Film Review - The Man from UNCLE (2015)

The Man from UNCLE is based off of the 1960s TV series which starred Robert Vaughn and David McCallum and is directed by Guy Ritchie, this new version sees Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer take on the roles those 2 men played in the TV series and this time East and West have to team up to stop a deadly femme fatale (Elizabeth Debicki) from detonating a nuclear warhead and causing World War 3 but a mysterious mechanic (Alicia Vikander) may not make this so easy.

The Man from UNCLE is sadly not that good of a film but before I go into that I want to go into what I did like and that is first off the overall look of the film, the recreation of the 1960s looks great in terms of both the sets and the costumes and the opening of the film really sets you in the mood of the times very well.

Plus the performances by Cavill and Vikander are great, Cavill not only shows off just how much he looks like the late Christopher Reeve but also that he is a very charismatic and charming performer and Vikander really makes you think of a late 60s feminist woman with her strong performance toe to toe with both Cavill and Hammer.

But sadly the performance by Hammer is not that great buried under a pretty thick and at times cringe worthy Russian accent and also the chemistry between him and Cavill is just nowhere near as fun or engaging as the chemistry between Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law in Ritchie's 2 Sherlock Holmes movies.

But as for Debicki well it saddens me to say this, it also pains me very much to say this but hers is the weakest performance in the film and I adored her so so so much as Jordan Baker in Baz Luhrmann's Great Gatsby adaptation to the point where I went to myself "I will watch her in anything from this point forward" and the reason she falls flat performance wise ties into the real problem with the film and that is the lack of a strong villain to help tie together the films plot.

And this was also the case with Ritchie's 1st Sherlock Holmes film but not with his 2nd A Game of Shadows where Jared Harris as Professor Moriarty was more than equal to matching Downey on screen whereas here Debicki for all of her trying just cannot match up to Cavill and Hammer, I wonder if she and Vikander had switched parts it might have made for a better film as all Debicki does is stand around, where the costumes (which just reminded me of the costumes she wore in Gatsby) and play the full tilt diva which is a very sad shame and painful for me to say to myself when I came out of the film.

And so that was the Man from UNCLE and I can't recommend this film I'm afraid, it looks great but the weak villain undercuts it, 1.5 out of 5.