“Argylle” directed by Matthew Vaughn hit theaters Feb. 4 and I was excited and optimistic to see this new spy thriller movie. The run time of the movie is 2 hours and 19 minutes. The movies cast offers a range of both female and male lead characters including Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Dua Lipa, Sam Rockwell, Catherine O’Hara and more. 

Elly is an anxious and lonely but successful author who lives by herself. We find out after the first scene that the two spy characters running around Greece chasing a female spy are merely fictitious from Elly’s book as she reads it aloud at an author event. Her book is called Agent Argylle and she has a series of five different books which follow the life of special agent Argylle. This is just the very first of many changing plot lines.

This plot line was spoiled in the trailer so based on seeing the trailer I expected this. Though I did not expect the action that came as main character Elly takes a seemingly ordinary train ride to visit her parents. While on the train, someone sits next to Elly and predicts the chaos that begins on the train.

The scruffy character turns out to be Aiden, a spy and he is correct the two are in danger and must flee the train. I was surprised to find out that the seemingly regular looking man sitting next to Elly on the train was a spy.

The scene had me on the edge of my seat because I didn’t see it coming and the train scene was full of action. Aiden the spy took down dozens of people who were after him and Elly and the physical fighting kept kept me wondering what was going to happen next.

Though, this was the first point in the movie that I felt the action taking place was unrealistic. The two jump out of the moving train with a parachute. Later on, they also jump off a tall apartment building in London. Even for a spy movie, the dramatic action points just felt a little too out of the realm of reality.

The two flee from the train and Aiden tells Elly her fate. A spy group called “The Division” is after a missing file which incriminates them. The Division is on the hunt for Elly because they believe with her genius brain she could figure out where the file is.

Throughout the movie you do not know who is good or who is bad, which made the movie more engaging especially because of how long it is. Elly questions everything about her own identity at all different points in the movie which left me honestly very confused. She was the one character viewers are supposed to trust it felt like, but I even I couldn’t trust her. I’m still not sure if the point was to be as confused and lost as Elly, but I was. 

I enjoyed the scenery and the filming spots chosen for the movie. The movie opens in Greece in a coastal picturesque town. Elly’s house is on a beautiful lake with surrounding mountains. Through Elly and Aiden’s adventures they travel to London, then to a Parisian wine vineyard , and lastly the Arabian peninsula. I enjoyed the unique filming spots and scenery and didn’t find the changing locations distracting to the plot, but rather enhancing.

The biggest twist I didn’t see coming was that with the help of the man she has been traveling Aiden, she discovers she is not Elly Conway but instead Agent “Rachel Kylle” Aka R. Kylle which sounds like Argylle. Elly has a large identity crisis about halfway through the movie and at this point I was so lost and sick of all the changes. 

It felt like this movie was going well at the start but then veered off in so many different directions. To me, it seemed as though the director wasn’t quite sure himself which direction to go in, so he chose 15 different ones. 

It is at this point in the movie when Elly discovers her true identity. As Elly starts to understand who she is she teams up with Aiden to take down the division and get the file. 

By the end of the movie, I was ready to leave the theater and was very disappointed by “Argylle.” I appreciated and enjoyed how a female spy was the main character and the one taking all the “bad guys” down, but the movie could have been executed better. Many spy movies don’t have a female lead character and I enjoyed that “Argylle” did. 

All in all, the movie had a solid cast and the possibility for success but was disorganized, too long, and felt like too many plots were going on at once. If you are deciding whether or not to see the new movie “Argylle” I would definitely say skip it and instead see a better organized movie. 

This story was written by Avery Darrow. She can be reached at a[email protected].