'Argylle' and 'Orion and the Dark' briefings

Argylle

1 ½ (out of 4)

            This antithesis to reinvention for Matthew Vaughn finds the British mischief proving yet again he shouldn’t be so adamant to cement his legacy with tongue-in-cheek spy spoofs — at this rate your movies will be long outlasted in memory by the likes of Charlie’s Angels for Christ’s sake (maybe even the new one, ew!), let alone Austin Powers or even Johnny English, and you’ll deserve it!

Frankly, it was crazy that for three consecutive attempts to follow up the positive reception toward 2015’s Kingsman: The Secret Service, not one has panned out critically, though I’ve never been shy to say I really enjoyed The Golden Circle’s dubious double-down as a direct sequel to an already cuckoo first go-round. But the prequel The King’s Man was much too serious and now, in quite a reactive move it seems, Argylle is all silliness, top to bottom — it’s his worst effort yet, finding his synchronized sincerity and smarm leaning almost exclusively in the direction of that maliciously edgier latter. Flattening fourth walls every other scene doesn’t confirm any kind of cleverness Mr. Vaughn.

Argylle, despite some manner of novelty, drowns in overwhelming preposterousness, unable to surmount the compounding mania and mediocrity even with a passionate, properly curated cast and 140 minutes of naught else but twists on twists on twists — this picture-show pretzel is all knots, which would be OK if there was some genre realignment in motion, action tailored with elaborate, impressive stuntwork like any Kingsman riffs gets to eventually or at least some tickling of the funny bone since it's so freakin' goofy. Argylle isn't inherently unwatchable, but self-aware tripe is still tripe. If it takes five minutes to explain the linchpin reveal, it’s probably not justified it in the least. It’s hard to be subversive in the vein of Kick-Ass when you’re muffled to all the outlandishness a PG-13 rating affords — the revelations and ridiculousness and even the lightly redeeming romance are all dished out in half-measures.

Bryce Dallas Howard (never seeming to top her breakout days in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village and Lady in the Water) is our unexpected, passively past-resistant protagonist, Bryan Cranston is living out the evil shit as gladly as Catherine Hahn (the respectively duplicitous ma and pa), meanwhile Sofia Boutella has one great scene (still nothing close to the swords-for-legs showdown by the first Kingsman’s end) and Samuel L. Jackson’s reunion with Vaughn loses the lisp without gaining a smidge of character. Then Henry Cavill, as Howard’s in-fiction stand-in, is the closest to 007 fare he’ll get since he comfortably suited up for Guy Ritchie’s fizzy The Man from U.N.C.L.E., though he and his stupid hairline are not at all the protagonist marketing might’ve made you presume. Meanwhile Dua Lipa is momentary sex appeal with about as much screentime as she had in the trailer and finally, as the film’s savior (hardly enough to actually save it), the ensemble’s strongest link is the superb Sam Rockwell who I’d take in any form, any day.

Stardust has a settling sweetness, X-Men: First Class is, to me, one of its genre’s best moments and Vaughn’s finest work seeing as Kick-Ass’s scabby subversion is not my cup of tea — but Argylle is soft, stupid and sure to avoid any actual risk in its irreverence. The real agent Argylle may as well have been the cat, and that CG puss could’ve been this movie’s crutch (like an extended Elton John cameo in Kingsman 2) but rather it’s the movie’s absolutely bargain bin visual effects and glossy greenscreening. Vaughn’s style is symmetrical, sharp and simple — without some convolution cornucopia of a script or a decent set to work with, this is all style minus any aesthetic worth ascertaining. Then you punctuate the bullshit with some post-credits scene tying this to the Kingsman universe... I'm sorry,did you learn nothing from the end of your last film, when you teased Hitler like he was Thanos? NO ONE CARES MATT, no one cares and you should know better. The Kingsman movies felt like enough to hang a franchise on, but we were clearly wrong about that and this would-be quirky paperback sleaze keeps even fewer of its promises, for instance that it would amount to direct, innocent fun. Argylle is taking that extra L much too literally, or should I say Vaughn is.

