Heading out to see The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie this weekend?
If you’re expecting something along the lines of a James Bond or Mission Impossible type film, your going to be sorely disappointed.
But not all’s lost.
If you’re a B-movie fan, you *might* enjoy it.
The B-movie feel starts early:
• Moments into the film, my first thought was “Am I really going to have to listen to Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) talk that way through the whole movie?” The answer: yes. He’s annoyingly consistent with his strange manner of speaking.
• Illya Kuryakin’s (Armie Hammer) bad Russian accent
• The harsh, incongruent, music and sound effects. Coupled with the bad accents, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is not a joy to the ears.
• The 60’s style fonts and writing on the screen. Think 1960’s version Batman “”Pow!”, “Bam!”… ok, it’s not that bad… but that came to mind during some of the scenes with text on the screen.
• Silly scenes, like the Kuryakin character holding onto a car trying to stop it with his shoes skidding on the pavement like a cartoon character.
• Opps scenes, like Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander) sitting on one hotel bed from one camera angle, the other bed from another angle, then back again (I’m open to a correction on this if I saw it wrong, there’s no ‘rewind’ at the movie theater).
• Confusing action (several times I wondered how a character got where they were).
• Jokes that are not particularly funny or witty (“…trying not to get lost” is memorable from the preview, but doesn’t really make sense in context. It’s obvious where it is and she’s not that big a girl.). And the bickering between the male leads gets old fast.
• And the female super villain being described as being extraordinarily beautiful, and then falling well short of that (Elizabeth Debicki is indeed beautiful, but the character she played, Victoria Vinciguerra, was not).
Based on the previews, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. looks like a serious spy vs spy movie with some comedic moments.
But it’s not that. It’s more of a 1960’s spoof. But, well, it’s not that either.
It’s like it tried to straddle a line between farce and serious and failed at both.
Overall, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is a swing and a miss. But if you go in with the idea that it’s a farce, a spoof, that takes itself seriously – while you keep in mind that YOU don’t have too – you might find it to be more fun than I did.
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