The latest in a line of Guy Ritchie thrillers, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. I watched this movie only a few days ago at the start of this review, and already I plan on watching it a few more times possibly in theaters. This is partially due to my personal interest in Guy Ritchie films, but I think that this can still stand its own ground. On the subject of Guy Ritchie, anyone who has seen the most recent film incarnations of Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr. will find this movie in a similarly good format, but with a different story. Almost a spiritual side-story to the first two Holmes movies. Keeping spoiler free as possible I will keep this review centered on the style and writing of the movie rather than the literal content of the movie itself.

 You may recognize the actors from more recent roles as they are certainly up and coming on the movie scene. To begin, Henry Cavil had the part down for the “James Bond” type of character he is playing as Napoleon Solo, a former thief blackmailed into being a CIA agent. All throughout the movie he delivers a sort of suave straight-man act that was both sarcastic and clever. A minor complaint that I have is that the character seems to act too stiff and sarcastic in emotional scenes despite that being the emphasis. The real emotion to counteract this comes from Armie Hammer’s performance as the KGB agent Illya Kuryakin. Being a more competition and anger driven character of course there will be more emotion. But the character themselves is as well an agent for a different organization, so it’s expected that they be stoic at times. For an actor so young I am pleasantly impressed with how he handled the character, mainly because there were only a few parts of small lack of necessary feeling as opposed to Cavils work as Solo.

 The last of the main protagonists is Gaby Teller, a mechanic related to a former Nazi scientist, who is at first the damsel of the story who becomes an ally, played by Alicia Vikander. There isn’t much to say about this part, the character themselves had only so much to offer. But on Vikander’s part I would say their performance was OK, based on a few accent slips, lack of emotion in the right spots, and too much emotion in a few others. Finally the main antagonist who needs mentioned is Victoria Vinciguerra as portrayed by Elizabeth Debicki. Being the villain in a spy thriller there also isn’t a great deal of backstory or reasoning to offer. But Debicki does a well enough job expressing the quiet villain mastermind type that is so characteristic of spy films.

 The movie establishes its environment quickly with an opening based entirely on newspapers and other media outlets, fabricated and real, to emphasize its Cold War chronology. Upon reaching the first scene of the movie, we find the production team(s) involved tried as hard as any other team to get the environment of tension, their vocabulary, clothing, buildings, and all in their proper places. The styles of the Cold War 60s are surprisingly prevalent throughout the entire film. Being a spy thriller of course they could not stay entirely bound to their era. The gadgets our main characters use break timeline with the implication that they are secret government technology only later given to the public. These technologies only appear a few times to both create tension and illustrate comedy by interactions between our main characters. On the same subject of timeline placement, despite having a clearly defined place in history, the movie does a very good job of breaking this bond and not forcing the age on the audience with things like “one day we’ll be able to use phones everywhere,” or “We’ll be able to send messages faster than now in the future,” a cliché that is in many other movies chronological placed in any time before the mid-80s.

 As for the writing, well like a couple of other recent movies set in the 60s-70s it sort of relates to those with almost choppy interactions between characters. In scenes where it is characters alone they interact like normal human beings (human beings who are acting) However in public mimicking scenes or at times of action the writing comes off as choppy, abruptly ending and moving right to the next character. This happens quite a few times and makes up a decent portion of the movie, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing either. In an action/spy thriller the time for talking is when there is exposition by protagonists and antagonists, and there are times outside of these when this movie makes good use of its time with dialogue. Really the quick speaking is only a minor complaint compared to the generally very clever writing.

 Finally, visuals. The movie is visually appealing as a live action film. There aren’t too many scenes where so much is happening that it becomes impossible to watch. The use of visuals as a story driver and for comedic value is certainly prevalent at all times, and we can see the director clearly knew how to invoke emotion and tell a story. It does something creative at times where instead of montaging it uses multiple screens at different times of the same shot to get a whole montage or scene transfer out in a few minutes at most for scenes where more was supposed to be happening. I feel this editing helps to move the audience through the movie back to the parts that they may actually care about. Instead of focusing on the journey this movie spends much of its time at its own destination.

 Overall, and this may be because I like Guy Ritchie, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is certainly a well-made, written, produced, and acted spy thriller that acts a refresher from the usual James Bond every four years or so. Once again, if you liked Sherlock Holmes one or two, or are just a fan of Guy Ritchie and spy thrillers/actions you will certainly enjoy this movie, it is well worth the price of admission and time.