Orion and the Dark

3 (out of 4)

            So I’d say Charlie Kaufman has made light of the loneliness and despondence of any age save for preadolescence — never too late! In what amounts to Dreamworks’ most daring feat in years in spirit and in substance alone comes a meta bedtime story with uncommon philosophical ponderousness and challenging narrative flimsiness rubbing against the grain of modern animation. We haven’t seen the rogue Kaufman screenplay outside of his own hands since, what, Eternal Sunshine? The fact that this is some Dreamworks Animation production is even more troublesome — how many kids are you gonna traumatize just so everyone’s turning their thoughts closer to the void of death? I jest, as for all his morose misery-mucking, few cinematic wordsmiths match his ability to scramble the intellect, needle emotion and elaborate on existence, and the way that this fits into animation’s annals (especially contrast to the mundane stop-motion mind-rape of his co-directed and completely written Anomalisa) is an unanticipated blessing and conundrum.

Unfortunately, though this could curiously almost be mistaken for one of late Pixar’s finest efforts for maturity alone, there are indeed trademark Dreamworks shortcuts. First, most obviously, there's less inspired character design — the run of fantasy sleep characters (even more lightly detailed than the misfits of Inside Out or Rise of the Guardians) is a little too generic but just a product of the cheaper animation, apparently courtesy of the same folks behind the simple thick-lined style of Captain Underpants, which in all respect made the most of the potty-humored, “from the mind of a child” feel. More disappointing is despite Kaufman as sole screenwriter, lines as stock and standard as “hold on to your butts” sneak their way in, so no doubt potential greatness is on a leash. God, the part where Orion becomes a really prejudiced asshole isn't much more than a bland emotional conflict, so if you remove those few clichés that even the most shrewd self-awareness cannot erase or improve upon and beef up the wobbly second act, this would be its own compact masterpiece.

For Kaufman, imposing on kids even more nihilism and heavier profundities on top of the fantasy yarn about overcoming basic phobic obstacles in daily life (or rather, MAKING THE MOVIE BETTER) would’ve just made things more devastating — there are really gracious sentiments regardless of him sucking his own dick a bit since he knows Netflix, Dreamworks or whoever is backing something superior to the usual lowest common denominator fare, something that eagerly ponders nothingness, generational inheritance and fear itself. This really must’ve been some kind of therapeutic comedown following I’m Thinking of Ending Things, seeing as Charlie sidesteps the archetypal animated zaniness to get too real about anxiety in its most innocent sense. See, even though it bows down to a certain cuteness, the voice cast is not overrun in celebrity nonsense and the thematic weight is virtually unparalleled for the brand — yes, this may be up there with the early Shreks, Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon, with none of the franchise potential, like back when they made poorly received 2D animated movies that nonetheless undeniably rest among the brand’s surest artistic strokes: Prince of Egypt, Road to El Dorado, Sinbad and of course Aardmann assists like Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

But that unchecked box next to profitability meant an unceremonious Netflix dump (Ending Things too barely came to theaters, understandable in prime pandemic times), and any attempt to sweep this under the rug is lightyears more respectable than how they’re burying the direct-to-streaming Megamind sequel with little returning talent. But to fortify my defensive tone, it’s crazy considering he’s working with about 20 pages that this is just Kaufman riffing, trying to make something out of the grand adventure Orion and Dark are supposed to have in a blink of an eye before the credits roll, eyelids fall and its time for beddy-bye. But for pulling this right out of his ass 95% of the time, Charlie revels in the idea of spinning something for kids that ABSOLUTELY REFUSES to talk down to them even if the ‘story’ has to be solved by your grandson inserting time travel like he’s a Marvel Exec. This is a movie containing profound, productive ideas for the youngest among us, an intellectual commitment amounting to infinitely more than a simple capacity to distract some single-digit snot-nosed whipper snapper — Orion and the Dark sidesteps cringy first person perspective from frame one and breaks down the confines of conventional storytelling before the halfway mark.

“You want me to end it with a dance party?” Kaufman can’t help but make fun of Dreamworks’ formulas while he fashions something much more meaningful out of his rendition. “The stories that make a difference are the ones that are true” pleas the daughter, from outside the frame narrative, to let Orion be scared, and as part of the audience you can’t help but be thankful that someone cares about screenwriting's effect on brain even more than the flashes of color and the whites of wide, sympathetic eyes. Somehow this standalone mini-miracle is worth weighing plenty of 2024’s remaining months against, and is easily the best thing Dreamworks has dished out since the first Dragon, next to Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, maybe.