Rolling Stone Magazine review: "Another Sixties TV spy series gets the big-screen treatment — and this time it's retro"

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

   

• The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
 
• Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander
 
• Directed by Guy Ritchie

BY PETER TRAVERS August 13, 2015

Another Sixties TV spy series gets the big-screen treatment — aTo read the complete review, click here.nd this time it's retro

Have you noticed that the past is effing everywhere? Especially at the movies. Look at The Man From U.N.C.L.E., a moldy 1960s TV series that comes to the screen with no Mission: Impossible update or makeover. That's right — it's still moldy. But in a good way. Mostly. Director Guy Ritchie (Snatch, Sherlock Holmes) is dishing out the same Cold War spycraft audiences ate up when James Bond was a pup. The TV series was so hot that Sally Draper was seen masturbating to it on Mad Men. Will today's Sallys be turned on? Ritchie tries his damnedest, having to stay in period (the film is a prequel to the TV show) but juicing up the action, sex and silliness.

It's tricky, navigating the casting of CIA agent Napoleon Solo and his KGB counterpart Illya Kuryakin, roles memorably created on TV by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, respectively. Studly Brit Henry Cavill, the latest Man of Steel, who takes on Ben Affleck's Batman next year, plays Solo with a devilish 007 charm that's closer to George Lazenby than to Roger Moore. But the dude can fill a tailored suit and launch insults like verbal missiles. His chief target is Kuryakin, played by L.A. homeboy Armie Hammer, who was so good in J. Edgar and as the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network that no one blames him (that much) for The Lone Ranger. Hammer does a nice job spoofing Kuryakin's accent and stiff upper lip. And he and Cavill, set up as rivals, bromance their way through the global spy collective of U.N.C.L.E. (United Network Command for Law and Enforcement), under the bemused leadership of Waverly (a hilariously deadpan Hugh Grant). Top-secret and all that.

To read the complete review, click here