The Man from UNCLE

Posted on August 13, 2015 at 5:34 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for action violence, some suggestive content, and partial nudity
Profanity:	Brief crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Social drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended action-style violence, guns, chases, explosions, torture, bombs, some archival wartime footage
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 14, 2015
Date Released to DVD:	November 16, 2015
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00ZS21J6E

Guy Ritchie’s update of the 1960’s television spy series is sleek, sophisticated, and sexy, with lively banter, high style, and oodles of roguish retro charm.

Henry Cavill (“Superman,” “The Tudors”) takes the Robert Vaughn role of Napoleon Solo, an army vet turned cool, elegant high-end thief turned reluctant spy in a plea deal to avoid a jail sentence. We meet him as he is arranging an extraction from the divided city of Berlin. An auto mechanic named Gaby (Alicia Vikander of “Ex Machina”) is the daughter of “Hitler’s favorite rocket scientist,” a man who came to work for the United States after WWII but has now disappeared and is thought to be working for some very dangerous people who are interested in his invention, basically a quicker, smaller, atomic bomb. The CIA is not the only group to figure out that Gaby might be the way to find her father. A very tall, very determined Soviet agent named Ilya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer of “The Social Network”) is after her, too. After a thrilling chase, Napoleon delivers Gaby to the CIA only to find out that he has been assigned to work with both Gaby and Ilya to find her father and make sure that the bomb does not fall into the wrong hands.

As with his “Sherlock Holmes” films, Ritchie has a lot of fun with the chemistry between his actors. There’s a fire and ice vibe; Napoleon’s understated confidence and unflappable charm plays off well against Ilya’s smoulder and barely-controlled rage. They call each other “Cowboy” and “Peril” (as in “Red Peril”) and one-up each other with gadgets that are endearingly analog. What they refer to as a “computer disk” looks like a scotch tape dispenser made out of Fiestaware. Vikander continues her unstoppable trajectory into superstardom with another impeccable performance. And then there are the bad guys. Elizabeth Debicki (“The Great Gatsby”) plays Victoria Vinciguerra, “a lethal combination of beauty, brains, and ambition.” She is a 1960’s high fashion vision, part Catherine Deneuve, part Jean Shrimpton, part Penelope Tree, and a femme fatale in the most literal and lethal sense. They should give Joanna Johnston the costume design Oscar right now, and maybe the Nobel, too for her take on 60’s couture, from Courreges to Mary Quant.

Ritchie’s kinetic camerawork, spiced up with some split screen work is accompanied by Daniel Pemberton‘s swanky cocktail-stirrer of a score. With Hugh Grant’s unmatchable dry wit as a spy honcho and charm to spare from the leads, it’s enormously entertaining — with a welcome hint at the end that a sequel is in the works.

Parents should know that this film includes extended action-style violence, chases, explosions, shoot-outs, bombs, torture, some disturbing images including archival wartime footage, sexual references and situations and brief nudity, drinking, and smoking.

Family discussion: How do Napoleon’s and Ilya’s backgrounds affect the way they approach their jobs? Do you agree with their decision about the computer disk? What has changed the most since the Cold War era shown in the film?

If you like this, try: “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation,” “Torn Curtain,” and the old “Man from UNCLE” television series

Original Version: The Man from UNCLE

Posted on August 13, 2015 at 3:24 pm

This week’s 1960’s spy story, “The Man from UNCLE” is based on a television series from the 1964-68 of the same name. It was inspired by the James Bond films, and Bond creator Ian Fleming even contributed to the original concept, including coming up with the names Napoleon Solo and April Dancer (who would appear in the spin-off, “The Girl from UNCLE”). After a decade of westerns, spies were everywhere on television in the mid-60’s, from the very serious (“Secret Agent”) to the very silly (“Get Smart”). “The Man from UNCLE” was glamorous, witty, and sexy, like the Robert Culp/Bill Cosby series “I Spy.”

In the series, Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn of “The Magnificent Seven,” which is also being remade) teamed up with a Soviet spy named Ilya Kuryakin (David McCallum, now better known as Duckie on “NCIS”). UNCLE stands for United Network Command for Law and Enforcement and is a super-secret CIA-ish sort of enterprise with an international reach. The headquarters was reached by going through a tailor shop (this year’s “Kingsman: The Secret Service” paid tribute to that). The boss spy is a Brit played by Leo G. Carroll. The idea that an American and a Soviet would join forces was very daring in the midst of the Cold War, but they had a mutual enemy known as THRUSH, a super-powerful force bent on total world domination.

