SyFy Wire: "You Should be Watching: The Man From UNCLE (2015)"

- January 12, 2018

YOU SHOULD BE WATCHING: THE MAN FROM UNCLE (2015)

Spy remakes are a dime a dozen, especially those mined from the world of the small screen. 1998’s The Avengers, starring Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes, was an attempt to adapt the successful British TV series of the same name, but flopped at the box office. Ten years later, Get Smart was revived as a film with Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway, but performed only moderately better. Even the wildly popular Mission: Impossible franchise, which has now become a vehicle for Tom Cruise to try to maintain his relevancy as an action star, began as a television show (not to mention a revival series with a mostly different cast).

Next to all of these, Guy Ritchie’s The Man From UNCLE may not appear that impressive. At the very least, it seems redundant. But closer examination unearths a hidden gem amongst other reboots that have tried and failed to capture their audiences’ nostalgia-driven excitement. The reason The Man From UNCLE succeeds is because it excites viewers with something new, not something inspired by the old.

What makes The Man From UNCLE work is that, frankly, you don’t need to be all that familiar with the original television show. Having that knowledge in your back pocket gives you a sense of the basic premise (two operatives from rival espionage agencies are forced to work together in the name of international cooperation, or something along those lines), but even if you’re going into it fresh, the movie doesn’t make it difficult to figure out the story. Almost all the classic narrative devices are there: the friends-to-enemies trope, the unrequited sexual tension that later blossoms into requited-but-forbidden, the familiar pretending-to-be-marrieds trick, the femme fatale who deftly seduces our reckless hero. Mix that with a boatload of humor, masterfully edited action sequences and an unmistakable nod to the mod era of '60s fashion and you’ve got the apparent makings of success.

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