Sunday 24 March 2024

Arjille

I was looking forward to seeing this. Due to reasons, I missed it in the theatres, so had to wait for the VOD.

Elly is a writer... or is she? Is she a psychic that can predict the actions of spys? Or can she? Certainly one spy seems to think she has more capability than she thinks she does, so the Evil Spy Agency(tm) is now after her... or are they?

There are twists in this... and also a lot of unreliable narrator. Some of them I picked because... they were really obvious if you thought about things for a moment. Admittedly, in the cinema, I couldn't pause like I could here, to go "hang on, that doesn't make sense" or "that means that... that person is the thing." That's always the worst thing for stories with a "twist" in the plot, if you get time to think away from the story, you can jump to the obvious conclusions that are the right conclusions.

While we have big names in this, can I just start by saying I was disappointed in Dua Lipa's role. She has a lot of time in the trailer, but then only like five minutes of screen time. What was in the trailer was basically her entire role! And Henry Cavill wasn't much more. So we do rely on Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell to carry us through... and yes there is Sam Rockwell dancing, so Matthew Vaughn didn't waste his appearance there.

And speaking of Vaughn, there are some classic Vaughn'ian bits, from colourful shot composition to, yes, colourful smoke. Does he get smoke by the volume or something? The most unconvincing parts are the CGI cat, as you can see in the trailer, which DO NOT WORK.

I was told I didn't need to see this on the big screen to get the experience and... sure, they were right. This is a fine movie, but not one to blow me away.

[END]

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