You know how Hollywood sometimes releases two films of very similar premises in the same year? There were those romantic comedies Friends with Benefits and No Strings Attached in 2011. Then there was The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Kingsman The Secret Service in 2015. I think there was a year between those where two studios released a version of Cinderella somewhere in there. In any case, this happens sometimes.
Out of pure coincidence, I picked up the two 2015 spy films from the library. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. follows two spies, one American and one Russian, as they team up to hunt down a nuclear bomb built by Italian Nazis. Kingsman The Secret Service follows a young man during his initiation into the superspy organization called Kingsman, which is disguised as a tailor shop in London.
While both movies share a genre, they each have completely different stories to tell. Here’s how they stack up against each other.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is set in the 1960s, while the Berlin Wall is still up and Nazis are apparently hiding out in Italy. With this as the background, the narrative focuses on the interactions between the three main characters: an American, a Russian, and a German. Each has an interesting backstory, and each is very good at what they do. Most of the movie is devoted to the amusing rivalry between the American, Napoleon Solo, and the Russian, Illya Kuryakin; both work for rival spy organizations who team up to hunt down a nuclear scientist with the help of the scientist’s auto-mechanic daughter, Gaby.
They each play to their respective stereotypes. Solo (Henry Cavill) is a suave ladies-man with a penchant for sleight of hand and a casualness most people have to work at to achieve. Kuryakin (Armie Hammer), meanwhile, has an anger problem exacerbated by his ego who tries his hand at having a soft side. Gaby (Alicia Vikander) exerts her independence where she can and takes no shit from the two spies watching over her as bodyguards.
In my humble opinion, the plot did not take advantage of Gaby nearly enough as it should have. Despite her revelation in Act 4, she still suffers from Damsel in Distress syndrome.
I love the art direction of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. with its gogo boots and mini skirts, wacky color schemes, boxy cars, and analog technology. Its a spy movie, so there’s a car chase, a boat chase, an off-roading chase across an island, and a swanky party around a race car track. All of this is underscored with an appropriate not-quite-Mission-Impossible soundtrack.
Like any good action movie, there are humorous touches in almost every scene, my favorite being Solo hiding out in a big truck, eating someone’s lunch, and watching the bad guys chase Kuryakin in boats throughout a closed off harbor. Between the humor, the banter, and the spy shenanigans, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is an enjoyable romp for a night when you feel like something fun and nostalgic.
Kingsman The Secret Service
My expectations watching Kingsman The Secret Service was that it would rely more on CGI for its aesthetic, be a bit more misogynistic to its women, but would otherwise deliver a pretty good film. The former two were solidly met, but the last one seems a little shaky.
Kingsman was more inconsistent with its narrative theme. Early on, Agent Galahad (Colin Firth) mentions the Kingsmen Service should be more open about the type of people they recruit, yet our main boy Eggsy (Taron Egerton) was not discriminated at all for his less-than-posh upbringing. I also don’t remember an explanation for how someone whose father was supposedly a gentleman (you needed to be upper class to be recruited for a long time) managed to be brought up as a commoner. There was also Roxy (Sophie Cookson), a woman being recruited into the service, who was also not discriminated against. It felt like the movie wanted to fight back against classism, and maybe a little bit against sexism, but didn’t make that point entirely clear throughout.
Another theme was the idea of teamwork as secret agents. It’s an early lesson for the recruits, but the story is so focused on Eggsy and his development that it neglects the other members of his team. Merlin (Mark Strong) is there to serve the agents in whatever they require whenever they require it, while Roxy is taken away from most of the action for much of the climactic final act. Which leaves Eggsy doing everything all by himself. Not much teamwork there.
Eggsy also gets a bit of an arc on the side, in which he deals with the unhealthy relationship between his mum and her boyfriend. While there to add some dimension to Eggsy, it failed to tie into the other problems Eggsy was dealing with.
I still found Kingsman an enjoyable movie, don’t get me wrong. Kingsman gets kudos for the creative action scenes, which involved a lot of dizzying hand-to-hand combat that looked like it was filmed with a GoPro. Those were actually cool to watch. I loved the posh British aesthetic and Samuel L. Jackson’s lisp. Gazelle (Sofia Boutella) was a woman whose greatest asset were her deadly prosthetic legs. Even Eggsy’s cooing over his baby sister was enjoyable.
Where The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is a movie you’d enjoy during a cozy night in, Kingsman is a movie you enjoy in a group of friends. It tries to be cool, and even has a sequel released in 2017, but the inconsistencies of the narrative themes threw me off.
Putting Them Against the Other
Artistic taste is subjective. I have a friend who would review movies on a blog of his, but his closest friends poked fun at him for only reviewing movies if a certain genre (sci-fi/fantasy/action). To them, that didn’t make my blogger friend a movie critic because how can you say you like movies when you clearly only like a certain type of movies? I gotta defend my friend here, because I am in a similar boat. I, too, am something of a critic, but the movies I see and review on my own stick within certain parameters, not unlike my blogger friend. Yet I have never been called out on it.
Which is to say, my opinions here are my own and are not harming anyone so why get angry?
I enjoyed The Man from U.N.C.L.E. more than Kingsman The Secret Service. It was overall better put together, the art direction was consistent, and the characters really made the film. I’m not sure what else to say on this subject.
Agree? Disagree? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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