The Man from U.N.C.L.E

I am a sucker for a good trailer and although The Man from U.N.C.L.E had a pretty dam good one I was surprised by how excited I was to see the film.  As per the norm I know absolutely nothing about the television show the film is based upon and I didn’t bother to do any prior research before heading to the cinema.  A life of ignorance can be blissful.

PLOT:  CIA agent Solo (Henry Cavill) and KGB agent Illya (Armie Hammer) are forced to put their Cold War differences aside in order to retrieve a nuclear bomb.  Once Solo and Illya realise that they can work together effectively a plan is put in motion for the inevitable sequel.  END PLOT 

The Man from U.N.C.L.E is pretty standard fare which offers nothing new to the spy caper genre and is hampered by the fact that this film is Solo and Illyas’ first mission.  We have to suffer through the obligatory trust issues before the agents finally click and work together to complete the task at hand.  It’s all a bit predicable and the events unfolded with the arrogant polish of a highly intricate Stella Artois advert.

I am a fan of Guy Ritchie and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels outranks the Monty Python films as being the most quoted film in our house.  When he is on form Guy Ritchie is as good as they come but the script of The Man from U.N.C.L.E felt flat.  The only time the film came to life was when Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer were on screen together but unfortunately this was not as often as I would have expected. 

Henry Cavill is clearly having a blast and does a better Matt Bomer impression than Matt Bomer. I wasn’t sure what to expect from Cavill but it turns out that he is very dashing and is more interesting as Agent Solo than he will ever be as Clark Kent.  Armie Hammer has consistently embarrassed me by appearing in films such as Mirror Mirror and The Lone Ranger but he also fared well in U.N.C.L.E.  Hammer was short changed in screen time compared to Cavill but he held his own when given the opportunity.  Alicia Vikander is continuing her strong run and the summer exposure won’t do her career any harm at all.  The likeable cast and a few fun scenes with Hugh Grant saved the film.

The action was mostly fine although it was in no way spectacular.  The biggest set piece was hampered by the overuse of split screens and although this could have been a throwback to the tv show it ruined the moment. 

The Man from U.N.C.L.E set the scene nicely for future adventures and I can see why it would make a great tv show but I would be concerned that it hasn’t done enough to warrant the sequel it is clearly courting.  It is an enjoyable romp due to the enthusiastic cast and it is worth a look in the cinema but I expected more.  The Man from U.N.C.L.E gets 6/10.  If we could persuade the cast to reboot the tv show I wouldn’t be unhappy.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Cinema died a slow and painful death in early December thanks to those sparkling vampires that shall not be named but luckily Santa came early and brought the Christmas blockbusters; the first of which being Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

I enjoyed Sherlock Holmes as much as everyone else as it was an unexpectedly good film but the first time I viewed the trailer for the inevitable sequel it did absolutely nothing for me.  The trailer was a grower and I warmed to it enough to be excited for the second instalment, although it has to be said that this was my first cinema trip of month so I was also experiencing withdrawal symptoms.

PLOT:  Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Junior) takes time off from designing urban camouflage disguises in order to stop his new found arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris) from starting a war between to nameless countries; suffice to say they speak both French and German.  Watson (Jude Law) is getting married and Sherlock interrupts his honeymoon trip to Brighton and drags him to Switzerland (which frankly looks like something out of Middle Earth) in order to stop an impending war.  Holmes and Watson are helped by Holmes’ older brother Mycroft (Stephen Fry) and gypsy rebel Simza (Noomi Rapace).  The winner of the  two hour chess game is announced.  END PLOT??

For the first fifteen minutes of A Game of Shadows I was honestly worried as the pacing was ridiculously slow.  The entire opening sequence consisted of a sub-plot involving Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) which added nothing to the film.  Luckily the film perked up immediately after the Adler scenes ended. 

If you take a step back and look at the script of Sherlock Holmes it is extremely basic.  The films strength lies in its near perfect casting.

Once Holmes and Watson appeared on screen together the pacing of the film sped up, the rapport was better than the first film and the homoerotic subtext was hilariously yet purposely unsubtle.

RDJ manages to keep Holmes on the right side of ridiculous and Law deserves some sort of award for best drunken fall of the year.  The banter between the two allows for some decent laughs.  The line “I am so overt I am actually covert” has already been borrowed adopted stolen as my own.

The chemistry and the strength of the bromance is the big draw in Sherlock Holmes but credit has to be given to Jared Harris who is excellent as the intelligent villain Moriarty.  Harris and RDJ also have some zingy and fast paced scenes with the tension increasing with each meeting.

The battle of wits between Moriarty and Holmes stays that way and although there are some good set pieces the main show down is essentially a “Holmes Vision” construction of how a boxing brawl between the two will unfold.  The “Holmes Vision” is overused throughout the film but what stops the finale from becoming repetitive is the introduction of “Moriarty Vision” in which we also are shown Moriarty’s imagining of the pending fist fight which plays in tandem with Holmes’.

The action ranges from a very decent bar fight which has a wonderful Irish Jig playing on top of it to a machine gun blasting chase through a forest.

The forest chase was chock full of slow motion shots and explosions.  This set piece looked and indeed sounded amazing but the only place the scene will hold up is in the cinema itself unless I seriously upgrade my surround sound although if ever there was an excuse to do so....... 

The film clocks in at just over two hours and despite the very poor opening I got what I paid to see – the Holmes and Sherlock double act.  When the two were on screen together I could have sat on for hours.

The ending of the film was extremely predictable although can it really be considered predictable whenever you cannot actually see what (or who) it is you are looking for?  I think it was clever and perfectly in line with the cheeky tone of the film.

Sherlock Holmes:  A Game of Shadows won’t be to everyone’s taste, there are faults and it is not going to win any awards but I don’t care – it was great fun and it deserves a generously festive 8.5/10.  Expect the sequel to become a trilogy.