Man from U.N.C.L.E (2015), movie
Sep. 1st, 2015 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyphomandraMan from U.N.C.L.E, 2015.
I have watched a scattering of episodes of the original TV series (after developing a tiny, tiny crush on David McCallum as Steel in Sapphire and Steel) and have read rather more than a scattering of the fanfic. I did intend to re-read a few fics before watching this, but somehow I managed to end up reading a From Eroica Fake Marriage fic instead, which was a far better companion to the original series in terms of tone and feeling than this movie. The series was goofy but had a heart; this movie is all shallow, and not terribly pleasant.
Gaby is the best thing about the movie, but I don't trust Guy Ritchie with smart female characters after the second Holmes movie. Napoleon is played as a con artist rather than a charmer, and Ilya's character makes no sense (he's an unstoppable unemotional Soviet! Who is deeply wounded by his father's betrayal of Stalin! Who is a stunning KGB asset who can't be trusted not to beat people up for looking at him funny! Who, according to the credits, has an Oedipus complex?!) I did like Hugh Grant as Waverley, but not as British Intelligence – the whole point of U.N.C.L.E is that it is technically a global organisation (well, the whole point of U.N.C.L.E. is having David McCallum be sarcastic and/or suffer stoically, but anyway).
I am grumpy about the Cold War setting, which does not feel real (Kennedy on the TV not withstanding. They're in 1963! (giving him only a few months left to live, amongst other things) Behave like it! At least give Gaby a more substantial cover story for somehow getting out of East Berlin for the decadent west with a new Russian boyfriend who designed the Berlin wall) and the fancy jump editing Guy Ritchie does in the mistaken belief that this creates tension. The plot makes little sense (what were they planning to do with the nuclear bomb? Also, why the excitement over being able to build lots of them if you just end up with one?) and the villains are not particularly credible. There were any number of ways to make them either more dangerous or more sympathetic or even both.
There is a particularly annoying bit where Gabby says something to the villains, and we jump past it to everyone's response. However. Either she's on their side all along, or she has her own agenda, and given that they showed us her phoning someone to pass on details of the meeting with the villains (who presumably wouldn't need to be informed of their own meeting) it's obviously the second and the only thing the jump does is make people think there's a glitch in the film. There is a similarly annoying bit with the bomb where it's obvious what's going on but for some reason we have to have it twice. This does in no way make up for the lack of tension by having the bomb/final villain confrontation on a boat in the middle of nowhere.
The movie also has a very alienating callousness. I was unhappy about them using the concentration camps as a backstory for Gabby's uncle (and why/how would he keep this secret? They know about her father's Nazi rocket work) and the torture scene stuck in here was a horrible tonal mishmash of that and the Princess Bride. Then Napoleon and Ilya bicker while the uncle burns, and it's a nasty little moment where they may well actually know what's going on. Ilya putting various scions of Italian nobility in hospital also does nothing for his characterisation (which is at least one dimension better than Napoleon's, but still not great). Napoleon's backstory also doesn't help, and his best bit – pinching a series of objects to be revealed in backflashes – is flashy but does not end up being plot-relevant.
Also, no one says, "Open Channel D." Grump grump grump.
Anyway. I have dug out a few fanfic links and am slowly perusing those. And I suppose the opening sequence, where they break out of East Berlin, isn't bad. Possibly I should just pretend the movie finished after that.
I have watched a scattering of episodes of the original TV series (after developing a tiny, tiny crush on David McCallum as Steel in Sapphire and Steel) and have read rather more than a scattering of the fanfic. I did intend to re-read a few fics before watching this, but somehow I managed to end up reading a From Eroica Fake Marriage fic instead, which was a far better companion to the original series in terms of tone and feeling than this movie. The series was goofy but had a heart; this movie is all shallow, and not terribly pleasant.
Gaby is the best thing about the movie, but I don't trust Guy Ritchie with smart female characters after the second Holmes movie. Napoleon is played as a con artist rather than a charmer, and Ilya's character makes no sense (he's an unstoppable unemotional Soviet! Who is deeply wounded by his father's betrayal of Stalin! Who is a stunning KGB asset who can't be trusted not to beat people up for looking at him funny! Who, according to the credits, has an Oedipus complex?!) I did like Hugh Grant as Waverley, but not as British Intelligence – the whole point of U.N.C.L.E is that it is technically a global organisation (well, the whole point of U.N.C.L.E. is having David McCallum be sarcastic and/or suffer stoically, but anyway).
I am grumpy about the Cold War setting, which does not feel real (Kennedy on the TV not withstanding. They're in 1963! (giving him only a few months left to live, amongst other things) Behave like it! At least give Gaby a more substantial cover story for somehow getting out of East Berlin for the decadent west with a new Russian boyfriend who designed the Berlin wall) and the fancy jump editing Guy Ritchie does in the mistaken belief that this creates tension. The plot makes little sense (what were they planning to do with the nuclear bomb? Also, why the excitement over being able to build lots of them if you just end up with one?) and the villains are not particularly credible. There were any number of ways to make them either more dangerous or more sympathetic or even both.
There is a particularly annoying bit where Gabby says something to the villains, and we jump past it to everyone's response. However. Either she's on their side all along, or she has her own agenda, and given that they showed us her phoning someone to pass on details of the meeting with the villains (who presumably wouldn't need to be informed of their own meeting) it's obviously the second and the only thing the jump does is make people think there's a glitch in the film. There is a similarly annoying bit with the bomb where it's obvious what's going on but for some reason we have to have it twice. This does in no way make up for the lack of tension by having the bomb/final villain confrontation on a boat in the middle of nowhere.
The movie also has a very alienating callousness. I was unhappy about them using the concentration camps as a backstory for Gabby's uncle (and why/how would he keep this secret? They know about her father's Nazi rocket work) and the torture scene stuck in here was a horrible tonal mishmash of that and the Princess Bride. Then Napoleon and Ilya bicker while the uncle burns, and it's a nasty little moment where they may well actually know what's going on. Ilya putting various scions of Italian nobility in hospital also does nothing for his characterisation (which is at least one dimension better than Napoleon's, but still not great). Napoleon's backstory also doesn't help, and his best bit – pinching a series of objects to be revealed in backflashes – is flashy but does not end up being plot-relevant.
Also, no one says, "Open Channel D." Grump grump grump.
Anyway. I have dug out a few fanfic links and am slowly perusing those. And I suppose the opening sequence, where they break out of East Berlin, isn't bad. Possibly I should just pretend the movie finished after that.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-01 11:02 am (UTC)Yes, I forgot to mention that in my post. Horribly unearned and jarring. /o\