LIVE FILM REVIEW: Dirty Harry? The new Spooks film loses the plot and only gets 2 stars
WATCH Daily Express Online's live review of Spooks: The Greater Good. What went wrong and is this the end for Game of Thrones star Kit Harington as a credible leading man?
Spooks: The Greater Good review
There has been a huge amount of expectation riding on the release of Spooks: The Greater Good.
Not only is it the big screen spin-off from one of the BBC's most ground-breaking and beloved shows, it also features man of the moment Kit Harington.
The addition of the Game of Thrones star, aka Jon Snow, aka the man who knows nothing, seemed like inspired casting – a gutsy young warrior raring to take this venerable brand into the modern age.
But, to my great disappointment, the whole thing fails to ignite. The film fails to shake its small screen roots and actually ends up less dynamic and powerful than a typical episode.
As for Harington, Game of Thrones has made him a global star, but underwhelming appearances in last year's Pompeii and this year's Testament of Youth, alongside another typically muted performance here, leave me wondering how far he can go outside of the HBO show.
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Spooks - The Greater Good Film Review EX
REVIEW: SPOOKS (15)
Starring: Peter Firth, Kit Harington, Elyes Gabel, Jennifer Ehle, Lara Pulver, Tuppence Middleton, David Harewood, Tim McInnerny
Spooks was a glorious moment in television history. Running from 2002-2011, it brutally shredded our nerves and ripped out our hearts by bumping off characters with gay abandon, long before Game of Thrones had its first beheading.
But it finished four years ago - do we really need a big screen adaptation?
Bond and Bourne and Mission Impossible are such satisfyingly spectacular juggernauts while Kingsman: The Secret Service recently joyfully rebooted the traditional old-school British spy with tongue firmly in cheek.
Spooks may protest that it is special because it is a very British take on the spy thriller – what it really means is that it is very old-school BBC drama and just a little po-faced and gloomy.
Plus, if you’re going to make a film, make a film, not a dragged out version of a so-so hour-long episode.
Sure, we have international religious terrorists and undercover agents. But, we also have secret message drops in an umbrella shop, an exotic trip to Germany and a crucial plot point seriously hinges on how bad the London traffic is.
Peter Firth as Harry in Spooks: The Greater Good
It’s always good to see gruff old Harry (Peter Firth) still sacrificing all he loves for Queen and country and Malcolm (Hugh Simon) is still tinkering with his gadgets, but it desperately lacks other strong characters. None of the new additions make much impression – Jennifer Ehle and Tim McInnerny are almost cartoonish as the posh stuffed heads of the British intelligence services.
The big casting coup is Jon ‘you know nothing’ Snow (Kit Harington) as young agent Will. He’s pouty, moody and disobedient in Game of Thrones and, yup, he’s pouty, moody and disobedient here, too.
Bereft of his big cloak he leaps around scaling tall buildings. No, really, he scales an actual building – but sadly his acting and charisma don’t hit the same heights.
Kit Harington In Spooks: The Greater Good
He is matched by a wishy-washy terrorist (Elyes Gabel) who mutters on about moral and social issues and loves his wife. It’s all very touching.
Seriously, where are all the great movie villains these days? We want megalomaniac psychopaths not philosophical bores.
Spooks- The Greater Good – Official Trailer – Pinewood Pictures
The gut-wrenching tension of the original TV show is totally missing here. There is no tension. In fact, it’s an endless wearying version of switches and not very big reveals.
Basically, there’s a lot of, “Ha, you thought I was betraying you, but actually I was following orders from someone else who was betraying you because they were being betrayed and…”
Please make it stop, already.
Plus everybody, mopey terrorist included, thinks that they are doing the right thing, which is all very nice, but not very exciting.
The big threat is so laughably British it actually boils down to the fear that the Americans think that we are becoming irrelevant on a global stage. Sadly, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for the film itself, as Spooks shows that it has become irrelevant as a spy thriller on a global stage.
RATING: 2 stars