Common Sense Media Age: 13+ Violence 3/5 Language 3/5
My Age Recommendation: 12+ (Due to some action violence and language).
I was extremely excited to see trailers for this film back in November of last year, and I was even more enticed when I saw Matthew Vought (who made the amazing Kingsman movies) was directing this one. Upon release, I saw an article saying how this movie was an extreme upset, and the reviews were tanking. I still didn't believe it so I went to see it myself, and it was not as bad as everyone said! The story follows Elly Conway, an award winning novelist who writes stories about a spy named Agent Argylle. When a supposed fan meets her on a train, the fan ends up being a real-life spy who saves her life from attackers on the train. She later learns she is being hunted by an organization called The Division and that the stuff she writes in her novels are actually happening, and she has the key to a missing file that could end this. I will say, this movie is riddled with multiple plot twists throughout, so the synopsis is very small since I want to limit spoilers. This film was not terrible, but it was certainly underwhelming. Starting with the pros, all of the plot twists were creative and completely unexpected while most of them benefited the story well. Although I was worried that Matthew Vought's transition from his previous ultra-violent films to this spy-thriller would be a problem, the action scenes in this film were still satisfying and visually impressive. With the cons, this movie had a pacing problem throughout the middle. It was really rushed and that didn't help with the addition of a plot twist, and this left me with little time to process the twist before the characters jumped back into the narrative. Another problem would be the characters, and while they were definitely entertaining, they were still shallow and lacked decent development. A final problem is the comedic moments, and while the movie didn't really need comedic relief due to the light-hearted story anyways, the comedy usually did not hit. The main reason I gave this movie at a 3 and not a 2 was because it was entertaining, I liked the plot twists, and the visuals were great. The characters were not unbearable (just underdeveloped) and the pacing issue was the main reason for missing a star. It lost another star for comedy since that issue messed up the dialogue throughout the film, but overall it is still a fun movie to watch and enjoy as long as you know it isn't a masterpiece.
