#StokerScore 4/10
There was a time when the numbers after a movie meant the sequence order for a movie franchise. You know, like Evil Dead 2 or the parodistic Naked Gun 33 1/3. Obviously that was only if the movie didn't come with some sort of a pithy subtitle as with the Friday the 13th movies who soon got fed up with numbers: Part 2, Part III, and went with The Final Chapter for number four in the series before the flogging-of-a-dead-horse that was part five's The New Beginning. No, these days, the number after the movie is more likely to tell you which remake, relaunch or reboot you're watching, such is Hollywoods seeming lack of imagination.
That being said, there are good remakes out there; John Carpenter's "The Thing"? was a grerat remake of a terrible B-Movie from the early 1950's. But of course for each of those there are also bad movies such as Matthijs van Heijningen's "The Thing (2011)"? Here is a movie that scores 35% at Rotten Tomatoes and which is, in my opinion, a pale imitation of a copy.
Of course it all depends on your personal taste and first of all you have to come to terms with if you even think a movie should ever be remade because the first one is just too damn good, Sir! I hear friends who like movies often suggesting that even thinking of remaking a film such as Apocalypse Now or The Godfather is worthy of the death penalty for all involved, and maybe Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Psycho would validate that argument. As I said, personal taste.
So it was with zero trepidation that I approached Guy Ritchie's movie version of the 1960's tv show The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015). Here is a director who continues to write great dialogue, choose great casts and make great movies (I've deliberately forgotten Swept Away for the benefit of those last statements). Ritchie's recent success with the Sherlock Holmes movies assured me that I would be blown away by his style and penchant for cartoon violence mixed with great dialogue.
Leaving the cinema I could only think "a swing and a miss" and a few days to digest it and consider it further hasn't changed that initial thought. The 60's tv show had a suave, debonair lead in Robert Vaughn's Napoleon Solo and seemingly youthful exuberance in the form of David McCallum's Illya Kuryakin, even though they were both virtually the same age when they made the show. Vaughn was coming off the back of macho roles in movies such as The Magnificent Seven, and McCallum from a significant role in The Great Escape. The casting in this new movie is equally as iconic with Superman playing against The Lone Ranger, the problem is that there just seemed, in comparison with the tv show, to be so little understanding of the roles or chemistry between the two men. That the dialogue wasn't as punchy as is Ritchie's norm definitely didn't help either. The two leads were mainly wooden with only some brief glimpses of anything approaching fun. The villains certainly came across better and it was only with the introduction of Hugh Grant's character that the whole thing warmed up.
It's an ok movie and I've certainly seen worse this year, but I guess I just expected too much....
