The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Is A Fun Spy Romp!

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The Man From U.N.C.L.E. opens with a breathtaking chase sequence as Napoleon Solo engineers an escape from East Germany (over the Berlin Wall) for a pretty auto mechanic named Gaby – who is the daughter of a missing nuclear scientist who has just revolutionized the creation of enriched uranium.

Solo has to work for the escape because a shadowy yet hulking KGB agent is less than a step behind. After succeeding, he is appalled to discover that agent is Ilya Kuryakin – and they will have to work together to find said scientist.

It doesn’t take long for director/co-writer Guy Ritchie give us the poop on Solo (Henry Cavill) and Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) – each has researched the other and we learn that Solo was a decorated soldier in WWII who stayed on afterward as part of the occupation to make fortune in the art black market; while Kuryakin’s father was found to be a traitor and exiled to a gulag, prompting him to excel to the point that he had become the KGB’s best agent in three years.

As for Gaby (Alicia Vikander), she takes a back seat to no one – even when her cover is as fiancée of a Russian architect, a role in which she is uncomfortable but not as uncomfortable as Kuryakin (who has some serious anger management issues – you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry…).

Elizabeth Debicki is sufficiently icy and imperious as villainess Victoria – an Italian aristocrat who is part of a global organization that may or may not have an avian connection. Luca Calvani is a charming mustache twirler as her husband, Alexander – though he doesn’t have nearly as much screen time.

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Then there’s the movie’s version of Joseph Mengele, Gaby’s Uncle Rudi (Sylvester Groth), who revels in causing pain with his vintage equipment – and is good at fixing glitches.

Also superb is smaller roles are Jared Harris as Solo’s hardass of a handler, Sanders, and Hugh Grant as British Intelligence master, Mr. Waverly – both, along with Groth, steal virtually scene they’re in.

There will be comparisons made with the Mission: Impossible films, but The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is a completely different kind of animal. Just as UNCLE was a wittier TV series and Mission: Impossible was more spy thriller, so UNCLE: The Movie is more of a romp while M: I is more of a spy thriller.

Ritchie and co-writer Lionel Wigram have created a very authentic feeling ’60s spy romp – though, at times, Cavill seems more Simon Templar than Napoleon Solo, wreaking Saint-ly havoc on the forces of the ungodly. They get a lot of mileage out of the contrast between Solo’s erudition and Kuryakin’s more rough-hewn expertise – something that plays well off their physical differences.

Interestingly, the movie UNCLE isn’t nearly serious as the TV series but it works – and it gets a lot done in a bit under two hours. It will be interesting to see what CinemaScore the film gets – there was a smattering of applause at the screening I attended. I hope it gets a sequel – and that’s something I don’t say often.

Final Grade: B+

Photos by Daniel Smith/Courtesy of Warner Bros.