spooks movie review

Neil Young International prospects will depend on audience familiarity with the original show — which at its peak was shown in 60 countries, sometimes under the title MI-5 — while the prominent presence of Kit Harington may draw in some fans of his broodingly vengeful Game of Thrones character Jon Snow. Latest British stab at spy shenanigans may struggle to lure viewers beyond fans of its small-screen source. Directed by Bharat Nalluri. Spooks (known as MI-5 in some countries) is a British television spy drama series that originally aired on BBC One from 13 May 2002 to 23 October 2011, consisting of 10 series. Best of 2020 THR Editor Picks of 2020 Movie Reviews TV Reviews Roundtables Podcasts 'Spooks: The Greater Good': Film Review. Typical movie for TV This film is basically the hunt that the MI-5 (British intelligence service specializing in internal security) promotes a fearsome terrorist who escapes them between the fingers. The current Obama/Cameron epoch provides, for good or ill, a less dramatic backdrop — and the recurring sub-plot of thorny US-UK collaborations ("the Americans think MI-5 is a weak link... they withdraw their support, our entire intelligence apparatus will collapse") never quite comes into focus. While an entirely new creation, Holloway combines elements of two previous Spooks favorites: future Hobbit notable Richard Armitage's Lucas North and Matthew McFadyen's Tom Quinn. The Spooks movie – Spooks: The Greater Good – is underway, and as you can see from this exclusive first-look still, it’ll be tauter than Hawkeye's bowstring. Starring: Kit Harington, Peter Firth, Jennifer Ehle. Kit Harington plays Will Holloway, a character roughly similar to his "bastard" Jon Snow in Game of Thrones. The contrasting specters of Jason Bourne and George Smiley hang heavy over Spooks: The Greater Good, which semi-successfully translates the BBC's hit spy series to the big screen three years after its tenth and final season. 6:23 AM PDT 5/11/2015 Nonetheless, when a high-value terrorist, Qasim (Elyes Gabel), is sprung from captivity, Holloway is brought in from the cold to try to get him back. Taxi Spooks (1929) ← Back to main. As it is, they struggle to flesh Holloway out into three dimensions — the script is even peppered with derisive, hostage-to-fortune comments about his competence ("Harry was right about one thing: you're not good enough!") It was the first Harold Lloyd movie I ever saw and the movie that really made me appreciate how much clever title cards can contribute to a silent film. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an approval rating of 63% based on 41 reviews, with an average rating of 5.5/10. You can't help but admire the diligence with which the director, Bharat Nalluri, shows off his London locations. Our Verdict. Buy movie tickets in advance, find movie times, watch trailers, read movie reviews, and more at Fandango. Cinematographer: Hubert Taczanowski It is also historically significant as Lloyd lost part of his hand (and nearly his life!) The title is a popular colloquialism for spies, and the series follows the work of a group of MI5 officers based at the service's Thames House headquarters, in a highly secure suite of offices known as The Grid. | California Privacy Rights URL. Spooks Run Wild (the title is the best thing about it) is sixty minutes of terrible gags, racist bullshit, and Bela Lugosi stalking about in the shadows.It's like a particularly bad Scooby Doo episode stretched into (almost) feature length. From its earliest episodes Spooks (a Brit-speak epithet for spies) was notorious for dispatching key sympathetic characters — including Danny Hunter, the breakthrough part for Selma's David Oyelowo — and North was one of many to meet a sticky end. We don't have any reviews for Taxi Spooks. Celebrity Celebrity ... Spooks Movie Review… Pairing another Firth (no relation) with crackerjack newcomer Taron Edgerton, Kingsman's fizzingly droll chutzpah can't help but make Spooks: The Greater Good, for all Peter Firth's ballast, seem dowdily old-school in comparison. Click here to login or ... Can't find a movie or TV show? Sales: Pinewood Pictures, London. EMAIL ME Production designer: Simon Bowles Screenwriters: Jonathan Brackley, Sam Vincent Spooks: The Greater Good, movie review: Kit Harington and Peter Firth leap to the big screen