Argylle is an action comedy that manages to be some somewhat entertaining in spite of an over reliance on slapstick and a pretty peculiar plotline. Matthew Vaughn directed this film with Jason Fuchs credited as the screenwriter. Henry Cavill is om the title role, but the main protagonist, Elly Conway, is played by Bryce Dallas Howard. Sam Rockwell, Samel L. Jackson, Bryan Cranston, John Cena, Catherine O’Hara, and Dua Lipa are included in the admittedly impressive cast.

Elly Conway is a spy novelist who has been living quite nicely thanks to the creation of her character, Agent Argylle. She is inexplicably ambushed while on a train trip, and she is then unexpectedly rescued by an actual spy, portrayed by the reliably entertaining Sam Rockwell. It seems that Elly has stumbled onto some authentic espionage while researching for her novel. Elly also is forced question everything and everyone she has known in her life because she is no longer sure where the fiction ends and the reality begins.

The cast really makes this pretty watchable. Sam Rockwell probably has the better role here. Of course, he usually knows how to make his mark in a film. The action wavered from being compelling to getting a little too ridiculous. I guess I wasn’t expecting the comic book style of violence. Howard is pretty convincing as the hapless writer who gets swept up in this peculiar caper

The film is pretty uneven when it comes to the level of enjoyment. It’s a promising story idea, and I applaud the attempt to do something pretty original, which has been lacking in Hollywood’s recent offerings. The overall talent of the cast makes this film watchable, maybe even a little better than that, however some of the action sequences were too long and a little too silly for my taste. The film serves the purpose of enticing me to the theatre without too much regret, but it still doesn’t offer much incentive for me to recommend it wholeheartedly.