That’s the kind of widget The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is: so good it’s practically defective.

This wasn’t something I wanted to see. The posters promise Armie Hammer and Henry Cavill, two actors who are like day-old bread. You practically have to give them away. They look like they’ve been attacked by a stylist from the fall issue of any men’s magazine. Down at the bottom of the poster, standing in front of an Aston Martin and looking like a flight attendant vacationing in a Paul Bowles novel, is Alicia Vikander, a Swede who’ll be shoved in our faces until we love her. Also, and not for nothing: This is a remake of a spy show that ran for four seasons on NBC near the height of the Cold War, a film version of which has been failing to launch for decades. Exactly no one was asking for this.

So it’s a surprise to discover that the bar for this movie is low enough to conga under. Ritchie has gotten everyone to agree not to take any of this seriously, including the person responsible for keeping an eye on Hammer’s Russian accent.

Wesley Morris on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Here he in the same article on a movie I've never heard of, Cop Car.

From the car emerges Kevin Bacon, with a graying, rusty mustache and nary a line of dialogue, looking every bit the hypothetical adult outcome of Sam Elliott’s decision to do in vitro with himself.

When Grantland first arrived on the scene, I could read every article published on the site. Today I can barely keep up with a fraction of what's there, but it's still a wellspring of great writing.

Unfortunately, I have a sinking feeling that despite its popularity, new media economics put Grantland in no man's land: not targeted enough to be a one-man niche, not large enough to collect enough tax revenue to survive as an independent country. In barbell economics, the one in the middle is left holding a lot of weight.

I take solace in the fact that most of the talent there will always find work.