Guy Ritchie previously brought his ballsy directing style to a period setting with the excellent, revisionist Sherlock Holmes back in 2009, and now the British director is gearing up to introduce his not-so-deft touch to the Cold War era with espionage adaptation, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Following Henry Cavill’s CIA agent Napoleon Solo alongside Armie Hammer’s Illya Kuryakin, the film will orbit around the pair discovering the titular organization – United Network Command for Law and Enforcement – and has very much been billed as an origin story of sorts. Tapping into the societal paranoia of the time, Solo and Kuryakin’s atypical duo will be tasked with locating and preventing plans to launch a global nuclear attack. Ex Machina‘s Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki and Jared Harris will round out the cast.
Armie Hammer and Henry Cavill will put aside old quarrels and form an unlikely alliance when The Man From U.N.C.L.E. arrives in theaters on August 14. For now, check out the trailer above, and some photos and a plot summary below, and let us know what you think.
Set against the backdrop of the early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” centers on CIA agent Solo and KGB agent Kuryakin. Forced to put aside longstanding hostilities, the two team up on a joint mission to stop a mysterious international criminal organization, which is bent on destabilizing the fragile balance of power through the proliferation of nuclear weapons and technology. The duo’s only lead is the daughter of a vanished German scientist, who is the key to infiltrating the criminal organization, and they must race against time to find him and prevent a worldwide catastrophe.