In the middle of the Cold War, a mysterious criminal organization led by a woman named Victoria Vinciguerra (Elizabeth Debicki) is trying to acquire nuclear weapons and technology to create friction and upset the balance between the United States and Russia. CIA agent Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and KGB agent Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) are forced to set aside their differences and team up in order to stop these criminals in their tracks. This duo must use the help of a missing German scientist’s daughter Gabby (Alicia Vikander) who they must find to stop a possible global catastrophe.
First I’ll say this film is not Bond or Bourne, but it is fun. I’ve never heard of the TV show this is based on either. When the film starts, you’ll notice that it serves as a period piece in that it exudes 60s culture with the outfits, the technology, the soundtrack, and the overall look of everything. It doesn’t beat you over the head with it as it takes a backseat to the plot. The story is pretty standard here and is not too overly original for an action movie. You get all the normal stuff: fight scenes, car chases, shooting, explosions, etc. These are all done well as you can see that they spent a decent amount of time working on each of them. All of these were shot nicely as well but I could definitely have gone without all the spit screen stuff. I thought the acting was very good in this with Cavill being the cool, sly American agent and Hammer providing the counterbalance to Cavill’s many quips. This brings me to my favorite thing about this film which is the writing. It brings smarts and some comedy to lighten things up a little and to break up all the action sequences. This is evident in a few scenes near the middle and end. I thought Vikander was okay but she didn’t really have to much to do here and Debicki was great as an icy, cold villain who I wish I could have seen more of. Hugh Grant was good as well in a minor role. What I didn’t like about this film was the chemistry between Cavill and Hammer, I thought they were good individually but I did not enjoy it as much when they were together. Something just did not seem right to me. Finally, this film does not compare to all of the other action films that have come out this year but it gets a recommendation for just how fun it is to watch and it does have a lot of enjoyable moments.
Score: 7.5/10
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The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.
