Support NeoGAF

[Discotheque]

armie hammer gets a raw deal. i thought he was great in social network and lone ranger. have yet to see this but i'm sure he'll be fine.

ryan reynolds comparison? scust. has that guy been good in ANYTHING? he's like what would happen if one of joss whedon's characters went rogue and escaped the pages of a script. all that man can do is snark and quip.

 

[TheOnlyOneHeEverFeared]

What's wrong with Hammer? He's a good actor.

 

[The Cool One]

This movie is awesome everyone should go see it

 

[Currygan]

armie hammer gets a raw deal. i thought he was great in social network and lone ranger. have yet to see this but i'm sure he'll be fine.

ryan reynolds comparison? scust. has that guy been good in ANYTHING? he's like what would happen if one of joss whedon's characters went rogue and escaped the pages of a script. all that man can do is snark and quip.

sorry but disagree about this and Sculli's. Hammer has no charisma, and also is plain as hell at acting. His only saving grace in TSN was the stellar script, by which people were mistakenly convinced he could also act

granted, Reynolds has been in far more shit, and he ain't much better of an actor, but at least he can crack a joke or two

 

[Brakke]

Saw this last night. Competent but inessential. Guy Ritchie's in a weird spot. This one had a lot of really cool stylish dry af segments like he do, but overall the film was a bit thin.

My secret favorite thing in movies is when they do a con and then flash back to how they pulled it off. Like the end of The Sting or Clooney Ocean's Eleven. This movie is the king of all, when they do a flashback to like thirty seconds ago lol.

 

[darscot]

Great movie, chemistry among the three leads is amazing. Enjoyed every minute do not understand at all why people aren't going to see it, it's Guy Ritchie.

 

[Blader]

aryan reynolds comparison? scust. has that guy been good in ANYTHING?

Now I know you're not shit talking Just Friends here

Spoiler

Buried is good

 

[TheWorthyEdge]

Fucking awesome movie.

 

[Sir_Crocodile]

Just got home from it, absolutely loved it. Henry Cavill was smooth as hell and the direction was fantastic.

Really hope this holds up well enough for a sequel as I'd love to see one.

 

[Betty]

What's wrong with Hammer? He's a good actor.

Yeah, but he looks exactly like the over entitled snob he portrays in Social Network in every film he's in.

It makes it very hard to like him, even though he's probably a really great guy.

 

[TheSecondSpitter]

What's wrong with Hammer? He's a good actor.

He's the human onscreen cooler. All his scenes go cold.

 

[brianmcdoogle]

Saw it this weekend and through it was fine. Not bad, not great, but fine. There's some comedy that doesn't work, the action scenes go on far too long at times (though I kind of liked the ending invasion scene that is done in a montage with lots of split-screening... it's as if they said "you've seen enough of this in this and other movies, so let's just hurry up and get it over with; kind of a nice conceit and invention).

I feel bad for Hammer. He was great in The Social Network playing to physically identical twins with enough subtle acting to convey they were two different people, and J Edgar is such a crap movie that it is unfair to blame his poor performance (and even worse old age makeup) on his broad shoulders alone. But, he's stiff in The Lone Ranger, and he's stiff in this too. Is he going to get another top billing chance? Does he really deserve it more than other talented actors?

Cavill kind of surprised me since I've only seen him in Man of Steel, which is a garbage movie top to bottom. He needs to work on his comedic timing, but he plays suave well.

Lastly, nice to see Debicki in another movie. She was my favorite thing in The Great Gatsby despite having such a small part.

 

[Timbuktu]

We are getting a lot of spy movies this year, pretty much everything apart from Bourne. I enjoyed this as much as I did MI Rogue Nation and Kingsmen, but in unique way. I think it walked a fine line pretty well, being amusing without falling into parody. The actors were great, my girlfiend enjoyed it a lot more than i thought she would.

In a way, I think Guy Ritchie did this modern/period genre mix with a lot more style than his old partner Vaughn managed with the X-men movies. It's just a shame that UNCLE is just such a poor name and property to do it with.

 

[Brakke]

In a way, I think Guy Ritchie did this modern/period genre mix with a lot more style than his old partner Vaughn managed with the X-men movies. It's just a shame that UNCLE is just such a poor name and property to do it with.

