Action The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

[Tom]

Title: The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Tagline: Saving the world never goes out of style.

Genre: Comedy, Action, Adventure

Director: Guy Ritchie

Cast: Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki, Luca Calvani, Sylvester Groth, Hugh Grant, Jared Harris, Christian Berkel, Misha Kuznetsov, Guy Williams, Marianna Di Martino, Julian Michael Deuster, Andrea Cagliesi, Riccardo Calvanese, Peter Stark, David Menkin, Pablo Scola, Cesare Taurasi, Riccardo Flammini, Francesco De Vito, Luca Della Valle, Simona Caparrini, David Beckham, Alexander Ananasso, Joana Metrass, Gabriel Lo Giudice, Ben Wright

Release: 2015-08-13

Runtime: 116

Plot: At the height of the Cold War, a mysterious criminal organization plans to use nuclear weapons and technology to upset the fragile balance of power between the United States and Soviet Union. CIA agent Napoleon Solo and KGB agent Illya Kuryakin are forced to put aside their hostilities and work together to stop the evildoers in their tracks. The duo's only lead is the daughter of a missing German scientist, whom they must find soon to prevent a global catastrophe.

 

[Tom]

I remember the TV Show with the same name. I must have seen every episode with my sister when I was growing up. I hope they kept it true to the series. This might be good. I will find out and get back to ya...

 

[Guest50131]

Highly polished. But definitely not the same Guy Ritchie at the helm who did Snatch.

Emotionless and heartless story, too flawlessly executed to be human, too poorly in touch with humanity to be entertaining. I stopped watching after 50 minutes. Couldn't take it any more.

 

[Tom]

I still haven't watched this yet...

 

[Guest50131]

Now if you were to shut your emotions off and simply watch it visually, it's an absolute treat.

I have nothing against robot directors. But in this case, he/it (however they refer to themselves) REALLY needed to consult with someone in touch with their emotions before delivering this.

It didnt just not resonate with me.

It resonated extraordinarily poorly because of the lack of emotion to it.

I'd suggest watching it for at least half an hour, to get a sense of what I am talking about.

 

[Tom]

Lately I have seen many very poorly made movies that I wish I could unsee.
Most of them I let play but a few are shut off immediately.
Some are even worse than syfy originals, say it isn't so.
Since this had some backing and probably some advanced filming equipment I figure when I do watch it my toleration may be greater than most. I'll try to watch it tonight.

 

[Tom]

The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair (1983)

TV Movie | 96 min | Action, Adventure, Crime | 5 April 1983 (USA)
The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair (TV Movie 1983) - IMDb

The criminal organization THRUSH steals the A-bomb H957 and demands $350,000,000 to be delivered within 72 hours by their former antagonist Solo. So U.N.C.L.E. has to reactivate the super agents Solo and Kuryakin after they were 15 years out of business. Equipped in the usual 007 fashion they start to seek the villains.

Director:
Ray Austin
Writers:
Sam Rolfe (developer: original series), Michael Sloan
Stars:
Robert Vaughn, David McCallum, Patrick Macnee

The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair 1983
{...}
Watch Return The Man From UNCLE (1983) avi

 

[Tom]

I watched about 35 minutes of the new one and shut it off.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

During the late 1960s lighthearted spy films and TV series were in vogue, the blend of adventure, glamour and comedy proving very appealing. A good example is the series of feature films starring Dean Martin as agent Matt Helm, and even the doyen of all such spies, James Bond, was increasingly playing it for laughs (although it didn't become a spoof of itself until Roger Moore took over from Sean Connery in the 1970s). Perhaps the most highly regarded of the TV shows (in the UK anyway) was the British series The Avengers - no, not the current lot, the one featuring agents John Steed and especially the marvellous Emma Peel. Into this particular niche dropped the extremely successful US series The Man From U.N.C.L.E., which ran for 105 episodes between 1964 and 1968. I saw many of those when they first appeared on UK TV and remember the principal characters very well, but I've not watched them since, so I was prompted more by curiosity than anything else to view this remake.

The lead character is played by Henry Cavill (currently featuring as Superman, vs Batman that is) who plays Napoleon Solo in quite a similar way to the suave original, Robert Vaughn. His Russian sidekick Ilya Kuyakin is very different, however: I recall David McCallum as small and mild-mannered, but the tall and powerful Armie Hammer plays Ilya as a ruthless, humourless and downright psychotic killer. In the TV series these were the two main characters with only their boss Waverly also featuring regularly, but in this film they are joined by reluctant recruit Gaby, to whom the ubiquitous Alicia Vikander brings some star quality.

The 1960s-set plot isn't really the point, it's merely the necessary backdrop to the entertainment, but for what it's worth it involves the bad guys persuading a nuclear scientist to make an atom bomb for delivery to the remnants of the Nazis. Solo and Kuryakin, initially enemies, are directed to cooperate to thwart the evil plotters. Of course they succeed (sorry about the spoiler!) with various laughs on the way, and the finale prepares the way for a sequel. The film seems to have been moderately successful, so we'll have to wait and see if another appears.

(This entry is cross-posted from my science-fiction & fantasy blog.)