As with any year, there have been some right stinkers rolled out to screens big and small over the course of the year so far; from Madame Web to Tarot to the second Rebel Moon film, the dead-on-arrival train is filling up pretty quickly as it barrels towards the Razzies.
But sometimes, it’s more sincere to measure the gap between how bad a movie is and how much it telegraphed that, rather than just the quality of the final product. And so brings us to Argylle, the Matthew Vaughn spy thriller and the latest film in the Kingsman franchise, for some reason.
Indeed, Argylle shot itself in the foot way too many times to win over any critics, who blasted the meek grip on the film’s approach to humor and the severely twisty nothing-burger of a plot. Moreover, it didn’t even earn back half of its $200 million budget at the box office, coming in at $96.2 million, and with nothing else to show for it but memories of tedium.
It’s perhaps appropriate, then, that the Bryce Dallas Howard-led action comedy has been dominating on streaming, since that’s where it should have gone right from the get-go. And while it may be bossing one of the less competitive film charts in Apple TV Plus, a number one global spot is still a number one global spot.
Our best guess? Argylle become Background Noise: The Movie for many of those viewers, with the odd customer queueing it up as a crash course for how to make a two-hour and 19-minute movie feel like a 19-hour and two-minute movie.