Rating: P13
Director: Guy Ritchie
Cast: Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki and Hugh Grant
Length: 117 minutes
Opening: Now playing
IT'S taken quite a while, but the big screen revival of popular 1960s TV series, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., is finally out, and it’s an enjoyable ride of old-school espionage fun with an unabashedly contemporary tinge.
British actor Henry Cavill (Man of Steel) stars as American CIA agent Napoleon Solo, who finds himself having to form a team with Russian KGB spy Illya Kuryakin, played by Armie Hammer (The Social Network, The Lone Ranger) during the height of the Cold War. Together they have to stop an international criminal organisation from selling nuclear bombs to ex-Nazis bent on reviving their agenda. At the centre of the operation is also Gaby Teller, played by Swedish actress Alicia Vikander (Pure, Ex Machina), whose estranged father Dr Udo Teller was once Hitler’s favourite rocket scientist.
The film’s director, Guy Ritchie, is joined once again by Louis Wigram, also his co-producer and co-screenwriter in both the 2009 and 2011 Sherlock Holmes films. Ritchie took the helm after a long line of directors, from the likes of Quentin Tarantino to Matthew Vaughn, David Dobkin and Steven Soderbergh dropped out of the project. Taking almost 20 years to get made — producer John Davis optioned the film rights in 1993 and commissioned no less than 12 scripts — production for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. also endured an extensive change of actors, including Hollywood’s biggest names such as George Clooney, who left due to a back injury, as well as Tom Cruise, who had to focus on Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, before Cavill was cast.
It is clear that Ritchie and Wigram brought their experience and success with their re-imagined Sherlock Holmes’ genre-blurring take on period films to The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and its stylised 60s setting. The outcome is a detailed tip of the hat to the era, one that captures the essence of the cultural and political connotations, while avoiding the pitfall of coming across as a mere caricature of the original series.
Contributing to that is the attractive cast of relatively fresh faces and an original prequel story of how the U.N.C.L.E. organisation, which stands for United Network Command for Law and Enforcement (just like in the TV series, the name is revealed in the credits), came about.
The chemistry between Cavill’s suave but self-serving Solo and Hammer’s volatile and typically gruff Kuryakin makes for rather likeable dynamics. Added in the mix is current it-girl, Vikander, who competently straddles both feisty East Berlin mechanic and stylish society girl. It may not be a performance of incredible depth, but each personified their characters well enough.
Referencing the tone of early Bond films — incidentally, Ian Fleming contributed to the concept for the TV series — as well as hints of French and Italian films of the time, Ritchie and Ingram paid incredible attention to detail when it comes to style, costumes and even music.
As for the action, Ritchie succeeds in keeping the blockbuster element while coming across suitably lo-fi as per the period. Though its climatic scene is a high speed chase that might be sedate by today’s standards, Ritchie excels in making it no less an exhilarating experience.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’s weakest link is a rather unsubstantial plot that tends to drag and dip in the middle, though it is fleshed out as best as it could with subtle humour and hints of self-parody throughout. But then again, for what it lacks as a spy thriller of depth, it makes up for the enjoyable and stylishly re-imagined homage to the filmmaking of the 60s.
This article first appeared in digitaledge Daily, on August 14, 2015.