Here’s the original opening credits.

It was so popular that it inspired some feature films with the same cast.

Guest stars included Nancy Sinatra:

Here’s a look behind the scenes.

And Vaughn discusses his role:

Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation

Posted on July 30, 2015 at 5:54 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sequences of action and violence, and brief partial nudity
Profanity:	Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Constant action-style violence, guns, chases, explosions, knives
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	July 31, 2015
Date Released to DVD:	December 14, 2015
Amazon.com ASIN:	B012XYP82U

You think you’ve seen it before? Well, it is a familiar situation. Hitchcock had an assassin waiting in a concert hall for the right moment to shoot and our hero trying to stop it — twice, in the original “Man Who Knew Too Much” and the endlessly repeating “Que Sera Sera” remake. There was something along those lines in “Foul Play,” too, with Dudley Moore conducting. And you’ve seen four earlier “Mission Impossible” movies with Tom Cruise already. So you think you know where this is going? You are wrong. You’ve never seen this.

“Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation” is the action movie of the year, with stunts and chases that are dazzling in conception and execution. You know that amazing shot from the trailer with Tom Cruise hanging on to the outside of a plane as it takes off, the G-force coming at him like a locomotive and his legs dangling off the side as the ground disappears below? I’ll bet you thought that was the movie’s climax — in any other movie it would be. In any other year it would stand out as the best we saw. But in this film, they’re just getting started. It’s over by the time the credits come on, so we can get down to the real stuff.

Testifying before Congress we have angry bureaucrat Henley (Alec Baldwin) and imperturbable IMF chief Brandt (Jeremy Renner) responding to questions about some of the activities of the Impossible Mission Force, following that Russian blow-out in the last movie. Soon IMF is shut down, just as Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is (1) finally learning about this movie’s bad guys, known as The Syndicate, and (2) captured.

Good thing he’s been doing his ab exercises, because his hands are cuffed behind a pole, so some very impressive legwork is going to be needed to get him up and over. Hunt manages to escape with the help of a beautiful and mysterious women named Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) who is either on his side or not.

They next meet up at the Vienna Opera House where a brilliantly-staged instant classic sequence has Hunt and a would-be assassin fighting while a production of “Turandot” is going on below — and a head of state is enjoying it with his wife from their box seats. Coming up: a wild motorcycle chase scene and an underwater adventure with no oxygen tanks allowed.

So who cares if they keep referring to a thumb drive as a disk, the concept of “The Syndicate” is as weak and unimaginative as its name, and the final confrontation is logistically impossible? It is enormous fun, and Cruise is a master at the top of his game. There are exotic locations, the stunts and actions scenes are intricate and clever, and, of course, the fate of the world is at stake just as our heroes are entirely on their own. We know that the IMF team will be disavowed if they are caught; that’s the end of the assignment messages, just before they self-destruct. This is the fifth film; we think we know how this goes.

But we start getting surprises right from the beginning as writer/director Christopher McQuarrie (“The Usual Suspects”) knows where the twists go (this is not your usual monologuing hero and villain) and Cruise knows just how to deploy his endless movie star sizzle. My favorite moment in the movie is the look on his face in the middle of a flight scene when his adversary pulls out yet another weapon and Cruise gives him (and us) a look that says, “Dude. Really?”

McQuarrie wisely gives Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner some screen time, and the sizzling Ferguson is Hunt’s equal in fight skills, spycraft, and keeping everyone else guessing. The real Mission Impossible is topping the earlier films in the series plus upstarts like “Fast/Furious.” Challenge accepted.

Parents should know that this film includes constant spy-style action, peril, and violence, guns, knives, chases, explosions, characters injured and killed, and brief nudity.

Family discussion: How did Ethan decide who was trustworthy? Should Ethan have notified the British authorities of the threat? Should real spies behave like this?

If you like this, try: The four earlier “Mission Impossible” movies and the “Bourne” series

Trailer for the new James Bond Film: Spectre

Posted on July 22, 2015 at 10:11 am

Trailer: Bridge of Spies

Posted on June 7, 2015 at 10:31 pm

Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks team up again in “Bridge of Spies,” with a screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen. It is based on the real-life story of an American lawyer recruited by the CIA during the Cold War to help rescue a pilot detained in the Soviet Union.