Ritchie has fun in a time of Cold War

AS US-Russian relations go, so, apparently, goes the temperature of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., which means that this big-screen revival of the once-hot TV series of the mid-1960s is being served lukewarm. Set during the Cold War and stoked by seductive settings and an attractive cast, this would-be franchise starter gets everything about half-right; conceptually it has a few things going for it and it’s not unenjoyable to sit through, but the tone and creative register never feel confident and settled. It’s not bad, but not quite good enough either. That U.N.C.L.E. was a popular TV show a half-century ago means nothing to young modern audiences, so box-office prospects would appear modest.

For at least the first two of its four seasons (1964-68), The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was the coolest thing on TV. Co-conceived by Ian Fleming and originally titled Ian Fleming’s Solo just as Bond mania was taking off at the time of Goldfinger, the show paired American and Russian agents working for the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement to defeat T.H.R.U.S.H., a sinister organisation bent on the usual: global destruction and dominance. Robert Vaughn’s Napoleon Solo was the dashing, dark-haired, well-dressed womaniser, while David McCallum’s Illya Kuryakin, black turtlenecked and his blond hair worn long, Beatles-style, was the more inward, hard-to-reach heart-throb.

Director and co-writer Guy Ritchie vividly guns the initial action with a wild car chase in the vicinity of an elaborate recreation of Berlin’s Checkpoint Charlie in 1963. Coming at each other from rival sides are Solo (Cavill) and Kuryakin (Hammer), who’s specifically identified as Ukrainian, but is no less fanatically committed to the Motherland.

Their mutual object of desire is a beautiful East German car mechanic (a wonderfully absurd contradiction in terms and no doubt a cinematic first) known as Gaby Teller (Vikander), whose father is a renegade Nazi known to have been Hitler’s favourite rocket expert. Solo captures her first, but Kuryakin nips at their heels during a protracted pursuit conducted in Eastern European cars, another witty touch given the notorious sluggishness of Communist bloc vehicles.

The chase provides a colourful means for the two spies to introduce themselves to one another, as their espionage bosses have temporarily set their ideological differences aside in the interest of apprehending the elusive Dr Udo Teller. Both sides are betting that the temptation of reuniting with his longlost daughter will make Teller show his hand, and it’s up to the competitive dashing agents to set the trap.

So far, so good, it would seem, except that it’s not, exactly. Ritchie and his cowriter Lionel Wigram have dedicated themselves to soberly respecting the Cold War backdrop and taking their super-villain as seriously as a good Bond film always has. They’re also into highend globe-trotting and slipping in a smart-ass quip when they can.

But where the film doesn’t find secure footing is in settling on the right pitch for the spies’ competitiveness vs cooperation. At its core, the relationship between Solo and Kuryakin is intensely serious; under any other circumstances, they would be trying to kill each other. As that option remains off the table, a different dynamic must be developed, but a modus operandi between them never satisfactorily settles in here.

Solo’s background of having made a fortune as a black market antiquities dealer in post-war Europe while mingling with the wealthy and then, when caught, given the choice between prison or working for the CIA, is plausible enough. He’s also at ease with the bemused quip and self-assured insight, and Cavill is affably likeable as an agent of many talents.

Unfortunately, Kuryakin is more narrowly and imprecisely conceived as a perfect product of the Communist state, a humourless functionary who calls his new comrade “Cowboy”, suffers from seizures and spells because he’s so tightly wound and must uncomfortably pretend to be Gaby’s fiance while trying to flush out her father in Rome. This puts a burden on Hammer to give the guy some charm, but neither he nor the writers have found a disarming way to provide it.

And as skillful and attractive as Vikander is, her character also comes off as too serious and narrowly conceived, putting a damper on the blend of legitimate threat and sophisticated hijinks that Ritchie is trying to achieve. For all the effort put into crafting a distinctive tenor for the familiar proceedings, it all ends up feeling rather rote and sub-Bondian.

That said, some of Ritchie’s efforts to put colourful twists on a war horse genre are agreeable, the locations (mostly in Italy) provide a surrogate holiday and the supporting cast generate small ripples of amusement – notably Elizabeth Debicki as the scheming wife of an Italian playboy racing driver niftily impersonated by Luca Calvani, Harris as Solo’s demanding agency boss and Grant as a shadowy espionage string-puller. – Hollywood Reporter