Guy Ritchie’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E. comes at a significant disadvantage. It’s but the fourth secret agent film released in 2015, the third to enter the summer season and the second to arrive based on a popular ‘60s television series — the latter in the past two weeks, no less. The odds are against it, and its back is up against the wall, but does this super spy movie buckle down and wring itself out of its predicament? Well, sorta.
There’s no faulting the re-imagining in regards to sheer spunk. The pacing is electric, everyone on screen is enthused and there’s a nice stability between action eccentricity and brainpower to boot. It’s not necessarily smart, though — much like the director’s past two Sherlock Holmes movies — it doesn’t completely check its brain at the door either. It’s brisk and slick, letting the style tower above everything else but never entering light with regards to substance. The plot serves an active role, even though the action, the set pieces, the period mood and the character dynamics are always prior concerns. It’s swift, yet also quite cool-headed and collected. It’s also not nearly as loose fitting and refreshingly unbridled as it wants to be, though. Despite all its fine quips and well-sliced editing, there’s nothing particularly special about this special agent feature.
In 1963, near the height of the Cold War, C.I.A. agent Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and KGB operative Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) must put away their differences and team together in order to take down a nefarious criminal organization, one with plans to steal nuclear power and government technology when the Soviet Union and the United States’ balance is on the fringe. Hostilities between these government representatives are not easily lost, but moving them forward is Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander), the daughter of a missing scientist and their link towards Victoria Vinciguerra (Elizabeth Debicki), the woman running the operation they’re assigned to stop. Through one another, they compact what’s soon-to-become the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, a.k.a. the namesake of the title’s abbreviation: U.N.C.L.E.
It’s an annoying bugger to type, but nevertheless one Warner Bros. hopes audiences adore as they desperately gun for another ripe franchise by tackling this forgotten property. A ‘60s action period piece to the nines, it knows exactly what it wants to be and savors the possibilities. Gorgeous locations are jumped around. Punches are thrown almost every ten minutes. Finely tailored are a must for every male character to wear. Missiles are always on the freights. It’s a protocol spy mission film also corresponding as a buddy comedy. Ritchie is very likely aware of how much originality his premise lacks but, because he’s having so much fun with it, he could care less. The familiar beats, loud period attires or expectedly overblown action pieces never embarrass him for a second. Rather, he uses them to lavish in their extremities, though he’s quick to never let them become the punchline.
The approach is anything but serious, and the unabashedly unconstrained comedic tone carries the blockbuster through. But unlike 21 or 22 Jump Street and some other cinematic TV revivals of late, though, the joke is never satirizing the material nor at its expense. Much like the studio's 2008 cinematic revival Get Smart, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. respects the source material, taking the concept seriously but plays it goofy. Also similar to Peter Segal movie too, however, it’s not always as funny as it hopes and doesn’t quite have enough material to make itself sustain past good-looking leads and exquisite locales. When it’s funny, however, it’s quite droll. It’s never lazy in its fun-loving attempts, but by never trying anything new or attempting to go against conventions, it comes across as second-rate entertainment primarily for not presenting anything particularly invigorating or interesting. The charm isn’t consistent, and its cutesy approach isn’t enough to carry the nearly two-hour running time.
Cavill and Hammer, however, do a noble job to swim this revival along with elegance and stride. Though their waning American and Russian accents, respectively, provide no favors — and both are just a tad too stiff to make the intended loose vibes vibrate — they work off one another just fine and thankfully never outdo one another. Instead, their performances complement each other. Hammer keeps Cavill’s womanizing, multilingual sleuth in check, while Cavill makes sure Hammer’s anger-prone, steely-eyed stick-in-the-mud has some levity. The same can also be said for Vikander regarding the latter, and — though she’s unfortunately never given the opportunity to shine as well as she did in Ex Machina — she more than holds her own against her male counterparts.
All three bounce off one another well, keeping the humor between them refreshingly dry as they let the action become extravagant around them. They provide enough wit and charm to smooth over some bumps in this overly glossy and overextended ride, and the same can be said for their co-star Hugh Grant as the delightfully subdued boss behind U.N.C.L.E. cohort operations, Alexander Waverly. Debicki, too, particularly relishes her female fatale to fun results, though her character’s motivations are often too weak to resonate and therefore fails to serve as a proper adversary. Those faults, however, come from Ritchie and Lionel Wigram’s screenplay, but they at least give the dialogue the pulp needed for this movie to strive. If only they didn’t have to rely all so often on our main characters going head-on into the clichés of the can’t-get-along buddy flick. This keeps The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’s success at an arm’s reach.
Its flaws would be more forgivable if it’s satisfaction provided more than simple nostalgia for a previous filmmaking era and a winking sense of humor about their shortcomings — something Kingsman already sufficed, and then some, earlier this year. Add in how well Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation balanced comedy and action stunt pieces to fresh and invigorating results within this well-worn genre, and it becomes harder to celebrate The Man From U.N.C.L.E. simply for serving adequate amusement with little new added to the equation. This is without me even seeing what Spy provided, let alone what Spectre offers later this year. Ritchie’s movie is never a tough sit, but it’s a difficult one to distinguish from its peers. It's hard to champion its indifference, despite its fine cast and polished décor, for it’s neither good nor bad enough to make a difference. It pins you into an uninspired half nelson, but you never give it the satisfaction of saying uncle.