The end of the movie, when dude basically winks at the camera and says "you have a new code name -- UNCLE" was particularly silly. Like. Why would the characters in the film react to that? The dude thought it was a really good one, like there was some joke there. But there's no in-universe joke. But then also for the viewers like... did anybody going to that movie have some deep abiding love for The Man From UNCLE? I figure Man From UNCLE is some kind of touchstone

Spoiler

(I'm only barely familiar with it because there's a Tom and Jerry episode The Mouse from H.U.N.G.E.R. and my parents explained that joke to me when I was a kid)

but certainly not on the level of winking at the camera and saying "Bond, James Bond" or whatever.

That show is 50 years old! Anybody who watched it then is a geezer now! And there's no Man From UNCLE media empire keeping that fire stoked. So when dude reveals the code name and the film plays it like it's a joke... who do they think is going to laugh?

 

[Sir_Crocodile]

That show is 50 years old! Anybody who watched it then is a geezer now! And there's no Man From UNCLE media empire keeping that fire stoked. So when dude reveals the code name and the film plays it like it's a joke... who do they think is going to laugh?

Man from UNCLE was shown all the time in the UK during the nineties, and it was great. That's why I went to see the film.

 

[EGM1966]

Trailers and marketing campaign conveyed a very stylishly put together somewhat lightweight and vacuous film that would be mildly to broadly entertaining.

Sounds like the marketing was 100% accurate for once.

 

[munchie64]

So how's Cavill? Alot of people were going to use this film to judge his talents.

 

[Clefargle]

Seems quite corny

 

[Sir_Crocodile]

So how's Cavill? Alot of people were going to use this film to judge his talents.

Best part of the film imo

 

[deleted]

armie hammer gets a raw deal. i thought he was great in social network and lone ranger. have yet to see this but i'm sure he'll be fine.

ryan reynolds comparison? scust. has that guy been good in ANYTHING? he's like what would happen if one of joss whedon's characters went rogue and escaped the pages of a script. all that man can do is snark and quip.

Ryan Reynolds can act. He's not the best of the best and doesn't deserve to be held up high for it, but he gets far more shit than he deserves too.

He was very good in Buried, fine in Adventureland and while nothing special, I liked him in Safehouse and stuff like Amityville Horror.

But that's that. UNCLE was fine. Maybe a bit forgettable. The movie felt like it had to explain a bit too much though. The flashbacks in the last 3rd are highly unnecessary and too frequent. They also don't show anything surprising.

Cavill is good. Makes for a good spy. Nothing extraordinarily, but definitely on the better side of the movie. Hammer was okayish.
The spoken German in this movie was pretty bad though. The first dialog in the movie is two obviously English people talking about their accent free German. Boy does it sound bad.
You can immediately hear that neither of them have ever spoken German and don't understand what they are saying. Especially since there are several native German speakers in the movie that sound so much better.

Can't say much for the Russian accents, but I suspect it's similar for them.

 

[munchie64]

Best part of the film imo

Good to hear. Will try seeing this sometime.

 

[Lima]

So how's Cavill? Alot of people were going to use this film to judge his talents.

Bad as you would expect. Same as Hammer. Together though they almost represent one decent actor.

 

[Mr. Pointy]

Armie Hammer Don't Hurt Em

 

[Currygan]

So how's Cavill? Alot of people were going to use this film to judge his talents.

wasn't aware there was any talent to judge

bloke might be the first English actor to not have any acting skills whatsoever, but maybe I'm bein harsh

 

[WarrenMax007]

Saw the movie today. it was enjoyable. Liked the three leads, Alicia Vikander is gorgeous. Movie looks beautiful, although Richie overuses editing a bit. Soundtrack is amazing. And again, Richie overuses music a bit in a third act. Script needed some work.
Overall enjoyable and stylish movie, with too much style at times.
I will definitely watch a sequel if there's one.

 

[Blader]

Cross-post from the movies thread:

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Went into this on a whim after work. It was solid, breezy fun. There were a couple moments that were being sustained for some kind of dramatic or gotcha oomph that were just total duds though. Armie Hammer is the real star here, imo, and the protagonist you're actually (kind of) rooting for; Cavill seems like he's trying too hard to be charming and debonair, but ends up coming across as charmless. Alicia Vikander is fun to watch and provides a good foil to Hammer's character. She's also insanely beautiful, which doesn't hurt.

Also, knowing absolutely nothing the original tv series, I get the feeling that none of it mattered at all; they could have called this movie anything else (and probably should've) and wouldn't have affected anything here one bit. As far as I could tell, the only thing that actually had to do with the franchise was

Spoiler

naming the team "UNCLE" at the end. Which was just like, why? Why are they named UNCLE? Is it some kind of callback to something earlier in the film or just a randomly assigned name?

