The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015), PG-13, ★★★

"They are secret agent men and secret agent...wo-man."

It's particularly difficult to create a movie from a TV show that is so invigorating and nostalgic that many people has expectations of saying that it will next best thing. It is the paradox of rising expectations. You never know when the next great movie adapted from a television series/show will come about. What are the best movies when it comes to TV adaptations? I can name from the top of my head: The Fugitive, The Untouchables, 21 Jump Street, Mission Impossible, etc. Plus, again, we have been having a great year of spy flicks and this movie does qualify as being a good movie in that genre and TV genre, however, it does get self-indulgent in its style that the movie becomes a bit bloated. Nevertheless, it redeems itself with its fun chemistry among the cast and its clever and exciting action sequences.

In Berlin in 1963, Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) is making way to a checkpoint with Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) at bay following him. Solo goes to a chop shop where he meets Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander), where her father is being forced by the Nazis to build an atomic bomb. However, with Kuryakin being the equal match to Solo, he is not able to catch him. There is a flashback of Kuryakin of where's he briefed about Solo in which he had a lot of skills and talent to be wasted in prison so the CIA recruited him.

CIA specialist Sanders (Jared Harris) briefs Solo on a mission in which he gets in a fight in the bathroom with someone who turns out to be Kuryakin. But in the end of the fight, he finds out that Kuryakin is his partner for a mission. They go to Rome in which Kury is posing as Gaby's fiance. Solo poses as an antiques dealer. Gaby's uncle is working for a business that poses as a front. The business has been in Alexander's (Luca Calvani) family, but the revelation is that Victoria (Elizabeth Debicki) is running the operation because of her intelligence.

Kury and Solo get to know each other based on each other's files. Later, Kury and Gaby get to bond a little bit. Solo shows up and tells Kury to not blow his cover and not fight buck as he and Gaby will be captured. (Similar to a scene from Taken, eh?) The mugging does happen as they take Gaby's possessions. Later, Solo, Kury and Gaby get into Victoria's party without invitation, of-course, and do some re-con. They are trying to get as much information on the atomic bomb and realize it was not the usual particular group helping Victoria and the bad guys building the bomb.

Elizabeth Debicki as the villainess. 

This movie is a definition of style with suave clothes and elegant charm. It is greatly proven in its sequences, editing and fashion. The set pieces are quite ostentatious in how the characters are inserted into the mystery as we follow the characters solving the mystery of the atomic bomb and how the good agent and the villains play each other with such wit and dark humor. The whole film seems like a mosaic of short and long sequences that Guy Ritchie, the director, assembled to create a more stylistic episode of the show. He wants to make a movie with his own design but sort of respect the artistry that came about in its golden age of television.

Henry Cavill is quite sophisticated in this role and it perfectly suits him in the way he recites the dialogue with such elaborate speech. Armie Hammer is an actor that lost his way with Mirror, Mirror, The Lone Ranger, and with the old make-up in J. Edgar. However, he develops a Russian accent that was initially distracting but it was careless because he seems to have so much fun with this character that his rapport with Cavill's character is a delight. The discovery, Alicia Vikander from Ex Machina, is suitable with Cavill and Hammer even though a few scenes with her and Hammer seem to be arbitrary. Elizabeth Debicki is wonderful as the astute villainess. And, Hugh Grant makes a great effort to capitalize on this story.

The downside is that the story is so hollow compared to the quirky and quippy style of the movie. Cavill and Hammer are walking way with the characters and the style that the story is too laid back and retreats into a simplistic plot. There's not much twist or surprise in the story and not much originality in the substance but it is a movie that has so much fun material that you do not even care if the story is a bit thin. I am not a particular fan of Guy Ritchie but his style belongs here at home in which the excitement is more noticeable and more earned than the Sherlock Holmes movies. In a very good year of spy movies, there is enough charisma to accept the movie as a fun time to watch one more time. However, even though it is good, I rank this as my least favorite of the 4 films which consist of Kingsman, Spy, and the latest Mission Impossible movie. Bring it on, Spectre!

***