There's a limit to how genuinely sorry one can be expected to feel for strapping, handsome, relatively young millionaires, but even so, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that a moderately empathic observer might conclude that Henry Cavill hasn't always been given a fair crack of the whip. It seemed like the great movie gods decreed that Cavill was going to be a big star before he even stepped in front of a camera, for early appearances in absolute duffers like Immortals did nothing to stop him from swinging lead roles in usually underwhelming big studio franchise movies. Cavill has presence and isn't obviously a terrible actor, and yet I really struggle to think of a film where he has a major role which I actually like – 'could have been worse' is usually the limit of my positive feelings in this area, and don't get me started on his attempt at playing Sherlock Holmes.

Nevertheless, Cavill keeps on plugging away, with a curious new role as executive producer of a Warhammer media franchise in the works – but for the time being that bad luck is still dogging him. He's all over the publicity for Matthew Vaughn's Argylle, with a rather unflattering haircut and wearing an equally unflattering mint-green suit, and it initially looks like the film's going to be all about him. He plays Agent Argylle, an elite spy (for which read James Bond clone) who we meet somewhere in Greece on the trail of a villainous Dua Lipa. There are various ploys and counter-ploys and some dancing and a very destructive car-chase, and I found myself wondering if the whole movie wasn't going to turn out to be a sort of parody-via-excess of the blockbuster spy genre – which, by the way, seems a bit pointless now that not even the people who make Bond films are making this kind of movie any more. Historical parody doesn't have much to commend it as an idea.

But not all is as it seems, for it soon transpires Argylle's adventures are just a story within the story – he is a fictional character created by successful novelist Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Cowboys) for a series of novels. Unlike her hero, Elly is an unadventurous homebody whose idea of a good night is to settle down with her cat and bash out a couple of new chapters. However, while on a train journey one day, she is approached by a stranger (Sam Rockwell) who reveals that she is in deadly danger – he is a genuine spy named Aidan Wylde, and she has become the target of a nefarious international intelligence network. The plots of her spy novels are apparently a bit too close to reality and the bad guys' activities are in danger of being exposed. So Elly and Aidan (and her cat) are forced to go on the run together, dodging villains while they try to locate the information they can use to destroy the enemy network.

Gritty naturalism was never going to be on the menu here, and the tone of Argylle is not that far removed from that of the Kingsman movies Vaughn made a few years ago (though I have to say I liked Argylle more than them). It is probably fair to say that legitimate critics have not been falling over themselves to lavish it with praise – 'shoddy and derivative', according to the BBC, and 'unbearably self-satisfied' in the words of Bradshaw in The Guardian, while Ebert.com's guy is relatively restrained when he just calls it 'forgettable'. These days a big movie not based on a pre-existing property is a risky investment, and the $250 million Argylle's backers have sunk into it will be viewing its comparatively meagre returns to date with concern, no doubt. (The end of the film floats the prospect of a Kingsman crossover, but everything is contingent on the bottom line when it comes to movies on this scale.)

I have to say, however – and this is as someone who liked Vaughn's Layer Cake and X-Men: First Class, but has been left fairly cold by the Kick-Ass and Kingsman films – that we actually really enjoyed it, much to my surprise. Co-spousal unit really enjoyed it, presumably because for a film with a huge body-count it's sort of fluffy and silly and it has an amusing part-CGI'd cat in it. I didn't like it quite as much as her, but I appreciated the proficiency with which the screenplay had been assembled and the performances of many of the cast (Vaughn secures the services of Bryan Cranston and Catherine O'Hara, along with many other people whom he's employed before like Samuel L Jackson and Sofia Boutella) – plus Vaughn doesn't seem to be trying to gratuitously shock or revolt the audience, which is a welcome development.

Nevertheless, I can see why people might take against the movie – for what is, in the end, a fairly lightweight action comedy, Argylle is well over two hours long. Turning as ever to our scientific C/G = L method for assessing such things, and assigning it a generous 1.5G in terms of the depth and importance of its theme, this means it gets a final score of nearly 0.9L, indicating it definitely outstays its welcome (you're aiming for 0.3-0.5). The film is also arguably missing a trick in its approach to the split-level reality which is a significant element of the plot – there's really nothing to choose between the supposedly real world Elly Conway actually lives in and the absurd fantasy reality of Argylle, they're inhabited by the same kind of people and the violence in both is equally cartoony and accompanied by the same disco soundtrack. Vaughn seems more interested in outrageous imagery and action than anything connected to the real world – or, to put it another way, Elly's life ends up being as much of a Bond pastiche as anything she writes.

One can imagine the film taking a different route in this particular area, with interesting results, but it probably wouldn't have been quite as much fun as the version they opted for. In the end this is still, I think, a more than acceptable movie; it's obviously derivative (there are a few other things beside Bond, but citing the major ones would probably constitute spoilers), but the script is inventive and clever enough to get away with it. Whether this attempt at a new franchise is dead on arrival or not probably remains to be seen, but as a standalone movie this is more than entertaining enough to be worthwhile.

Awix

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