It was a weird placement for that, didn't make much sense to me.

Overall I liked it fine, but it's probably the weakest Ritchie film I've seen.

 

[Messofanego]

armie hammer gets a raw deal. i thought he was great in social network and lone ranger. have yet to see this but i'm sure he'll be fine.

ryan reynolds comparison? scust. has that guy been good in ANYTHING? he's like what would happen if one of joss whedon's characters went rogue and escaped the pages of a script. all that man can do is snark and quip.

I've only seen him recently in that Pan trailer and he looks insufferable.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1wRv8vTpxo

 

[Liquidsnake]

Bad as you would expect. Same as Hammer. Together though they almost represent one decent actor.

Lol.

 

[Chichikov]

I liked the actors, I liked the art direction, I like the setting, I liked the period, I liked the style, I liked the music and as someone who doesn't really like Guy Richie's direction usually I was pleasantly surprised that he held is tendency for excessiveness in check for the most part.

Sadly, the script really let this movie down.
And it's not the big overreaching plot, yeah, it's a bit silly, but that's par for the course for that movie. It's just that the writing was kinda bad, the banter was poor (which is really important for this kind of film) the dialog was clunky at time and some scene bizarrely bad (the one when Armie Hammer fight with German mechanic girl comes to mind, like, the fuck was even going on there?).

Not a terrible film, but not a really good one either.

 

[Anton Sugar]

Saw this last night. Competent but inessential. Guy Ritchie's in a weird spot. This one had a lot of really cool stylish dry af segments like he do, but overall the film was a bit thin.

My secret favorite thing in movies is when they do a con and then flash back to how they pulled it off. Like the end of The Sting or Clooney Ocean's Eleven. This movie is the king of all, when they do a flashback to like thirty seconds ago lol.

Saw it last night and this is how I felt.

Cavill's character/his approach really didn't work for me at first--it felt like he belonged in a different movie. It grew on me, though, and by the end of the movie, his and Hammer's interactions were my favorite parts.

Most of the rest of the movie isn't anything special. The Ritchie style felt almost like a parody of itself--just enough to earn the stamp but not enough to feel like anything new. At times, it's even obnoxious. There is a raid that is entirely edited into splitscreens and robs the sequence of any excitement or tension.

Also, I love Wikander but feel she was sorely underwritten. She's a stick in the mud for most of the movie, but randomly really playful at times (well, when she was drunk). Nothing about her character worked for me.

It also felt 20-30 minutes too long, and I agree, there were two "let's flashback to one minute ago when I said that thing" moments that were just silly.

 

[massoluk]

The movie is really good. The many flashbacks to events half a minute ago are weird though. Please let there be sequel. They have something good here.

Surprised this movie didn't get a much better review scores.

 

[jgwhiteus]

I caught this over the weekend after reading some positive impressions online.

I really enjoyed it - thought the relationship between Cavill and Armie Hammer was great (and Hammer was a surprise for me; his character became my favorite); they had really good chemistry. Also liked the film's moments of humor and nice visual style and music choices.

Yeah, the plot was a bit cliched, perhaps on purpose, but I enjoyed it regardless mainly on the strength of the performances and the little twists and spins on the spy genre. Sad that the movie probably won't have a sequel based on its box office, because I would've really liked to see these characters again.

By the way, throughout the movie I was distracted by how short Henry Cavill looked - I thought, "Is Superman really only 5'8" in real life?" - until I looked up his height and realized his 6'1" only looked short when compared to 6'5" Hammer and 6'3" Elizabeth Debicki (and she was also a nice surprise; hadn't heard of her before).

 

[Kronotech]

This was a fun movie but I was still let down a bit. High expectations I suppose.

I generally love Guy Ritchie's cinematography techniques and fun editing. The boxing match in Snatch and the chase in the forest from Sherlock 2 come to mind. UNCLE didn't have anything fun and flashy that I would want to watch again.

The story itself was ok. It was a classic spy movie and I went in expecting that. The actors really pulled off the characters and made the movie enjoyable for me, though. I cared about them. The action kept me engaged and the score, as usual, was very fitting.

Sad to see a set up for a sequel like he did with RocknRolla though as I don't foresee a 2nd UNCLE based on the box office numbers.

 

[taco543]

I watched it this Saturday and I'm looking for any excuse to go back and rewatch it. And that soundtrack has been playing nonstop in my car since.

 

[Brakke]

I talked to my mom this weekend and it turns out she watched the show all the time when she was a kid even though her parents said she was "too young to understand". She described the original guys as "too cool for school".