The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

66% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 183 reviews)

Runtime: 116 minutes

Directed by: Guy Ritchie

Starring: Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki, Hugh Grant

From: Warner Bros.

Last night I returned to the Cinepolis theatre in Davenport (where I only went to once before and I had a bad experience there on a bad day and I saw the bad film Jurassic World) and this time I had a better experience there. Despite the middling reviews on it I still decided to see this movie. Well, it is a middling film, sad to say. See me explain why below in the Letterboxd review:

Should I have considered it a bad sign when I was recently told by my parents that even they didn't really watch the 60's TV show this property was based on, and they were teenagers at the time? I am pretty sure I never saw any reruns of it as a kid. Guy Ritchie... I have seen and rated LS&TSB pretty highly and Snatch (which I'll review here at a later date) I also would give a high score to, but Sherlock Holmes I haven't seen since I saw it on the big screen and I didn't really care for it; once I see that again I'll discuss at that time my issues with it. Despite those signs, it disappointing at the box office and not so solid reviews, I still took a chance on the movie, and I may be a little generous in giving it an average rating.

The plot... there isn't much to it. Super spies Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin from the CIA and KGB respectively must team together to stop the production of a nuclear warhead in Italy by some mysterious people. It's really as simple as that, which is not necessarily bad. I wasn't disappointed with the simplicity or how the story did not have a lot of action. I only barely paid attention to the commercials and if I ever saw a trailer it went in and out of my mind so I wasn't swayed by what I presume was just another example of dishonest marketing. Rather, as the story unravels you realize just how hollow things are and once it was over and examined it as a whole, I realized how bad and nonsensical it actually was; the fact that it was another “style over substance” product and I am usually not a fan of those...

Also, as someone who never watched the source material, did Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo CONSTANTLY act hammy and campy to the point of being creepy and unnatural? Because Henry Cavill certainly did here. No matter the case, I don't blame the actor for the performance; I wish that the director wouldn't have directed him to act that way, as at least with me it got old pretty quickly and it annoyed me more than anything else. At least I thought the rest of the performances were fine or better. Armie Hammer did a nice job portraying a Soviet in Illya; I discovered after the film that his great-grandfather was Armand Hammer, a very rich man who had ties to the Soviet Union and in fact is rumored to have been a spy for the KGB. What a wild story.

Despite the major issues I have with the story and how it was a whole lot of nothing, I can still rate it as average, albeit with a reservation or two from me. Hopefully I am not being too generous here but it does have some merits. The setting is the early 60's, which I was happy with, as it meant groovy clothing, a cool style, a classic setting that should have led to better than what we got, and what I thought was a very good score, whether it be the songs they used or what Daniel Pemberton came up with; I especially enjoyed the jazzy interludes.

Also, while I haven't seen Ex Machina yet it does sound like something more to my tastes and to be honest, I noticed that Alicia Vikander was a rather attractive lady, at least according to my tastes. Well, in this film she looked very pretty and was great in those colorful early 60's outfits. She also delivered a quality performance as the dame who has to work with the two spies as her dad is involved in the nefarious plot from the villains. I think it's cool that there are a pair of brunette Swedish women who have broken out this year and are well-known around the world rather than just in their native homelands.

I wonder what would have happen if Tarantino had done his adaptation in the 90's, or if the studios weren't their typical idiotic selves and Soderbergh would have directed Clooney back a few years ago. I will presume both would have had better plots than this did. The general idea seemed fine-a retro cracking spy film-but the execution was lacking here.