A Random Movie Review! Who'da Thunk It?

So, we had not heard great things about The Man From U.N.C.L.E., so we never got around to seeing it, until we discovered it in the DVR queue tonight. Tonight was supposed to be "bad movie night", so Stephen gave me a choice of ^that one^ or the most recent version of The Fantastic Four. We hadn't heard great things about Choice #1, but we knew that Choice #2 would likely end in deleting it from the queue before we even finished the viewing, so I opted for Choice #1. Maybe we'd cut it short, or maybe we'd be pleasantly surprised? We'd already finished the awesome soup Stephen had made for dinner; all we "owed" on the night was wine (no chocolate). And if we cut it short due to its extreme awfulness? Well, then we'd get as far as we could on Choice #2. We may still opt for Choice #2. It's still "early" yet.

I never watched the original TV series, either in first run or syndication, so I had zero expectations going in. But for being misinformed (or possibly just assuming) that it would be a "reboot" set in modern times. I did not even know, going in, that U.N.C.L.E. is an acronym for "United Network Command for Law and Enforcement". I honestly didn't even discover that until the movie was in its last five minutes, y'all. Yup, that's right, kids. We made it all the way through this movie that no one said "great things" about.

So here's my honest review:

1. It's a fun spy movie, set in the 1960's, as if we'd never left the era.
2. The hair, makeup, clothing, and scenery seems to be authentic to the era.
3. The camera work and cuts (montages from something happening here vs. something happening there) are very stylistically "accurate" to the 1960's, as far as I can tell, which is very fun to watch.
4. The use of handheld camera work for fight scenes is MINIMAL and SUBTLE. You may know that this is of über importance for me.
5. They should have hired Italians to play Italians, Germans to play Germans, etc. Henry Cavill is EXCELLENT with his American dialect, but he's a British actor (who is also our most recent Superman, so, well, whadd'rya gonna do?); Armie Hammer (who played the twins in the Facebook movie) is American with an excellent Russian dialect; the chick from "The Danish Girl" is a Swedish actress playing a German mechanic who also happens to be an English spy; the lead Italians all sound like Americans with English dialects. Wassup widdat?

Honestly, this movie was fun to watch; it moved along at an appropriate pace; it was stylistically appropriate. The only thing I found to complain about was dialects! Go find yourself a copy of it, and enjoy! Be sure to pop yourself enough popcorn, and pour a decent amount of your beverage of choice, because there ARE a LOT of subtitles (which I don't mind in the least) when folks are speaking in the appropriate "native tongue" that they should be speaking in. Don't wanna miss anything!