The Man From UNCLE Blu-Ray/DVD: The Boston Globe review

By Tom Russo GLOBE CORRESPONDENT  NOVEMBER 14, 2015

The best parts of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” (2015) are over so quickly, you’ll want to watch on DVD so that you can give them an extra look. That’s not a knock against Guy Ritchie’s feature version of the old TV espionage favorite. It’s just that for all the energy poured into recapturing and heightening the ’60s cool of secret agents Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer), their coolest moments come when their interplay takes a backseat to freneticism. The movie boasts a handful of shootout and chase sequences in which perspectives spontaneously zoom in and out, images slide together and fragment into a split-screen array, and the soundtrack percussively thrums like “Birdman” on fast-forward. Typically when we see action this hyper-edited, the filmmakers are trying to mask stodgy footage with a sense of manufactured urgency, never mind how visually unintelligible the finished product might be. Coming from Ritchie, though, the imagery somehow all feels perfectly, mesmerizingly controlled. And while it’s only a hair less technically anachronistic than the extra-sensory effects bits in Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes” movies, it actually does fit the “U.N.C.L.E.” aesthetic. It’s all about style here, whether Cold War odd couple Solo and Kuryakin are living the luxe undercover life with reluctant, bristly German ally Gaby (Alicia Vikander), or blowing their cover, forcefully. Extras: Gloss is again the focus, as featurettes spotlight the movie’s production design, fashions, and wheels, including Hammer’s vintage Metisse motorcycle. (Warner, $28.99; Blu-ray, $35.99)

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