Argylle (and I.S.S.) by JEWELSTAITEFAN

CINEMA

Argylle (and I.S.S.)

POSTED BY: JEWELSTAITEFAN
UPDATED: Wednesday, February 28, 2024 09:55
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VIEWED: 162
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Tuesday, February 27, 2024 12:37 PM

I saw I.S.S. and Argylle on the same night, back to back on Argylle's 2nd night in cinema.

I didn't realize it, but both cast lists included Ariana DeBose. I didn't recognize her from one to the other, either. In I.S.S. she is the primary character, and in Argylle she is part of a large cast.

I.S.S. is set in space, so it is a diorama fim, single setting, could be done as a stage play.
The director is female, and I could not determine what was the look she wanted. The photography is primarily grainy. Overall, I got he impression the goal of the film was "token" - make a film by the token female director. It amounts to another entry in the Escape Room, Panic Room, Lord of the Flies or cat-and-mouse type of story.

Argylle.
Some decades ago, I saw a film called The Crying Game. At one point in the film, i felt as if I must have gone to the toilet and then returned to the wrong theater screen. There seemed to be a different story showing, but at least one character seemed similar. Then that happened again. After the film, I felt as if i had watched 3 different films, but they were encapsulated into one.

Argylle reminded me of this.
The first part of the film was quite entertaining, and made me think of Enchanted. Almost all of the trailer, particularly the best parts, are from this section of the film.
The film segues into a second form, which reminded me of The Man Who Knew Too Little. Also quite enjoyable. The rest of the trailer is comprised of this segment of the film.
Then the film makes a jarring shift into what could be referred to as the Kingsman portion. I don't recall any of this portion being included in the trailer. At this point, it might be a good idea to get some snacks, visit the toilet, and other critical activities. This might be thought of "over the top" or "jumping the shark" - both fitting.
You will likely want to return to the film (absent a FFWD button) in order to find out what the ending is all about, and how it works.

I'm not sure if Bryce was the most believable casting decision. I expect Jodie Comer would have done much better.

There is a coda, a scene after the main actor single credits, but before the main cast credit roll.

Because it took me so long to finally post this, I would not be offended if other review-type posts were copied into here.

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Wednesday, February 28, 2024 9:55 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Haha... That's funny about the Crying Game. I had a similar experience with that one myself. I only knew about it because it was made fun of by Mike Meyers on Saturday Night Live and also by Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura. Fast forward years later and I was watching cable TV late at night and caught the very beginning of it, not knowing what I was watching. I remember I was kind of digging whatever I was watching and I liked Forest Whitaker. It was so long ago I don't even remember anything of the setting but there was some kind of urban guerilla warfare going on or something, right? Then the movie changed all of the sudden and even though I didn't know it for sure I knew that I was watching The Crying Game. I have no further memories of the movie beyond that, so I think I had flipped the channel.

The only other movie I've ever seen that I can compare that to is The Descent from 2005.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435625/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_7_nm_1_q_th
e%2520desce

I went into this one completely blind. The first half of the movie was amazing to me, since I am claustrophobic and I was practically breaking out in hives watching those girls go deeper into that cave system. Particularly when they were fitting through those tiny crevasses and one of the girls got stuck. My skin was crawling just watching it all. Then it turned into some dumb schlocky horror B-Movie and my rating for it went from a 9.5/10 down to a 3/10. Possibly the most disappointing movie experience I've ever had.

So... Kind of a middling review on Argylle from you then, right?

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Because it took me so long to finally post this, I would not be offended if other review-type posts were copied into here.

I don't think anybody else has posted a review about it or mentioned that they've seen it. I put quite a few posts predicting its status as a bomb and watching that play out in real time in the movies you're looking forward to watching in 2024 thread. I won't repost them in here. But I'll repost the thing about my Dad and brother going to see it last week, since it's probably the only thing that qualifies as a review.

From February 22nd:

My dad was visiting my brother and their two choices for a movie were Argylle or Madame Web.

He asked me if I thought Argylle was worth watching or not. He really does like supporting the local family owned theater down there whenever he can. I told him they should go and see it. Though the audience scores aren't particularly high on it, the critics hated it and that's probably a good thing. And I also told him that reviews for it were pretty confusing and all over the map on this one, with people from both sides dunking on it for a myriad of reasons.

But despite what some of the regular hate-baiting YouTubers that I've called out several times here before have been saying, I didn't get the feeling that this movie was woke and it wasn't ruined with DEI agenda points.

So they went and saw it last night. They enjoyed it. He said that I was right and it wasn't woke at all. Though it's not going to make his list of favorite movies or anything, he said that it was worth a watch. He's a fan of Sam Rockwell too, and thought he was the standout character in the movie.

It's a shame that Universal screwed up so bad by paying $200 Million for their first two movies in 2024. [The ill-advised Twister sequel coming out this year is the other one confirmed at a $200 Million budget so far.] I don't know exactly what went wrong in the case of Argylle, but even if it only cost Universal $100 Million to make it still would have been a financial disaster for them. Even at only $50 Million it likely would have lost Universal money.

The actors are getting paid way too much. Plain and simple.

It's time to stop that.

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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

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