Film Review - The Man from UNCLE

Up front, I hate Guy Ritchie, I dislike Henry Cavill, I am not a great fan of Armie Hammer and I can just about put up with Hugh Grant. And on the other hand I loved the original Man from U.N.C.L.E. tv series. 

So I went in to this film with low expectations. I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised. I am not going to get carried away and suggest it is as good as the original series. I am certainly not going to forgive Guy Ritchie for his treatments of other franchises. This one I am going to give him some credit for. 

The 60's styling is excellent. The consistency of the sets, clothing, cars, gadgets, decoration, phones, ... throughout the film really does hold up well. I didn't spot anything that didn't fit. No doubt, there are styling slip-ups somewhere, but I didn't catch any of them. Also there were a few of the action sections where the transitions from the original series were used.

The performances are pretty good as well. They are getting some stick on imdb for being wooden, but I felt that they were fitting with the characters and the original source material. Cavill was certainly a huge improvement on his Man of Steel performance. Armie Hammer does a decent job of keeping a straight face despite having most of the best jokes. Both are a little flat, but this matched with the original characters. Hugh Grant, when he does officially turn up, doesn't do particularly much. This does mean that he doesn't do anything wrong though.

The baddies are a bit flat. Again it is quite in-keeping with the TV series that they are just stereotyped villains. They could have benefitted from been a bit more rounded. Certainly the husband could have been fleshed out, or mashed together with the Nazi torturer to create a single complete character. 

Meanwhile, if the spy story isn't holding your attention, you can always play 'spot the cameo' instead. David Beckham is the obvious one. Hugh Grant plays an identified character in the second half of the movie but you can also spot him a couple of times before he is introduced. On the more obscure you can also spot Chris Evans Ferrari California in a cameo at the race track. Unfortunately we don't get cameos from Robert Vaughn or David McCallum.