Whether or not you actually like The Man from U.N.C.L.E., the odds are exceptionally good that you will want to have sex with it. Guy Ritchie’s retro chic update of the classic spy series is perhaps the most alluringly filmed motion picture in years, and plays like every GQ magazine from the 1960s had an orgy to the slinkiest jams of the decade. Guys get shot, things explode, but nothing matters nearly so much as the cut of Henry Cavill’s suit and the consistently spot-on color coordination.
Indeed, the history of the spy movie genre is decked out in such refinery. Dry martinis abound, fancy cars litter the highways and every possible thing is couture. In Ritche’s universe this isn’t an irony. The spies in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. are able to hide in plain sight because everyone is fashionable to a comic extreme. The pinnacle of manliness is not achieved by defeating the bad guys but by looking nonchalant in the process, and knowing just which belt goes with your female companion’s cheeky number.
And since the James Bond franchise has fallen prey to grisly seriousness of late, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. offers a welcome respite. The sultriness of classical cinematic espionage has been pumped up to Technicolor levels, to the extent that the plot – complicated and eventful though it is – disappears from your memory an hour after you leave the theater, leaving behind only the pleasing memory that Guy Ritchie’s film had its way with you and that you liked it quite a bit.
Henry Cavill stars as Napoleon Solo, a former criminal begrudgingly enlisted as America’s top spy. In his latest mission Napoleon rescues Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander) from the other side of the Berlin Wall, and narrowly escapes the superhuman Russian agent Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer), forging an intense rivalry between the two men that doesn’t subside when they are ordered to work together to fight a common enemy.
Nazis are back (because of course they are) and planning to develop a nuclear weapon of their very own, but first there must be bickering, and then there must sexual tension, between just about everybody. Cavill and Hammer are probably supposed to be vying for Gaby’s affection but their smoldering glances are typically aimed at each other, not at the sensuous young lady in the room. Ultimately it doesn’t matter who ends up with whom, we just want two or more of them to engage in glorious sexual abandon and then maybe smoke a carton of period-appropriate cigarettes afterwards.
Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movies were never as smart as he thought they were: they were more about making the title character look cool, and in a very glossy sense. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is obviously more of this director’s speed. Ritchie films the events of his new film with split screen wizardry and playful restraint, allowing many action sequences to play out too quickly or even off-screen, because actually watching them would be simply gauche. Banter is preferable to wit, snappiness trumps dramatic engagement, and fun is the shallow but welcome result.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is an action movie that’s a little bit ashamed to be an action movie. It’s a seduction played out on the audience, and it works. It may be thin, it even may be a little forgettable, but it’s a good-time film for a good-time evening, and leaves you with only the sexiest sort of guilt.
Images via Warner Bros.
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
