vespet2000

Contrary to what negative reviewers said here, it is pretty anti-American and anti-CIA. It is acceptable only because it is very well done, excellent stories, only very tiny plot-holes.

It tries to tell us how complicated the relationship between CIA and the German authorities can be these days.

Layers and sub-layers, emotional debt, excellent acting, and what I value most, the story is coherent, while not perfect. Unlike so many block-buster crappy movies that are for 14-year olds. It's even slightly better than the 5th season of Homeland and this was their best season, also set in Germany.

IMDb is now totally compromised - such a grade for such crap???? What is going on? This is either for 11-year olds or people with an IQ of 11. Nothing makes sense, half the cast acting is horrible, it is only cheap effects, cheap shots, a thousand of Hollywood clichés, shallow British snobbery, ridiculous, utterly unbelievable plot, horrible music. This is Seth Rogen bad. People like Colin Firth should be ashamed allowing their name to be associated with garbage of this magnitude.

They try to trump up humor from exploding heads of people. They try to compensate lack of substance with excessive meaningless violence and gore. They try to compensate lack of quality humor with endless profanities.

None of the characters is really attractive except for Firth's and only to some extent.

This is for teenagers who use to watch all these horror movies with people cut to pieces and whatnot.

Crap like this deserves minus 3 stars.

What usually makes me come to IMDb and write a review is anger at some really dumb show and the lazy ways its creators do it, hoping everybody under the sun is a complete fool. Then, I had never read or watched any comics or comics based production whether from Marvel or whatever. So, what made me come here to give this show 9 stars out of ten?

First, it is extremely well-written (congratulations to the writers), witty, sophisticated, it is essentially a continuation of the tongue-in-cheek humor from the Roger Moore's James Bond movies. The plots are well-thought out (based on the first 3 episodes) with only tiny, microscopic holes here and there. After all, they have to adapt a comics, science fiction story to the TV format of 42 minutes. The acting is top-notch, the lead actress is stunning in all departments, totally immersed in her character, her emoting was convincing and her ability to deliver and act on the witty lines was fabulous.

It is really interesting to see how life in post war America was presented, the atmosphere, how people dealt with the consequences of the war. The creators seem to me to be slightly biased against the SSR people (essentially performing the tasks that in real life were prerogatives of the FBI). Beating detainees to a pulp, really? Western counter-intelligence agencies used to have other ways to outsmart their opponents, I gather. At this point women had proved to be very good at spying so a spy agency should value its female agents way more than in this series.

Apart from these two issues (obviously political, but this is Hollywood after all), the show is a real gem, highly aesthetic, sophisticated journey throughout a long-forgotten world. The show's writers better not become lazy any time soon, though. It often happens.

A ridiculous, and at the same time barbaric regime like the one in NK offers a large variety of possibilities for a hilarious parody, but this is not the one we had been waiting for.

Sony Pictures' so-called "comedy" The Interview caused an international incident even before being released to the public. It was supposed to be a parody, or even better, a satire of the North Korean regime. It is none of those. This enterprise is light years away from "Spies Like Us" or the Austin Power's series. The quality of this ... movie is so horrendous that the single intelligent thought (killing the stupid dictator wouldn't change the nature of the regime, ... yes but actually it would because...) was relayed in a business as usual way, nothing of comedic value.

90% of the joke attempts have nothing to do with North Korea - they are comically impotent references to male attributes, female attributes, the substitute hole, erections, i.e. stuff that people between 11 and 14 years of age can be impressed with because they are in the process of discovering the world of sex and their brains are in an exploratory, one-dimensional mode. Then, of course, there is this special group of people, who despite aging biologically, never leave the 11/14 state of mind. So this movie should definitely have its audience. Of course, few of the lines are fine and even witty, but then the acting is not there - neither Franco nor Rogen reach a level of good performance that we are used to enjoying in American movies. After all, this is not Bollywood.

It appears that Seth Rogen, a well-known Hollywood actor, has specialized in exactly that type of dumbing down, garbage films, and he happens to be playing a major role in this movie, acting, directing and participating in the writing process. I have a newsflash for you, CIA, Seth Rogen is a national security threat, it undermines US credibility and stature and illustrates the moral decadence of the US entertainment industry more than the entire North Korean propaganda.

