MI-5

Spooks was undoubtedly a riveting espionage drama series for the BBC which never shied away from killing off some of its key cast members. Now four years after its final episode Spooks returns as a feature film for the cinema.

Nothing unusual about this move. I remember in the 1970s the TV show The Sweeney spawned several films for the cinema with the television cast reprising their roles.

With Spooks not many of the television series cast remained so Harry Pearce (Peter Firth) is central to the plot and he is joined here by new cast member Kit Harington who plays a former agent brought in to flush out Harry after a wanted terrorist escapes.

Of course in the cinema this film will compete with Mission Impossible, James Bond and Jason Bourne but with a lower budget and lower wattage stars.

Mission Impossible was a television show re-tooled for the cinema backed by Tom Cruise and the off centre talents of Brian De Palma. Spooks has one of the show's director back for the film but its a plodding style without the flair, style and pacing of the television show. In fact I found it pedestrian despite some international location filming and bigger budget.

The escape part of Qasim looked silly in the first place. A wanted terrorist is being transported and they are stuck in traffic with no police sirens anywhere to shift them all.

The film was decent enough but not a cinematic event. I watched it closely mainly because my brother was an Extra in the film, never spotted him though.

The Spooks TV show has been a popular hit in the UK. Now the producers have gone and made a spin-off movie. Peter Firth is back in his role as Harry while we welcome a new addition in the form of Kit Harrington.

First of all, this movie is somewhat separate from the TV show. You don't need to have seen the TV show in order to understand what is going on. The movie had a fairly decent storyline and that is what it mainly focuses on. There are also a couple of intense moments which is what I like in a thriller. There is also a bit of character development as well. Without giving anything away there are also a couple of twists. Don't go into this movie expecting gun fights and car chases - you will be disappointed. They didn't have that kind of thing in the TV show, so it would make sense to do the same thing for the movie.

All in all, it was a good movie to enjoy. I have only seen the first two seasons of the TV show which I enjoyed and I didn't have any problems with this movie. So for me it worked.

Action is a genre that hinges solely on entertainment value. Even if it's a blatantly dumb plot and objectively not that great, something like Machete or Bullet to the Head, you can still have fun watching it and appreciate it for its pure insanity. MI-5 lies on the opposite side of the action spectrum. It tries to be serious and dark and much smarter than it actually is. This sucks the atmosphere dry and leaves you with a bland, brooding, and tasteless thriller with little to no thrills.

The movie starts off with a criminal escort gone wrong and develops into an espionage mission that can only be done by a specific agent who was kicked off the force, Will Holloway played by Kit Harrington. I can't fault any of the actors here because these characters are paper thin. They're just either giving orders or receiving orders or having secrets meetings or reciting some other form of lifeless expository dialogue for a majority of the movie. There's no chemistry between anyone, they have no development whatsoever. It just doesn't look like anyone is having fun. And with a script like that, how can you blame them.

There is a sleek, glossy feel about MI-5, which is one of the few positive things about it. Kit Harrington is a badass in general and it's nice to see him in a modern action setting. Unfortunately, the action in this movie is so scarce and underwhelming, it's hard to even call it an action movie. Instead of exciting action sequences, we're left with cliché double-crosses and triple-crosses and back stabs that no one cares about because none of the characters are engaging in the first place.

MI-5 is kind of like background music. It's not gripping and won't get your adrenaline pumping, but it's quite harmless to have on. It's just completely run-of-the-mill, linear storytelling that takes a page out of every spy book and streamlines it all into a two hour film. Kit Harrington can certainly be an action star, but this is not the proper vehicle to showcase his talents. MI-5 is a miss.

This movie was pretty much how I expected.

It's exciting enough, has some decent action. Some twists and turns. An older agent, a younger agent. Relatively standard stuff, really.

It's a thriller with some action sprinkled in. The action is alright, not incredible, but satisfactory. For a spy-movie it's a little more "realistic" than some of it's more action-oriented counterparts, and not too over the top. But the action isn't cheap-looking. There are bullet holes, blank-firing guns, some destruction.

Had this movie been a little longer, it could have been one of those movies that gets split up into shorter episodes and sent on TV.

Kit Harington is pretty good, the acting overall is good. You won't remember this for eternity, but if you like spy/agent-stuff, you'll have an alright time.

"MI-5: The Greater Good" is an extension of the TV series "MI-5" that starred Peter Firth and dozens of other wonderful people. What made the show so great was that, for me anyway, the plots were never convoluted, you never knew if one of your favorite cast members were going to be killed, and the suspense in some situations was almost too much to bear sometimes. It was always exciting, intriguing, and you cared about the people who worked at MI-5.

The film stars Peter Firth, and I don't believe any of the other originals were present. Firth plays Harry Pearce, the head of the MI-5 Counter-terrorism division who, at the end of the long series, lost the love of his life, Ruth, to whom he had never really committed. Always dedicated to his work, he was never able to let it go.

Now, the CIA's most wanted terrorist is en route to be turned over to them when he escapes, thanks to a motorbike assault. As someone pointed out here, right away the film is in trouble. You can't be transporting the CIA's most wanted terrorist with no security riding around it.

Harry Pearce is blamed for the escape, as he disappears right after it happens.

MI-5 brings in a former agent, Will Holloway to help find Harry, as he was Harry's protégé. Harry believes there is a traitor within MI5, and he asks Will to help him find the mole.

The acting was uniformly excellent, with Pearce, Kit Harrington as Will, Lara Pulver as Erin, Jennifer Ehle as Geraldine, and Elyes Gabel as Qasim.

The movie just did not hold one's interest - it didn't move along at the kind of pace a film like this needs, and it felt like it didn't hang together.

Nevertheless, if they put out more films from the series, I'd watch every one. If you're a fan of MI-5 or Spooks, you will check this out regardless of the review, just as I would.