THE MAN FROM UNCLE (2015)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological* 

When I saw MAN FROM UNCLE in a first-run theater, I must not have read any contemporaneous reviews of it. I tend to assume that many if not all reviews would have led with, "don't watch this movie if you want entertainment akin to that of the loopy 1960s superspy-teleseries." In addition to being bored, I seem to remember being astonished that director/co-writer Guy Ritchie-- best known for some crime films and two high-tech Sherlock Holmes movies-- had made almost no attempt to emulate the series, except for setting UNCLE's action in the same era of the swinging 1960s. Most of the time, big-screen adaptations of small-screen successes are if anything too reverential toward their source material.

Watching the same film years later with my amateur reviewers' hat on, I must admit that I could cite dozens if not hundreds of movies more boring than Ritchie's UNCLE. But this mostly mundane espionage-film, even with a few uncanny gimmicks thrown in to put some "super" in the spy-jinks, is still very pedestrian. In contrast to the series, in which Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin were introduced as partners in crimefighting for the secret organization UNCLE. the movie insists on giving audiences a dreary account of "how they first met." The heroes' recruitment to UNCLE is brought in only at the story's end, as if to allow sentimental old-timers to imagine the film as a real-world prequel to the fantasy-series.

Since the Cold War was still at its most frigid in 1963, Solo (Henry Cavill) works for the CIA while Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) is some sort of an agent for the USSR. Because the CIA becomes aware of a plot by a Neo-Nazi organization-- loosely covalent with the TV show's "Thrush" group-- seeks to gain control of a nuclear weapon. This project, led by rich magnate Victoria Vinciguerra (Elizabeth Debicki), has obtained the services of a major scientific talent with the telling name of Teller. With an eye to luring Teller away from the bad actors, Solo goes to East Berlin to engage the services of Teller's daughter (Alicia Vikander). Gaby accepts the mission, but during her extraction from East Germany, Solo has a eye-raising (and fender-crunching) encounter with Agent Kuryakin. As played by Hammer, this Kuryakin is a Samson-like powerhouse, though no particular explanation appears for his being able to grab a car by the bumper and hold the vehicle back. Despite this hostile first meeting, the Kremlin wants to eliminate a new nuclear threat as much as the CIA does, so Solo and Kuryakin are assigned to work together, still using Gaby as a means of entrance into the social circle of Victoria and her allies.

In addition to Kuryakin's strength and the THUNDERBALL-like plot of a private entity gaining control of an atom bomb, there's one moment where one agent uses a laser-device to cut through a wire fence, but that's it for the fantasy-content in UNCLE. The relationship of the two heroes is thoroughly predictable: they don't like each other and bait one another, though by the conclusion they've become bound as danger-buddies. Gaby is a little more interesting than either character, for she's in the position of a vital young woman who finds herself playing den-mother to two handsome hunks while also pretending to be the fiancee of Kuryakin's fake character. Vikander and Elizabeth Debicki are allowed to channel a bit of sixties glamor through their attire, and one late development gives Gaby a little semblance of a "Girl from UNCLE." But Ritchie's main focus follows the pattern of a mundane action-thriller, and there's nothing memorable on that score. The film flopped, barely making more than its original cost, so this movie stands as one of the least successful adaptations of a small-screen show.