well, she sticks a couple of knives to the bottom of her boots, and this is how she maneuvers around the space ala Tanya Harding, killing anyone that gets in the way of her double and triple axels.  My apologies for the reference, by the way, but it seemed too appropriate.  A close runner-up to this sequence is when Elly shoots Aidan through the heart, but does not kill him because there is supposedly a narrow path through the organ through which a bullet can pass without it being fatal.  All you have to do is to stop the bleeding . . . which she does with a towel?  Had the movie gone for this craziness from the beginning, then I could have better accepted it.  As it is, I just rolled my eyes.

There were other aspects of Argylle that I enjoyed before it fell apart.  There are some interesting ways it plays with what is real and what is not regarding Elly and her two lives: one as a writer and the other as a super spy.  With this theme, the film seems to be wanting to say that it is up to us in the moment to determine our reality.  Before she comes to this conclusion, her fictional character acts as a sort of guide for her, helping her navigate this insane world into which she has stepped where her scribblings come to life.  A non-believer might liken this to her conscience speaking to her.  As a Catholic, I find this explanation incomplete.  Whatever it is that Argylle does for her, even when she overlays him onto Aidan, he tries to inspire her to do good.  There is only one source of ultimate good in this world, particularly at a sub-conscience level, and that is God.  The fact that people are compelled to do what is right by others, and themselves, demonstrates much about God.  It is how He created us, and often how he talks to us.  The history of the saints has examples of Jesus, or Mary as is sometimes Divinely ordained, appearing in a similar fashion at different points in time, giving people what they need in a given moment to do incredible things.  From St. Joan of Arc being burned at the stake to St. Catherine of Sienna having personal conversations with Jesus, the Holy Spirit touches people and moves them in ways not too dissimilar from what you see in this movie.  Of course, the outcome is invariably less violent.  The film also does not give credit to a Higher Power for Elly eventually making the noble choice.  Instead, it posits that she is moved by love for Aidan.  Then again, what is the source for that feeling, too?  Whether you want to admit it, it all comes back to God.

If you were to sit down to watch Argylle and stop watching after it gets to the point when it is revealed that she had been a spy, then you would have a decent movie.  Indeed, I saw a couple in the theater in which I saw it do what I just described.  They got out in time to avoid the cartoon the film becomes.  Thus, I give this a three quarters recommendation.