The lines about the absurd North Korean regime are phoned in, they are not particularly coherent, the only scene representing the country in a witty, intelligent fashion is the opening one, where North Korean kindergarten girls sing a song suggesting America should die and the women there should be raped by jungle beasts, ... it represents the absurdity, the sheer madness of the regime there better than anything Rogen and co. do for the rest of the movie.

If the 24-million North Korean population indeed thought Kim was a god and worshiped him, as Rogen and co. try to convince us, why would they need the terror and the concentration camps and the threat to kill everybody under him. You voluntary follow your god, no need to be terrorized. The people behind this movie haven't even done their homework properly.

Rogen and an unconvincing James Franco play two low-brow journalists who are supposed to kill Kim with a slow-acting ricin poison patch and they fail there and everywhere else creatively. "The Interview" however works just fine as a slow-acting poison punishing and possibly killing the Sony Pictures enterprise for their infinite stupidity allowing this idiotic script to see light in the first place.

The concept of this series looks promising for those who like the genre but as usual the way they set up the whole plot is so unrealistic that, for the Nth time it does nothing but insult our intelligence.

There is an initial, setup scene where FBI people wait for a high level Soviet defector to come and brief them about the existence of Soviet illegals. Because many of them just don't believe such a thing. In fact, 'illegals', or sleeper agents are known to be around for decades before the 1980s, so this conference where a KGB defector is supposed to convince doubtful FBI officers about the existence of Soviet sleepers is absurd.

Even more absurd is of course, that a defector of such importance would hang around late night in some shady neighborhood so that our main characters, the fake Americans (highly trained Soviet agents) could so easily abduct him. He doesn't even have a gun for protection, just some karate moves and a weird knife to impress the 14-year old viewers and those FX executives who approved the show.

On top of all that, the defector appears to have been paid about 3 mln (in 1980's dollars) and still has zero protection. Just wandering around shady quarters and hoping to be abducted, tortured and killed by his former masters. That's how smart is the defector, who ran the whole sleepers operation and outfoxed his bosses managing to safely defect.

I The writers of this show just choose to be lazy, cut corners and present a completely unrealistic picture. And get away with it.

Most importantly, at the end of the pilot, the fake American family makes a crucial decision to stay with the KGB and not defect for reasons I found completely illogical and unconvincing. It turns out that the defector they abduct, back in the past, raped the female sleeper agent, and before being killed confesses that this is standard KGB training procedure. Clearly, such a practice would tip our couple, especially the male agent toward defection and not the opposite direction.

There is also a completely ridiculous scene with some child molester going after their 13-year old daughter - in public place, before the eyes of his father, who could immediately call the police. Since when child molesters openly harass 13-year old children in front of their fathers in huge stores before the eyes of many people?

So far, this is utterly unrealistic and relying on cheap shots to engage us into a completely fake reality. Let's hope it will get better.

The great problem with this TV series is not the fact that the major plot line repeats something already done in 'Taken', but the fact that it is a horrible sequence of overused clichés, so basic and one-dimensional that phrases like 'insult to your intelligence' automatically come around and shout at you, "Here, I am again, dumbo!" The other major defect of most Hollywood products, the lack of plausibility, consistency and logic in the plot is not just present, it is blaring at you. For example, in the second episode, the main character, played by a lovely and capable Ashley Judd, former CIA, has a French asset that possesses compromising information on the deputy head of French intelligence. On top of that the asset has identical memory. Great. So Becca Winstone (Judd) keeps him in hiding for 12 years. And yet, he would risk his life and lifelong mission by staying on the computer of the corrupted boss to dig some info, that would sink him. I thought exactly because he already had all that, he was in hiding for over a decade. And why would a government official keep evidence of his corruption, that would sent him to jail, on his computer at work??? This is so stupid that the only reaction one can have is think, 'you people deserve your ratings to go south.' Which happens to be the case here.

The 'cliffhanger' scene the first episode ends with is equally idiotic, Judd gets shot by somebody, obviously much better than her, (as he/she manages to follow and shoot her without she even realized she was under surveillance) and then doesn't make sure she is actually dead. So she happens to come back alive for us, so that we, silly, silly viewers can have our second episode.

Not everything is that dumb but the first two episodes are ridden with all sorts of inconsistencies, just made up to produce some cheap thrill. After all, this is supposed to be a thriller. It's an agony to watch.