at a ripping pace. Director: Bharat Nalluri (15) Bharat Nalluri, 104 mins. The very British eccentricity is part of the appeal. THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER is a registered trademark of The Hollywood Reporter, LLC. Casting: Reg Poerscout-Edgerton | Do Not Sell My Personal Information For all its references to hacking and computer surveillance, its high-tech listening devices and gadgetry, the big-screen spin-off from TV's Spooks is an old-fashioned affair – a ripping yarn with more than a hint of John Buchan about it. Kit Harington in the new Spooks movie (Kudos) Wolstencroft and his team were putting the first episode to bed when 9/11 happened. I hate the East Side Kids. The movie, however, achieves none of the above. That said, Harington's debut starring vehicle — Paul W S Anderson's Pompeii — proved less than explosive last year, and Spooks is more revealing of his limitations than his potential. Production values, at least compared with Bourne or Bond movies, are modest. But there were exceptions, including McFadyen's Quinn — who enjoyed a killer cameo in the final episode — and Firth's Pearce, who uniquely appeared in all 86 episodes and slowly emerged as the show's main draw. Spooks: The Greater Good review – nonsense but fun 3 out of 5 stars. No, not this gag! You can find our Community Guidelines in full here. Spooks is very realistic and follows story lines that are real close to real world events. It doesn’t exactly soar and the lack of levity grates, yet the Spooks movie still delivers some appealingly old-school mayhem to pass the time while we’re waiting on SPECTRE. Latest Movie Trailers Interviews Movie Review Videos Anchor Cuts Nettv4u Videos Sillaakki Dumma Videos Shortflims. But it's also frustrating that he should also have to share the limelight with an undeserving young whippersnapper, especially when Jonathan Brackley and Sam Vincent (head writers on the last two seasons) could easily have found a way to bring back the charismatic Quinn. Login to create it. Terms of Use | Casting a couple of US actors might have helped — director Nalluri's previous big-screen outing, Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day (2008), was a US-UK co-production which benefited from having Frances McDormand, Amy Adams and Lee Pace in leading roles. Sitemap | Due to the sheer scale of this comment community, we are not able to give each post the same level of attention, but we have preserved this area in the interests of open debate. Haunted Spooks is a bit of a special one for me. Independent Premium Comments can be posted by members of our membership scheme, Independent Premium. Spooks series 8 episode 1 review. Nalluri, who handled the first two episodes of the first two Spooks seasons and came back for the very final pair, is ploddingly content to follow the Hollywood-approved template for action/espionage fare, without ever imparting much of his own flavor. © 2021 The Hollywood Reporter, LLC. This is James Wan after all, with David F. Sandburg directing, who is the creator of the short film this movie is based on. Editor: Jamie Pearson We are whisked from Heathrow to Waterloo Bridge, from the West End to Whitehall. Technical contributions likewise seldom threaten to bedazzle: cinematographer Hubert Taczanowski seeks to show off a range of London locales, with copious use of helicopter shots, but his visions of the capital lacks the panache of recent genre notables Welcome to the Punch, Redemption (aka Hummingbird) or fellow small-screen transplant, The Sweeney. You can also choose to be emailed when someone replies to your comment. No opportunity is lost for high-angle shots of the city and for panoramas of its historic buildings and skyscrapers. Please be respectful when making a comment and adhere to our Community Guidelines. Composer: Dominic Lewis Start your Independent Premium subscription today. | EU Privacy Preferences. They should be renamed the East Side Middle Aged Men. A crazy person, a spirit and some flickering lights. Cast: Peter Firth, Kit Harington, Jennifer Ehle, Tuppence Middleton, Elyes Gabel, Tim McInnerny, Lara Pulver, David Harewood With Kit Harington, Peter Firth, Jennifer Ehle, Michael Wildman. In most cases at least. It's great to see Firth granted a rare leading role at age 61 here — four decades after he earned Tony and Oscar