Argylle Sets Unfortunate Rotten Tomatoes Record for Director Matthew Vaughn

Record Low Score for Matthew Vaughn

Ahead of Argylle's theatrical premiere, the film's early reviews from critics have resulted in a record low at Rotten Tomatoes for director Matthew Vaughn.

On the review aggregator website, Argylle has launched with a debut score of 37%, declaring the movie to be 'rotten.' This is the record low for films directed by Matthew Vaughn, falling beneath 2021's The King's Man's score of 40%.

Vaughn only has one other film that's been labeled as rotten at Rotten Tomatoes, which is 2017's Kingsman: The Golden Circle. That movie's score is 50%, while the next lowest score for Vaughn is the original film in the franchise, 2014's Kingsman: The Secret Service, which is certified fresh at 75%.

Negative Reviews from Critics

With Argylle, the majority of the reviews from Rotten Tomatoes-approved critics are negative, and some of them are pulling no punches with their criticism of the film. Globe and Mail critic Barry Hertz described Argylle as 'one of the most chaotically stupid action movies to torture audiences in ages,' while Rolling Stone reviewer David Fear summed up the film as a 'very, very bad movie.'

'An overlong and uninspired outing that fails to take full advantage of its cast, and even with moments of delightful action, it's a toothless imitator of Vaughn's more entertaining spy stories,' ComicBook.com critic Patrick Cavanaugh added. Meanwhile, IndieWire's David Ehrlich found that the PG-13 rating only hurt the film, as he stated, 'Vaughn’s juvenile sense of humor is a poor match for the rom-com energy of [Jason] Fuchs’ script, and the director only seems further declawed by the decision to make this movie PG-13.'

Mixed Audience Reception

Of course, it's worth noting that audience scores can sometimes be very different from the critics, with 2023's The Super Mario Bros. Movie serving as a great example of this, given its near-perfect audience score and 'rotten' Rotten Tomatoes rating. There are also a handful of critics that enjoyed Argylle more than others, with Collider's Maggie Lovitt describing the flick as 'the perfect date movie, even if the date is with yourself.'