What’s lighter than a popcorn movie? A soda fizz movie? A celery movie, where the mere act of consuming the film burns more calories than the film itself contains? Somehow, that’s where Guy Ritchie’s ultra-slick big screen update of "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." registers – or doesn’t register, I should say.

Before we go any further, a moment of silence for Steven Soderburgh’s killed-in-the-crib version … aaaand OK, we’re good. Anyways, where were we? Yes, "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." That was certainly a movie released into theaters and projected onto a screen.

If I seem a little aloof or distracted chatting about Ritchie’s latest effort (his first since 2011’s "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows;" man, that was already four years ago. Time moves so fast – dammit Matt, focus!) it’s because there’s just nothing there in "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." – not in terms of high drama or deep analysis, but just mere existence. Sure, the movie’s jazzy retro style is slinky fun, but enjoy it while you can because, like a toddler, if you take your eyes off it for a second to grab your drink or glance at your watch or merely blink, it is gone, a whooshing little breeze where it once used to be on screen and in your mind. The projector might as well be one of those neuralizers from "Men in Black."

Trading out his Superman suit for a couple of sleek three-piece numbers, Henry Cavill stars as debonair thief turned CIA master spy Napoleon Solo, dispatched to East Germany to snatch up Gabby (Alicia Vikander, "Ex Machina"), a local mechanic with some attitude – and, more pressingly, some unsavory family ties to a Nazi scientist. The seemingly simple mission ends up barreling through the entire Eastern Bloc, however, after half hyper-efficient KGB agent, half Terminator Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer, Hollywood’s go-to man for needless modernizations of old TV shows) shows up trying to stop the duo from leaping to the other side of the wall.

The duo escapes, but they’re far from finished with Illya. As it turns out, Solo’s greater mission – something about stopping Gabby’s scientist father from reluctantly enriching uranium for a devious Italian shipping magnate (Elizabeth Debicki, "The Great Gatsby") with her eyes set on her own private nuke – is too crucial for one agent and one country. Thus, his handlers pair him up with Illya, and after getting a few final punches in, the odd couple (with Gabby in tow, huffily posing as Illya’s fiancé) jets off to stop the bomb and keep the Cold War cool – oh so very cool, judging by the cast’s handsome retro wardrobe and soundtrack filled with chic Italian croons and spaghetti western tunes. If Quentin Tarantino (who, conveniently enough, also had his name attached to an "U.N.C.L.E." project for a while) wanted to slum it for a little action ditty, it might play something like this.

"Tarantino-infused summer blockbuster" is far from a bad combination of words. Unfortunately, "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." doesn’t play nearly as memorable as it sounds – mostly due to the less than enthralling leading men from U.N.C.L.E.

Cavill fills out his impeccably tailored suits well, but when it comes to on-screen presence, he’s thinner than the material used to make them. His character’s limited arc – plus the movie’s overall style-first attitude – doesn’t give him a ton to do, but his performance, channeling Troy McClure covered in Teflon, doesn’t bring much more. His lacquered-in-suave voice is enjoyable to listen to – the film is a goldmine for people who enjoy the pronunciation of "Natzis" – but there’s little else beyond that to his charisma. He and his lines tend to slip off the screen and out of mind before they’re even finished.

Hammer fares better with the meatier of the two roles, a Russian T-800 slowly softening up thanks to his assignment with the beguilingly brusque Gabby. He brings his stiff giant’s internal struggle across and even generates a few flirty sparks with Vikander. In the end, however, he’s got the same problem as Cavill: He doesn’t register as much more than generic handsomeness wrapped in a playful accent.

They’re both fighting a losing battle anyways against Guy Ritchie’s signature thick slathering of style. Starting right from the opening credits – a jazzy black-and-red zip through Cold War history – the movie pulses with the "Snatch" director’s expected snappy, slick energy. It’s admittedly cool, but as the film goes along, it becomes obvious that its chic style – complete with retro fashions, split screens and hyper-editing – is almost all "U.N.C.L.E." is interested in offering.

The uber-slick direction winds up mostly distracting, making essential plot details – like the plot entirely – slide out of mind. Their basic mission, for instance, is laid through a flashy onslaught of edits and old photos; a later car ride conversation is made inaudible and subtitled for no reason other than it’d be a neat thing to do – distracting from the critical plot details contained within.

Throughout the film, Ritchie and the screenplay also distractedly double back to reveal critical background information and plot points. Sometimes it’s nifty; most of the time, it’s simply to re-underline obvious information the audience already picked up the first time. Someone references a brief run-in; cut to the run-in we already saw. One whole third act twist is essentially played twice when once got the point across just fine. I started to wonder if Ritchie thinks his audience is kind of dumb. Or maybe he was aware all of the overdone stylish editing and theatrics made "U.N.C.L.E." play like it was dipped in LiquiGlide.

The flimsily-told story makes it hard to invest too much in any of the many action sequences scattered throughout. Their brisk, nonchalant air and mismatched buddy spy humor keep things zippily entertaining, but by the end, even they fall victim to Ritchie’s tendency to overdo things in the name of cool. When we reach a final big chase, Ritchie’s confusingly bounding between three distant different parties before abandoning the suave ’60s spy movie vibe and devolving into a rainy, grim and gritty punch-up (a tonal detour that would’ve been more glaring if a previous Holocaust-tinted torture scene hadn’t already flattened some of the movie’s overall carefree fizz).

There are a few things that stick in the mind in this otherwise slippery experience. It’s a shame it’s "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." because the women are easily more compelling than our dapper dudes. The petite ballet-trained Vikander may not seem like the first pick for the role of a snappy mechanic, but she gives her lines a tart, exasperated snap and she’s an enigmatic on-screen presence. There’s always something new and surprising to her on screen – the opposite with her male co-stars, where you’re pretty sure you’ve seen everything they’ve got after a few scenes. Then there’s the bright-eyed Debicki, who plays a delectably chilly villainess whose razor-sharp grins and smirks could give the finest samurai blades a run for their money.

And while a little goes a long way, Ritchie’s jazzy kinetic style (complete with Daniel Pemberton's ultra retro-cool score) makes "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." a very smooth and easy watch. Almost too easy, but for a movie whose mere existence is baffling – Hollywood’s traditional young male target audience likely has no knowledge of the old TV show, while those older audience members who do remember it likely have little interest in an ultra-stylized version with actors they don’t recognize – this is not a bad experience.

It’s so slick, however, that it’s not much of an experience period. If movies are said to be like dreams, "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." might be the peak of the form – in that when you wake up, the lights come up and your mind’s forgotten everything that just happened. You could get worse from a late summer popcorn movie, but the ephemeral "U.N.C.L.E." barely adds up to the salt.