So, after a trip to Canada last week and a short visit from my in-laws I took a little break from the blog. I saw some movies, watched some TV, read some books, but didn't write about any of them.
But two nights ago I went to see The Man from U.N.C.L.E., the new Guy Ritchie film starring Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer, and Alicia Vikander, and I had to write about it for three big reasons:
1. 2015 has been a stirring year for spy pictures. Kingsmen led things off, and is still one of the most entertaining films that I have seen this year, Melissa McCarthy's Spy was an astonishingly funny send-up of the genre, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation was the best film in that franchise, and Spectre is coming to us this December with high expectations. U.N.C.L.E. is a strong addition of this set of films.
2. I absolutely adored the television series that this film is based on.
3. That series, which ran from 1964-1968, and now the film are perhaps the best examples of the vast degree of interconnectedness that run through all culture. To name just two of these connections:
1) Robert Vaughn (who played Napoleon Solo), was long thought to be the father of Matthew Vaughn, who has directed several of the X-Men films (as well as the aforementioned Kingsmen). As if this connection between the television series and contemporary super-hero movies weren't enough, it turned out that many years later a paternity test revealed that Matthew Vaughn was in fact the son of George de Vere Drummond, an English aristocrat who was the godson of King George VI, whose father was elevated to the dormant "de Vere" title whose most famous previous holder was Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who many people have (erroneously) credited with writing the works of William Shakespeare. The connections spawned by that web only gets crazier from there as you track them out.
2) The concept for the character Napoleon Solo was designed by Ian Flemming, the author who brought the world James Bond. I won't even get into all of the consequences of that creation.
Now, you can play this kind of game with any television show or film, but the amazing thing about U.N.C.L.E. is the way the connections seem to double and treble, forging woven cords connecting disparate forms of popular culture. It is like Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton family, but in real life. Which is kind of cool.
So, it was a foregone conclusion that I would see the new film. Which, naturally, raises the question: how was it?
Well, it was good. Not great, but good.
It was slick, professional, and featured some fantastic moments. Hugh Grant does some of his best work in ages as Waverly. Alicia Vikander provides further confirmation of Rogue Nation and Mad Max: Fury Road's argument that women can anchor films built around action set pieces. Her character is the most fully realized of the three major parts. She is having a fantastic year, having already gained some attention for her role as Ava in Ex Machina. To make a long story short, Guy Ritchie has demonstrated that he is adept at making a particular kind of movie, and U.N.C.L.E. is no exception. I would expect it to make something like $280 million internationally, earn a sequel, and all of the usual steps that a movie like this goes through despite being crushed domestically by the N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton. That almost doesn't matter anymore, and the early reports are that Russia has embraced the film.
The reason the film isn't able to transcend being merely "good" is that neither Solo nor Kuryakin are convincingly acted.
Henry Cavill is a perfect actor to play Superman because he is, at heart, as square of heart as he is of jaw. There isn't a cool bone in his body. Even though he is gorgeous and chisled, there is not one ounce of that charisma that animates a performer like Matt Bomer, who (my wife pointed out as we left the theater) played a better version of this role on USA's White Collar.
Hammer is only slightly better off. But while David McCallum made Ilya Kuryakin into a cultural phenomenon (publications from the sixties frequently referred to him as "the fifth Beatle" because of the way that female fans flocked to him wherever he went during the years the show aired), Hammer seems content to play him as a violent psycho barely in control of himself. The difference in the performances was that McCallum's Kuryakin was a cipher, Hammer's is...well, he performs like his name implies he would, with force but no subtlety.
But there are parts that are funny, some parts that have some genuine emotional heft, and some high quality set pieces. Even if you aren't a superfan of the show like I am, there is stuff worth seeing here.
Rating: 3/4
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