The Man from U.N.C.L.E. ** (2015, Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Hugh Grant, Jared Harris, Elizabeth Debicki) – Movie Review

UNCLE? My giddy aunt! Henry Cavill stars as CIA agent Napoleon Solo and Armie Hammer plays KGB operative Illya Kuryakin, who after a lot of fighting one another in early 1960s Berlin, end up working together as spy Men from U.N.C.L.E.

Bared on the Sixties TV show, co-writer/director Guy Ritchie’s action movie caper is painless but pointless. It’s flashy and fast moving, so the near-two hours going whizzing by. But it never settles down to being actually tense, exciting or fun.

Cavill and Hammer seem very serious blokes, not at all suited to the Mission: Impossible entertainment that seems to be planned. And they’re both saddled with the most peculiar accents, Cavill’s American as dodgy as Hammer’s Russian. But maybe that’s the joke. What’s supposed to be funny isn’t always clear. Perhaps the two men would be better in the other’s role.

They’re both startlingly handsome, in that vintage period way suitable to the era, though they don’t seem to be able to bring much more to the table. But they put lots of energy into the action, when the stuntmen and CGI let them, and they work really hard with the sticky dialogue and situations in the script. It’s not their fault, but I’m guessing they’ll take any blame that’s going here.

The post-Cuban missile crisis origin ‘story’ about a CIA/KGB joint mission against a mysterious criminal organization working to proliferate nuclear weapons never really gets going or gets interesting. It’s not a serious spy story or a spoof either, somehow falling into the gap between them.

It’s just a set-up and premise, fleshed out into an episodic ‘and then’ ‘and then’ ‘and then’ series of situations, and flashed out by Ritchie’s understandably nervous over-editing. Cue split screens and more CGI.  The un-sparkling lines in the script feels as though they are making them up as they go along, and there apparently is much improvised dialogue.

The alluring Alicia Vikander from Gothenburg has a lot to do as the German femme fatale woman Gaby Teller, but doesn’t seem at all comfortable here. She tries her best but just doesn’t get the joke. She and Hammer can’t work up much screen chemistry, but then nor can Cavill and Hammer.

A miscast Hugh Grant is totally lost and side-lined as spy boss Mr Waverly, a role that doesn’t offer him the chance to do what he’s good at, the Hugh Grant  turn. Jared Harris is wasted with maybe one scene as spy boss Sanders. But Elizabeth Debicki camps it up gamely and is quite fun as the evil Elizabeth Debicki.

This reboot of, or homage to, the 1964-68 hit television series is based on the concept by Sam Rolfe. As a belated movie version of a Sixties TV show, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. comes out more like The Avengers (1998) than Mission: Impossible, and that’s not good. It’s also reminiscent of the Lone Ranger reboot (2013), which Hammer also starred in, and that’s not good either.

The production even manages to make their Italian locations look uninteresting, or at least mundane, and that’s a hard trick to pull off. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. bears as much resemblance to the TV show as Ritchie’s last two movies, Sherlock Holmes (2009) and A Game of Shadows (2011), did to Conan Doyle. That is he takes the title and the characters and that’s it. Nevertheless, they were very popular. So I guess fans of those, and Ritchie’s fans generally, will be happy with this one.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com