Bryce Dallas Howard’s new movie savaged by critics: ‘Chaotically stupid’

Argylle has been near-universally panned by reviewers.

It cost USD $200 million (£158 million) to make and was touted as the hottest new spy movie since 2021’s No Time To Die, but the comedy-spy outing has been thoroughly mauled by reviewers after its first day in theatres.

The story of a shy female spy novelist – played by Bryce – the movie includes a stacked cast of A-listers including Dua Lipa, Henry Cavill, and Samuel L Jackson.

But they were not enough to lift it out of the critics’ firing line, leading The Daily Beast writer Nick Schager to ask, “How many movie stars can one fiasco squander?”.

He was not alone.

“One of the most chaotically stupid action movies to torture audiences in ages,' Barry Hertz from Globe and Mail wrote.

“Argylle is a bad movie,” was David Fear from Rolling Stone’s straight-shooting take. “A very, very bad movie.”

The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw laid blame at director Matthew Vaughn’s feet for bringing out a “waxy” performance from Bryce.

“Through some terrible directing anti-alchemy, he has elicited an awful lead performance here from Bryce Dallas Howard as spy novelist Elly Conway,” he wrote.

“She looks waxy, inert and uncomfortable; it’s as if she is wearing cut-glass contact lenses, with a torpid, unfocused quality.”