The men from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. were in N.Y.C. Monday night for a premiere of the adaptation of the 1960s spy series.
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Hopefully, moviegoers haven’t gotten completely burnt out from all the spy movies that have been released this year so far.
She has been hard at work drumming up interest for her latest action film, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. And, the audience shouldn’t care either. But it is a false promise that distracts from some of the other pleasures (and missteps) of the spectacle. How is that Vikander, who played the robot in the recent (and worthwhile) “Ex Machina“, was twice as lively and five times as human in that picture than in “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”? In fact, the forgettable acronym is uttered once and explained only in text in the closing credits. They’re led by the icy Victoria Vinciguerra (Elizabeth Dibicki), who, by the by, looks quite a bit like noughties-era Madonna.
Some may be surprised that the film works as well as it does largely due to the unconventional pairing of Henry Cavill (Man of Steel) and Armie Hammer (The Lone Ranger), whose roles as iconic heroes barely compare to their takes on Solo and Kuryakin.
Director Guy Ritchie offers an intriguing and captivating introduction, though, weaving together humor, action, and stylish, angular shots in a disarmingly simple, but effective opening sequence. Ritchie gives us an entertaining, rickety Trabant car-chase at the very beginning, but from then on the forthright verities of action and tension are abandoned in favour of supposed stylishness, creamy art direction and uninteresting dialogue, subtitled and otherwise.
The unlikely pairing of suave American agent Napoleon Solo and tightly coiled Ukrainian rival Illya Kuryakin during the Cold War remains unchanged in Ritchie’s script, co-written by Lionel Wigram. “At 6′ 5”, Hammer is an imposing presence, but even on screen, the wonder with which everyone treats this “giant” seems like a stretch. Fortunately, said the actor, it was easy to research the accent.
The trailer already shows Gaby’s impressive strength as she wrestles Hammer’s Illya to the floor. The more emotionally heavy moments could have been handled better and it would have been nice to get a villain with more tangible motivation (we get it, Hollywood, Nazis were evil) but it’s really gratifying after all the years it’s spent in development hell to see this franchise finally get the reimagining it’s been clamouring for. Action sequences, sexiness, and humor carry the carry U.N.C.L.E. from start to finish. From there it devolves into a series of revelations with diminishing returns.
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It’s the type of film that’s more interested in having side characters say pretty things like “I’m on a strict diet of champagne and caviar”, and making sure model-like hotel clerks submit within minutes of casual propositions, than it is in its main story.