nominations for Broadway and film versions of Equus — as Pearce goes AWOL and underground in the wake of Qasim's escape, leading his stuffed-shirt superiors to question his loyalties. What matters most, though, are the chases, explosions, bluffs and double crosses, all staged at such a relentless tempo there is no time to notice the cracks in the storyline. Film Review: ‘Spooks: The Greater Good’ A game Kit Harington headlines this strained, superfluous spinoff from the once-popular BBC spy drama. by Conceived as a British answer to 24, but with extra real-world grit and downbeat-classy Tinker Tailor touches, the BAFTA-winning Spooks successfully dramatized security concerns in the wake of 9/11, often touching on dealings between MI-5 personnel and their CIA counterparts during the era of the "special relationship" between George W Bush and Tony Blair. Read our full mailing list consent terms here. while this film was in production. British bookmakers are currently offering 33/1 against Harington becoming the next 007, odds which most punters will have little difficulty resisting. p open profile menu. Spooks: The Greater Good review: 'faintly ridiculous' Star Rating Star Rating. Spooks: The Greater Good is no different, boasting plenty of bridge-based reflective thinking backdropped by London skylines. Jennifer Ehle is good value as his enigmatic colleague. Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. Articles Slideshows English Articles. Privacy Policy | — and while the character of course comes up trumps in the final reel, that's more than can be said for the performer or the picture as a whole. The website's critical consensus states: " MI-5 (Spooks: The Greater Good) is a stylish, albeit rather perfunctory, adaptation of a spy thriller perhaps best left on the small screen." The title is a popular colloquialism for spies, and the series follows the work of a group of MI5 officers based at the service's Thames House headquarters, in a highly secure suite of offices known as The Grid. YOUTUBE. Global. The show was called “Spooks” when it ran on the BBC for ten seasons, from 2002-2011. Sign Up. Over the past four seasons spooks has gone through many changes and has in season 3 lost there three main leads Tom,Zoe,Danny and replaced by Adam,Ros,Zaf who still make the show just as exciting more to the point realistic and serious. “MI-5” looks exactly like what it is: a movie derived from a TV show. It allows our most engaged readers to debate the big issues, share their own experiences, discuss real-world solutions, and more. Starring: Kit Harington, Peter Firth, Jennifer Ehle, {{#verifyErrors}} {{message}} {{/verifyErrors}} {{^verifyErrors}} {{message}} {{/verifyErrors}}, Spooks: The Greater Good: TV spies leap to the big screen at a ripping, You may not agree with our views, or other users’, but please respond to them respectfully, Swearing, personal abuse, racism, sexism, homophobia and other discriminatory or inciteful language is not acceptable, Do not impersonate other users or reveal private information about third parties, We reserve the right to delete inappropriate posts and ban offending users without notification. Production companies: Kudos, Shine Spooks: The Greater Good review – TV spy show sprints on to the big screen 2 out of 5 stars. All rights reserved. There is a sense that this is a film aimed primarily at British audiences who have a passing acquaintance with the TV show. ... let’s be honest, far more engaging than the last James Bond movie. While more satisfactory as a Le Carré variant than as a Ludlum clone — thanks largely to the world-weary gravitas of top-billed veteran Peter Firth — there's only the ghost of a chance of this so-so mid-budgeter fulfilling its mission of sparking a new franchise, especially with Paul Feig's raucously larkish Spy to contend with. Tense drama series about the different challenges faced by the British Security Service as they work against the clock to safeguard the nation. In the U.S. it was known as “MI-5.” This reviewer never saw the show, but on the evidence of the movie, he feels he didn’t miss much. He is both part of the Great British spy family and an outsider, forced out of the services in murky circumstances. Costume designer: Colleen Kelsall Nick Love's slam-bang Sweeney — like the Spooks movie — pivoted on the chemistry between a