During its original 1964–1968 run, the American television spy series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was something of a zeitgeist-tapping (and -driving) phenomenon. However, it’s unclear whether the U.N.C.L.E. brand still has a significant audience among anyone but retro-espionage enthusiasts. That hasn’t stopped director Guy Ritchie from bringing the property to the big screen after a long exile in development hell.
The basic premise is fairly faithful to the series: In 1963, ultra-suave CIA agent Napoleon Solo (Henry Caville) and tightly-wound KGB enforcer Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) are thrust into a tense partnership at the behest of their superiors They are tasked with assisting gorgeous East German gearhead Gaby (Ex Machina’s Alicia Vikander) in making contact with her father, an ex-Nazi rocket engineer who has been shanghaied from his American military employers by a cabal of neo-Fascists. Said goose-steppers are bent on (what else?) global destabilization through the acquisition of a nuclear weapon, necessitating that Solo and Kuryakin set aside their nationalistic loyalties and even stronger personal animosity to stop this calamitous development.
Ritchtie and co-writer Lionel Wigram keep the globe-trotting adventure brisk and glamorous, focusing on perilous situations, arch humor, and a vivid, exaggerated version of mid-'60s Continental cool. The film’s clear aesthetic touchstones are Antonioni’s Blow-Up and the Connery-era Bond features, more so than the original U.N.C.L.E. Dodgy accents notwithstanding, the crackle of the Caville-Hammer-Vikander triangle is a pleasure to watch, but it’s Elizabeth Debicki who steals the show as supervillainess Victoria. An Italian shipping heiress turned international terrorist mastermind, she exudes erotic, icy menace as she struts about in glorious Milanese mod fashions, purring threats. Her presence and Oliver Scholl’s oversight of the dazzling period production design give the film an enthralling jolt, elevating The Man from U.N.C.L.E. above its entertaining but generic spy thriller components.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E opens across the St. Louis area on Friday, August 14.
