The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Review

Guy Ritchie’s reboot of the 60’s spy show is stylish, suave and amusing. Whilst the action isn’t non-stop, the tension is constantly building throughout the film. Presented with the front-runners of Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer and Alicia Vikander (a still ‘uprising cast’), all of which portraying characters of a different nationality and with interesting accents.

Having not directed a film since 2011 (Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows), Guy Ritchie had some lost time to make up for, and being that he is best known for his crime films he slightly widened his horizons to a comedy/action/adventure romp.

Cavill plays CIA agent Napoleon Solo, a highly skilled and suave operative, whilst Hammer portrays Illya Kuryakin, a KGB agent with anger issues. They are forced to work together (putting their differences aside) to prevent plans for nuclear technology from getting into the wrong hands. Their only lead is the daughter of a missing German scientist, Gaby (Alicia Vikander), whos father is the only one capable to finishing the plans and assembling the bomb. With twists, action sequences and a typical spy cliches, it doesn’t quite go to plan.

The relationship between Solo and Illya has a Mr and Mrs Smith kind of feel to it, as a love/hate relationship, as well as a femme fatale being thrown into the mix too. The whole film has a similar suave and siphistication as Bond, but more light hearted and with slightly less risk involved.

For those of you who have played a co-op Lego game, whereby the characters have gone separate ways and the split-screen gets confusing and then rejoins, some of the cuts will be familiar.

There are multiple clever twists within this film, however it does not feel that the audience is given enough time to question what happened, why it happened and who caused it, and robs the audience the opportunity to piece the puzzle together themselves throughout the film as opposed to when it happens.

An important, yet very often overlooked part of any film is it’s musical score. On occassion it can go unnoticed by everyone, however when paying attention you can hear it perfectly and appreciate it. The score within this film was used very intelligently as it’s action sequence score was not only invigorating, but it had a 60’s theme with a ‘spy film’ touch to it.
Some characters even had their own themes. As previously stated, Illya refers to Solo as Cowboy, and because of this his scenes are accompanied by ‘western cowboy’ music. However, in some important and climatic scenes the score almost failed to portray how important the scenes were.

7/10