seen-it-all pro and a tearaway youngster, a format whose most sparkling recent iteration is Matthew Vaughn's Kingsman: The Secret Service. The existing Open Comments threads will continue to exist for those who do not subscribe to Independent Premium. Luckily it doesn’t give into any cheap straight-to-DVD D-list cliches. Login. When a terrorist escapes custody during a routine handover, Will Holloway must team with disgraced MI5 Intelligence Chief Harry Pearce to track him down before an imminent terrorist attack on London. Among support-players here only Jennifer Ehle (as an imperturbable MI-5 bigwig) makes much impact, crisply channeling Meryl Streep via Margaret Sullavan with the snowy tremolo of her icily precise diction. There is a stirring turn from Peter Firth, who appeared in every episode of the series, as spy chief Sir Harry Pearce, who suspects there may be something rotten at the heart of British intelligence. AdChoices Create a commenting name to join the debate, There are no Independent Premium comments yet - be the first to add your thoughts, There are no comments yet - be the first to add your thoughts. Are you sure you want to delete this comment? Peter Firth and Kit Harington star in the pacey ‘Spooks: the Greater Good’, (15) Bharat Nalluri, 104 mins. As in the best spy films, we aren't quite sure which side the spooks are on, whether they are trying to do "good" or to do "well" and further their careers. The premise of the movie is one of those that can easily fall into destruction. TWITTER At times, it seems stranded in a no man's land between 007-style thrills and George Smiley-like spycraft. Squeezing the excitement and intrigue of even a 5 or 6 episode season (UK standard it seems) isn’t easy. Movie Review of Spooks: The Greater Good. A film based on a long running TV show, sure to disappoint fans. s focus the search bar. Are you sure you want to mark this comment as inappropriate? Film critic Nick Duncalf reviews the big screen spin-off of the hit BBC TV series, starring Kit Harington and Peter Firth. FACEBOOK British spy thriller, a continuation of TV series Spooks.Harry Pearce's (Peter Firth) security is compromised after a known terrorist escapes from the clutches of MI5. Overview of Beware, Spooks!, 1939, directed by Edward Sedgwick, with Joe E. Brown, Mary Carlisle, Clarence Kolb, at Turner Classic Movies Co-producers: Jane Hooks, Robert Norris Want an ad-free experience?Subscribe to Independent Premium. This movie sucks. Spooks is a show that catches your attention from start to finish. The most insightful comments on all subjects will be published daily in dedicated articles. Our journalists will try to respond by joining the threads when they can to create a true meeting of independent Premium. Producers: Jane Featherstone, Stephen Garrett, Ollie Madden Login to write a review. The Spooks television show is immersed within its own historical and ideological contexts, and in pursuing a serialised format, that rejects the prestige hallmarks of most espionage TV, is at the very least interesting. Oh my god. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Please continue to respect all commenters and create constructive debates. ... Spooks writing veterans Jonathan Brackley and Sam Vincent penned the screenplay and stick to what … Many of the spies look like provincial bank managers or jobbing civil servants. Relatively diminutive, slight and with his Thrones locks —  he's contractually obliged to retain the Snow 'do — incongruously intact, he makes for a sullenly humorless presence here as hot-headed former MI-5 agent Will Holloway, who gets back in the game when terrorist Adem Qasim (Elyes Gabel) escapes captivity and threatens London with a 7/7-style atrocity. ‘Spooks: The Greater Good’ - Movie Review “I want to know everything you know”. You need to be logged in to continue. Nonsense but fun 3 out of 5 stars have any reviews for taxi spooks ( 1929 ) ← Back main..., find movie times, watch Trailers, read movie reviews, with an average rating of 5.5/10: movie... Film review a crazy person, a character roughly similar to his `` ''. Your comment is no different, boasting plenty of bridge-based reflective thinking backdropped by London.... Spy family and an outsider, forced out of the hit BBC TV series, starring Kit plays! 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