Another lost opportunity. Regardless of whether you're a fan or not, Mission: Impossible got an awful lot right when it was transformed from a cult 1960s TV spy show to becoming a hugely successful Hollywood franchise. Unfortunately The Man from UNCLE hasn't.
Coming from a similar background - hit 1960s TV show? Check! Secret agency fighting international bad guys? Check! Stylish? Check! Great theme tune? Check! - you'd think that even your average Hollywood producer would look at the resounding success of M:I, recognise the good bits from the original Man from UNCLE, lift accordingly, and adapt for a 21st-century movie audience.
Instead, what's happened here is the cinematic equivalent of breaking into a billionaire's mansion just to nick a few bath towels.
All that remains from the classic TV show starring Robert Vaughn and David McCallum are the names of the three main characters (the two lads and spy boss Alexander Waverly), and the show's title. Otherwise, what we have here is a by-numbers pastiche of a run-of-the-mill Sixties caper movie, split-screens and all.
It starts off brightly enough with Henry Cavill's CIA agent Napoleon Solo rescuing the daughter of a vanished German scientist from East Berlin, but after that it's all pretty mundane. Solo is forced to team up with KGB agent Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) as the US and USSR combine to take on a mysterious international criminal group that's building its own nuclear bomb.
As a big fan of the TV show I tried my best to like this film, I really did. But at best it's a passable two-hour diversion with director Guy Ritchie in second gear, though there are some nice clothes, particularly Henry Cavill's suits. The Man from UNCLE lacks the roller coaster punch of the Mission: Impossible films, and is so far-removed from the original TV show you'd wonder what they were thinking by taking so little on board. If they were thinking at all.
John Byrne
