Review of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) by Jonathan B — 26 Jan 2016

I was always a little bit in love with Robert Vaughn. To me, he was the height of sophistication. He had a suave demeanour and a chiselled chin that drew attention and admiration and he was perfect in the role of Napoleon Solo in the hit 1960s spy series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Riding the populist wave for international espionage tales that had been fuelled by the "Bond" movies and indeed Ian Fleming helped in the development of the format, the series managed to maintain a unique identity by slightly sending the genre up without ever becoming an out and out comedy. Further, it had a leading character who was Russian and a good guy in the character of Illya Kuryakin, brilliantly portrayed by David McCallum. We had the perfect pairing of the wise-cracking, city slicker American and the cool, cerebral Russian.

Guy Richie's movie reboot of the series, does at least try to stay true to the feel of the TV show. It drips with 60s glamour with the female characters looking like they stepped off an Yves Saint Laurent catwalk and a sequence of exotic locations. It feels genuinely 1960s in the choice of colour palette and style. It is not however, without problems. For me, both the leads lack a little sparkle in their roles and the dialogue doesn't always quite hit the right balance between comedy and drama. Now, neither Henry Cavill's Solo or Armie Hammer's Kuryakin are bad, they just don't quite compliment each other in the way the original characters did. The plot makes this a fun caper but I think that there could have been some tightening up the pace to make it a little less frothy. There's an attempt at a twist that so nearly works but is actually pretty easy to guess at and the ending does seem a little rushed, relying on some silly chance occurrences but, this is an entertaining movie which I'd love to see the studios have enough faith in to have a stab at a sequel, perhaps with a slicker storyline.