Guy Ritchie’s MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. reboot tells the origin story of Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and Ilya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer)
THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. (Guy Ritchie, 2015)
Opens Friday, August 14
www.manfromuncle.com
In their stylish update of the popular 1960s Cold War spy series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., cowriter and director Guy Ritchie and cowriter and producer Lionel Wigram create an origin story for American operative Napoleon Solo (British actor Henry Cavill) and his KGB counterpart, Ilya Kuryakin (American actor Armie Hammer). Solo is a well-dressed former soldier and international arts and antiquities dealer who is working for the CIA instead of serving time for illegal doings, while Kuryakin is a thickly muscled specimen with father issues. After trying to kill each other in an opening car chase through East Berlin involving a Trabant, a Wartburg, and the Berlin Wall, they team up to try to extract German scientist Udo Teller (Christian Berkel) from the clutches of the elegant and devious Victoria Vinciguerra (Elizabeth Debicki) and her husband, racecar driver Alexander (Luca Calvani), who, along with Udo’s brother, the torture-loving Rudi (Sylvester Groth), are forcing Teller to build a nuclear bomb for them. Solo and Kuryakin have recruited Teller’s long-estranged daughter, Gaby (Alicia Vikander), a gorgeous East German mechanic, to help them infiltrate the Vinciguerras’ island compound and prevent them from launching a warhead.
Alicia Vikander, Armie Hammer, and Henry Cavill team up in stylish update of THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
The convoluted plot is minor-league Bond at best, just an excuse to establish the main characters, who develop a strong chemistry as they go from mortal enemies to partners who still don’t necessarily trust each other. Cavill (Man of Steel, The Tudors) seems to be channeling Jon Hamm, one of a bevy of superstar actors who were at one time or another attached to the role of Napoleon Solo, played by the dapper Robert Vaughn in the television series, while Hammer (The Social Network, J. Edgar) is a slightly softer and more cerebral version of Ivan Drago from Rocky IV as Kuryakin, portrayed by the cerebral David McCallum in the original. Swedish actress Vikander is part Maria Schneider, part Brigitte Bardot as the tomboy / sex kittenish Gaby, who pretends to be Ilya’s fiancé to help get him inside the Vinciguerras’ inner circle. Vikander and Debicki look spectacular in Joanna Johnston’s 1960s-inspired haute couture. The film also features Jared Harris as Saunders, Solo’s grizzled boss at the CIA, Misha Kuznetsov as Oleg, Kuryakin’s sneaky boss at the KGB, and a wrinkled Hugh Grant as Waverly, the head of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, famously played by the great Leo G. Carroll on TV. The plot is filled with ginormous holes and the characters’ relationships are overmanipulated, but Ritchie (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; Snatch; the Sherlock Holmes films with Robert Downey J.) brings a fresh style to the story, perhaps more stirred than shaken, incorporating occasional split screens and flashy colors to add a cool dimension to a favorite old series. It might not have the massive power of the Mission: Impossible reboot or the pedigree of the continuing James Bond movies, but it is still a nice little start for a potential new franchise.