I've never seen the original TV series that this film comes from, but after watching this, I'm more than happy to.Spooks, or MI-5, is an entertaining spy flick with enough twists and tense moments that kept me entertained throughout. Harry Pearce, played by Peter Firth is quite the bad ass agent, and there's a gritty realism to him as he makes tough choices for national security that result in the deaths of the few to save many. Peter Firth gave a solid, contained performance, and was great.Kit Harrington was good as the younger agent, but was nothing special. Jennifer Ehle and Tim McInnery were also really good in their roles.It was well shot, had good direction with the action being clear to follow. The story was engaging and the bad guy wasn't hammed up.The soundtrack and score wasn't memorable, being the generic action/thriller soundtrack but doesn't take away from the film.The special effects worked well enough, and although you can tell when the effects weren't real, they were well done for the most part.Overall, an entertaining spy film that passes by quickly, with no real need to have watched the TV series beforehand. I had a good time with it. 7/10, good.

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.

I'm guessing from the spelling and turn of phrase that a lot of the reviews for this film are from Americans. A lot of the same reviews accuse it of being racist and clichéd with a "middle eastern terrorist bad guy" (he's actually Pakistani but why let geography get in the way?). I guess you need the same mind set as the makers of this film to realise the terrorists are the victims and the bad guys, as they usually were in the Spooks series, are the British. There's a particularly British mind set that distrusts authority figures and thinks they are usually corrupt or at least overly self interested and its in plain view throughout: Harry isn't searching for terrorists, he's looking for a traitor. The final show down isn't guns blazing as terrorists die in a hail of bullets, it's two people sat in a living room talking.It's the same mind set that birthed writers like John La Carre and stories like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. It produces slow burning paranoid stories rather than big explosions and gun fights that feature in American cinema. Maybe that's the problem, it's a story style better suited to the small screen and the cinema should be left to the other film this year called MI5

Unlike many other films categorised as spy thrillers who are filled with action scenes and care less about the spying aspect this one is just the opposite. The pure investigation scenes surpass the action ones. So, you would think you have a fine mind-tickling thriller that makes questions pop up in your head to ponder over? But think again.The film is boring and I found myself easily distracted. It's not until the last half an hour that it begins to hold attention well and becomes interesting. It's supposed to present serious events but the whole feel is not serious enough. Even the most dramatic scenes doesn't deliver adrenalin or any kind of feeling. The film makes progress at a normal pace but it doesn't try to lure you into its story. Instead, it shows you moving pictures and occupies your mind with its dialogue which, frankly, is nothing amazing.There is no character transition and, sadly, few of the actors can deliver emotions on their faces properly. The characters are not shaped well, and that is especially noticeable with Qasim who plays more the bad guy, rather than an actual leader. The whole film follows the formula of good guys versus bad guys which shows simple approach in storytelling.