Henry Cavill makes physical authority look easy, but we prefer him when he is allowed to find it funny. His action work convinces; Argylle shows how little happens when a film simply admires the tailoring.
Fi1m perspective
Henry Cavill smokes through the briefings in The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024), delivering his lines as though he has already heard enough. As Gus March-Phillips, he treats the moustache as part of the entertainment. Guy Ritchie gives him room to be pleased with himself, and the pleasure is catching. We like him better this way, with some mischief in the good manners. The film’s consequence-free killing grows tiresome, and a relaxed leading man cannot fix that.
Man of Steel (2013) established him as an action lead, with the build and conviction to play Superman. Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher (2019–2023) continued that physically committed, stoic work. Between those roles, Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) found a lighter use for him as Napoleon Solo. That spy caper understood how much could be done with flirtation before anyone needed to fight. It is the direction we would like more directors to pursue, rather than treating his size and solemnity as the whole performance.
As August Walker in Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), he has a film whose action rewards that physical commitment. Christopher McQuarrie stages the stunts clearly, with Tom Cruise making the danger matter through visible effort. The spy plot is needlessly tangled and the running time generous, but this is where we would send anyone interested in Cavill’s action work.
In Matthew Vaughn’s Argylle (2024), Bryce Dallas Howard’s novelist keeps seeing her fictional spy in place of Sam Rockwell’s scruffy fighter. Editors Lee Smith, Col Goudie and Tom Harrison-Read switch the men mid-blow, so Rockwell throws the punch and Cavill lands it. We laughed at that train fight because the switch made such precise use of the difference between them. Stephanie Collie’s sharp suits make Cavill’s tidiness part of the joke. George Richmond shoots the fantasy spy sequences in postcard colour, but Cavill gets little to do beyond looking right in them.
For too much of Argylle, he is kept handsome and remote, and his reserve leaves us little to respond to. He needs another performer to challenge that composure, or dialogue that allows him to play with it. Start with Fallout for the action and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. for the flirting.
Biography
Henry William Dalgliesh Cavill is a British actor. He began his career with roles in the feature adaptations of The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) and I Capture the Castle (2003). He later appeared in supporting parts in television series including The Tudors (2007–2010) as Charles Brandon, as well as The Inspector Lynley Mysteries and Midsomer Murders.
Cavill gained international recognition for portraying Superman in the DC Extended Universe films Man of Steel (2013), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and Justice League (2017). He has also starred in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015), Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), The Witcher (2019–2023) as Geralt of Rivia, Enola Holmes (2020) as Sherlock Holmes, Argylle (2024) as Argylle, and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024) as Maj. Gus March-Phillips.
