Henry Cavill has had a wide range of roles across several genres, from playing Superman in the DCEU, monster hunter Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher, and Sherlock Holmes in the Enola Holmes movie series. Most importantly, he has also seen himself take on several roles across the spy genre. This comes considering that he was, at one point, shortlisted as a possible James Bond before losing the role to Daniel Craig in the mid-2000s.
Nevertheless, the actor has explored the genre in many ways beyond James Bond. Not only has Cavill taken on the leading archetype of suave gentleman spy as Napoleon Solo in The Man From U.N.C.L.E, but he also portrayed World War II SAS hero Gus March-Phillipps in The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare with frequent collaborator Guy Ritchie. The actor would also play the antagonistic CIA agent and foe to Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt August Walker in Mission: Impossible – Fallout. However, his 2024 return to the genre had a twist that proved to be too much for some audiences.
Corridor Crew Praises Argylle’s Most Outlandish Action Sequence
The 2024 Spy Comedy Was Too Absurd For Critics But Featured Painstaking VFX
Argylle has received renewed praise for one of its standout sequences. While Cavill played the тιтular secret agent, Matthew Vaughn’s spy comedy didn’t actually focus on his character. Instead, it followed Bryce Dallas Howard’s author Elly Conway, as she is roped into a complicated international plot centered on her book’s potential to predict the future. The movie also featured Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Dua Lipa, and Samuel L. Jackson. Despite an all-star cast and high ambitions for its franchise’s future, Argylle‘s antics outstayed its welcome with its widely-derided plot, earning it 33% on Rotten Tomatoes and deeming it a flop.
However, Corridor Crew has looked beyond the critical consensus and turned their attention to its standout action sequence in the latest edition of their “VFX Artist React” video series, breaking down Elly’s oil-skating showdown with a group of henchmen. Despite the scene’s absurdity, Niko praised how carefully animated CG doubles and backdrops were implemented in the incredibly active sequence, even throughout the reflections on the oil, to maintain clear continuity. Building upon footage captured on an actual ice skating rink and motion capture studios for the close-ups, the carefully animated VFX left the team in awe:
Here’s the thing, they did all this on a real ice skating rink. This is filmed with a real ice skater doing the moves, and they’re comping in everything around them. They’re comping in the oil slick and the engine, The motion is super important here, they got what matters, which is they have a real person on ice skates, and like all the fluid sims and stuff like, tracked by hand. I don’t know, I’m actually pretty impressed with it, like it’s a goofy scene…
Our Thoughts On Argylle’s Oil-Skate Showdown
The Movie’s Stunts Were Developed By An Industry Icon
Despite its eye-catching cast and crew, Argylle was not the hit Vaughn had hoped for. Argylle‘s ending not only concluded with a strange world-shattering twist that implied that Elly and Cavill’s supposedly fictional Argylle co-existed all along, but its mid-credits scene suggested the latter had been an agent of Kingsman in his early career. While it’s not the franchise’s most infamous ending, it did leave audiences confused and diminished excitement for either series’ potential future.
Nevertheless, Elly’s oil-skating free-for-all has become the movie’s highlight that has shaken off its reputation online, as those who were left uninterested shared and praised it through social media. The Kingsman franchise has plenty of spectacular fights thanks to the talent of the late stunt coordinator Brad Allan, with Argylle being one of his final works in a long line of incredibly rhythmic and memorable action set-pieces. As such, Corridor Crew’s praise is not only a welcome celebration of painstaking VFX but also a deserved acknowledgment of a great artist’s final works.
Source: Corridor Crew
