The Man From U.N.C.L.E. debuted this past week around the world and it was fun. Its hard to describe though. Its a Cold War spy movie where an American agent has to team up with a Soviet agent to take down a criminal organization planning on selling an atomic bomb to a Nazi remnant hiding in South America. Imagine James Bond films of the 60's but more stylized and with a slightly heavier tone. There was beautiful women, cool action sequences, car chases, boat chases, a couple gadget gags. A lot of the movie revolved around the relationship between the two spies as they tried to interact with each other despite a history of trying to kill each other.
The movie is a pleasant action adventure. Henry Cavill plays an American Agent. I found this surprising as a British actor, but he was believable and entertaining. He played a smart-ass character with a bit of an attitude. Then there is Armie Hammer. I thought his fake Russian accent would be bad, but it didn't really bother me. He was fun as an adversary for Cavill and he felt like a Russian spy. It made sense. My favorite cast member was Alicia Vikander as Gaby. Her character is awesome. She is mysterious and interesting. She is strong-willed and knows she can take care of herself. She does a great job with a character who you believe is one person, but then you realize that the character is completely different as the movie progresses. She is the highlight of this movie, and it is the second time she has outshined her co-stars in a movie this year, as she did that in Ex Machina as Eva. She is so good and I can't wait to see what she does next.
As for the story, it wasn't that complicated and actually not completely memorable. It was your classic style spy movie with good action. But the story wasn't the highlight, it was the stylized nature of the editing that was memorable. At times there were scenes where you followed both spies through their activities on different parts of the set and the screen was split like a comic book. There were frames and different things happened in different frames and actors would cross from frame to frame. It was actually really cool. It could have been really corny, but they did a great job with it and it wasn't something I had seen done like that for an action movie before.
This movie also felt more like a set up for a franchise than anything else. It stands alone, but it ends and you get the feeling that the next film will be better. I wouldn't mind seeing another and I would definitely go, but I kind of feel this movie is evident of an issue the studios have these days. They are so interested in creating the next billion dollar franchise that they forget to just create a good singular movie. They are so focused on "Where do we go next?" that they forget about "What are we doing now?". Eventually that will be fixed but this movie suffers from that trend. The movie could have used more work on making the story better so that it was more memorable and interesting. It was too cookie cutter. The characters were interesting, the villain had potential, but you never felt suspense. There was never any weight to the story. A little more attention could have done this film some good.
Overall, I had a fun time seeing this movie. It was interesting enough to keep me captivated and was a good time a the theater, especially since I had never seen it before and it wasn't a sequel. It felt fresh and I appreciated that. If you are looking for something to do on a quiet Sunday, go see this. If your wallet is tight, then wait for it on cable. This should do well on cable. I give it a 3/5.
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