Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

rebeccalucy A decent spy film, but not the best around. Many features of the film are just okay, like the cinematography and shots. Not many creative shots and it should be more creative with them.However, I did enjoy most of the plot despite being a little confused. I am aware the film is based on a show, but never seen it before. The film manages to get you aware of the characters without seeing the series before, so this is another positive of the film.Some of the acting is decent like Kit Harington and Peter Firth. The villain is very minimal in the film, so there is not much to say about him. Some twist and turns in the plot which is good, but can sometimes get confusing. Another film to just watch on Netflix or on a DVD but worth seeing once.

gradyharp Indian director Bharat Nalluri (Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Tsunami: The Aftermath, The Crow: Salvation, and episodes of the original television version of MI5 from which this film is adapted) has created a fine 'extended version' of the MI-5 series as written by Jonathan Brackley, Sam Vincent, and David Wolstencroft. One of the reasons the film works well is the competent set of actors who manage to make this rather meandering story hold together and offer enough back stories of each character to make them credible.When a terrorist (Elyes Gabel) escapes custody during a routine handover, Will Holloway (Kit Harrington) must team with disgraced MI5 Intelligence Chief Harry Pearce (Peter Firth) to track him down before an imminent terrorist attack on London. Or to be more precise, MI5 personnel are caught up in a traffic jam in London while escorting the CIA's most wanted terrorist to an arranged CIA handover point, when he is suddenly rescued by armed men on motorbikes. Harry Pearce, the head of Counter-Terrorism at MI5 is blamed for the terrorist escaping. Especially as Harry disappeared shortly after the incident. An ex-agent, Will Holloway, and protégé of Harry's is recalled by MI5 to assist in finding and bringing Harry in. However Harry has disappeared for a reason. Certain that there is a traitor in a senior position in MI5, he enlists the somewhat reluctant Will to help him in uncovering the rat or rats concerned.The action is fast and hard and very cleverly captured by cinematographer Hubert Yaczanowski. The large cast of characters includes Larissa Kouznetsova, Laura Pulver, Tim McInnerny, Jennifer Ehle, David Harewood, Tuppence Middleton, and the above mentioned Kit Harrington, Elyes Gable, and Peter Firth. For the popular idiom of spy thrillers this film stands its own – and is much better than many of the same genre.

siderite The movie is about a rogue agent that has to save MI-5 for certain destruction by foreign powers. Sounds familiar? The film has multiple problems, starting with Harington's acting (sorry, John Snow) and ending with a way too predictable script. Every twist it had I saw coming for a mile away and there were things that happened that were quite clearly impossible in the timeframe of the movie.But what was probably the thing that stopped me most from enjoying this film was that it felt like a clone after American movies. Way before MI5 was taken over by the CIA, the British film industry seems to be taken over by Hollywood. Same cardboard characters, same complicated plots that somehow survive the battle unscathed, even if they are full of holes, same "human" behavior thing where the trained agent can't shoot and ask questions later, same grandiose villain and hero speeches and so on.Bottom line: as entertaining as an American blockbuster, with a slightly lower budget. I watched it, almost regretted it and soon I will forget all about it. Completely unmemorable.

Dave McClain When I was buying my ticket to "MI-5" (R, 1:44), the cashier asked me if I knew that this movie was not "Mission: Impossible 5". I said that I did, and we briefly spoke about the confusion caused by the title of the movie that I was about to see. As if on cue, as I walked away, I heard the woman who had just come to the box office request a ticket for "Mission: Impossible 5". She decided to choose another movie.Her confusion is understandable. Just a few months before the British spy thriller "MI-5" hit American theaters, "Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation" (sometimes referred to as "M:I-5") was playing widely in the U.S. Lest anyone think that "MI-5" is trying to ride the coat tails of "M:I-5", I should mention that the former is a cinematic continuation of the 2002-2011 British TV series of the same name. And, ironically enough, the jump that "MI-5" made to the big screen mirrors that of "Mission: Impossible" in which the first of the movies has the hero of the TV series going rogue. If all that is too confusing, maybe this will help: The British series is called "MI-5" in the U.S., but was titled "Spooks" in the U.K. (after the common nickname for spies around the world) and the film version is known overseas as "Spooks: The Greater Good". I hope that clears up any confusion, and I'll just talk about the British film from here on in."Spooks: The Greater Good" / "MI-5" takes its name from the legendary British Secret Service which is responsible for counter-terrorism and counter-espionage as it works to protect British governmental and economic interests. When Adem Qasim (Elyes Gabel), the CIA's most wanted terrorist, escapes British custody while being transported to American agents, Harry Pearce (Peter Firth), head of MI-5's counter-terrorism department (Section D), is blamed. With "MI-5" facing an existential crisis and trying to save face after Qasim's escape, the organization pressures Pearce to resign. Instead, he disappears.Former MI-5 agent, Will Holloway (Kit Harrington), who was only with the agency for a year, is brought in to help find Pearce. Holloway's father used to work with Pearce. MI-5 agents Geraldine Maltby (Jennifer Ehle) and Mace (Tim McInnerny) – with their boss, Francis Warrender (David Harewood) backing them up – tell Halloway that Pearce has more information about Halloway's father's death in the field than the young man had previously known. Halloway is reluctant because Pearce was the one responsible for Halloway's dismissal from MI-5 years before, but he really wants to get the whole story behind his father's death, so he sets out to find Pearce.Holloway uses some of his MI-5 skills to catch up to Pearce in Berlin, but gets much more than he bargained for. Before Pearce tells Holloway anything else about his father, Pearce enlists Holloway to help him in his self-assigned one-man mission to find a traitor within MI-5. Holloway doesn't like or trust Pearce, especially when he finds out Pearce has been in contact with Qasim, but his encounters with another agent (Tuppence Middleton) lead Holloway to believe that Pearce is right about the traitor within their organization. The rest of the film involves a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in which Pearce works Qasim to discover the traitor's identity and Holloway works desperately to prevent a terrorist attack on London."MI-5" / "Spooks: The Greater Good" effectively mixes influences from the "Mission: Impossible" movies and TV shows like "Homeland" and "24", but isn't quite as good. Some of the film's plot points feel contrived, but the main story is interesting and keeps the audience guessing. The script contains great lines ("You can do good or you can do well. Sooner or later they make you choose.") as it delves into the complicated world of counter-terrorism in the 21st century and explores the difficult decisions we must make to survive in that world. Gabel isn't quite menacing enough as the villain, but Firth brings forward his character from the TV show wonderfully, while Harrington is great in this modern "Game of Thrones". It's too bad that woman chose not to see "MI-5". She missed a very entertaining movie. "B+"