With the backdrop of the Cold War, "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." starring Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander and Hugh Grant released in the United States on Friday, 14 August. The action-comedy has been met with overwhelming positive response in terms of its style – or swag – however, it failed to impress those critics that were looking for substantial content.
Since "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." will arrive in India only on next Friday, 21 August, we have made a review round-up of the movie:
The New York Times: The Man from U.N.C.L.E Resurrects a Glossy, Action-Packed '60s
At times "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." works better as a fashion show than a movie, with a wardrobe — Mary Quant-like minis, form-fitting bespoke suits, a caftan that Jean Shrimpton could have worn (a few years later) for a Vogue shoot — that expresses more about the era than anything in the script. (The costume designer is Joanna Johnston.) Mr. Ritchie tends to flaunt his wares like a store clerk, fawning over the clothes, chairs and cars, and his usual rabbity pace slows to a tortoiselike crawl whenever the actors deliver a lot of words, which gratefully isn't often. His talent, as he proves repeatedly, is making bodies and cars crash through space, and there's a long, divertingly twisty and wordless chase near the end that suggests he would have just killed in Mack Sennett's studio.
Vanity Fair: The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Is a Charming Late-Summer Surprise
Ritchie's direction is witty and nimble, aided by the script he co-wrote with Lionel Wigram, which dances playfully on the line between seriousness and spoof. The script is teeming with corny one-liners that actually land, and sports a surprising abundance of teasing homoerotic innuendo. But it's not the laddish, gay-panic variety; Man from U.N.C.L.E. is more suave and enlightened than that.
Mirror: Guy Ritchie pitches TV spy series remake just about right (4 out of 5 stars)
It's not quite as much fun as Kingsman: The Secret Service, made by Ritchie's old mate Matthew Vaughn, but it's certainly his [Guy Ritchie] most entertaining film since he injected his trademark panache into Sherlock Holmes.
US Magazine: Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer's Action Comedy Is "Dizzying" to Follow, "Not Terribly Intriguing"
To his credit, co-writer and director Guy Ritchie (Sherlock Holmes, Snatch) helms the action with a stylish and period-appropriate flair...Ritchie even tones down his usual bone-crunching violent streak in favour of some clever cheekiness. (One criminal accidentally kills himself when the heroes' backs are turned.)
NPR: A Funny And Sexy Adaptation Of 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.'
Opening with a stylized title sequence of Cold War headlines and archival footage set to Roberta Flack's "Compared to What" (a protest song not recorded until the end of the sixties, but hey, Mad Men used anachronistic tunes, too) U.N.C.L.E. takes us back to the start of the pop-culture spy craze, when we imagined the job consisted mostly of five-star travel and sex with beautiful people you would likely have to kill in the morning.