Ashley Judd gives a solid performance, reminding us that she could be a very capable actress, which, unfortunately, is the only plus of this whole endeavor. The situation her character is in, is similar to Double Jeopardy, (great injustice done to her and she is now back, on the roll, restoring justice and getting revenge) and she delivers. The rest of the cast is horrible, however, the head of the French station of CIA is like a copy cat of the character of a government official, that we have already seen seventeen thousand times.

The series is shot at places in Italy and France, among others, which implies that money couldn't have been the reason for the terrible quality of this production so far. They better replace the writers before it is too late.

All in all, if you are a fan of Ashley Judd, this might be bearable to watch, otherwise ...

It's simply wrong to make a biographical film about a person, as extraordinary as Margaret Thatcher and devote, I don't know, 70 or 80% of the time to her rather depressing late years of deteriorating health, especially on the mental side. And the real life Margaret Thatcher is a rather private person who tried to keep her health problems secret. Thus, most of what this film presents is obviously a piece of guesswork. Moreover, Thatcher's children described the film as "left-wing fantasy" and we also know that Thatcher's daughter Carol was often with her during this period. So, what's the point of a film, that pretends to be "biographical" when 80% of it is guesswork at best, and somebody else's fiction at worst?

It is also highly unethical to delve into the mental condition of a living person who tried and tries to keep her private life and health issues really private. There are reasons why we call it "private" and doctor-patient confidentiality "confidential". It seems like those principles are beyond the intellectual (moral, or both) capacity of the Hollywood suits behind this movie.

Thatcher became a household name, not only in the UK, but throughout the world, and yet, all her political achievements are presented in a telegraphic style, sometimes just as segments of a news bulletin read by some news presenter. She was called 'the iron lady' by the Soviet propaganda machine in an attempt to discredit her image, her strong positions and alliance with Reagan formed the core of the entire Western policy toward the Soviet union resulting in winning the Cold War, and yet, the authors of this movie choose to completely disregard this side of her story, as if this was some annoying mosquito, just spoiling the bizarre shadenfreude fun they are having with the senile, 80-year old lady.

Thatcher herself is adamant during one of her fights with her husband that he always knew she puts her works first and yet, the film tries to focus on her private life issues, again, by means of sheer guesswork. Why? The only explanation is ideological spin, since the creators try to present the old and rather frail former prime minister as sad, doubting her past, and in some scenes she is even insecure not only as an old, senile lady, wandering around her digs, but also during her prime time, as a head of government. Priceless screening time is wasted while none of the issues she had to deal with is presented with any depth whatsoever.

Occasionally, the film is reduced to a vaudeville, as in the scene where she is about to enter her No.10 residence for the first time as a PM or employs one-dimensional clichés, such as the symbolism of Thatcher talking about 'taking the wheel in her own hands' and then pushing the car to the right, while her daughter is in the driving seat. What is the purpose of this demented symbolism? No matter how unwashed the masses are, they can still figure that this film is about a confident, self-made woman who takes matters in her own hands and pushes her country to the right. Why an obvious metaphor, pointing at the obvious?

The only true merit, that can be attributed to this unhinged and rather prolonged exercise in shadenfreude, is that it represents the true spirit of her public life in general – a strong-willed, principled person, a woman with SPINE, successfully fighting against an intellectually and morally constipated establishment, unhinged left-wing militants and impotent political opposition. Well, the political opposition turned out impotent because it was Margaret Thatcher who single-handedly rendered it that way. There are some truly powerful moments, however, when the young Margaret was listening to her father's speech, clearly, his words having authoritative, formative, inspirational influence on what she was about to become, or when she masterfully fights off the attacks of both her political opponents and spineless colleagues.

Obviously, Meryl Streep is a very good actress, and she is spot on Thatcher's voice and mannerisms, but this is just good professionalism, nothing extraordinary, way too many actors are capable of doing that these days. Does she deserve another Oscar for this performance? If there is nothing better this year on the movie front in her category, hell yes.

The only reason this picture should be seen is as a weird example of how a biopic (of a person of Margaret Thatcher's caliber) should not be made,it's a half-baked distraction of what her real biography should look like .

Many people here dislike the movie but are satisfied with the TV version and/or the book. Well, judging from the film, the spy story itself is ridiculous on so many levels. Le Carre, as a former spy should have known better.

The opening scene in Budapest that sets everything in motion, sadly, doesn't pass the laughing test. A British undercover agent is to meet a potential defector - a Hungarian general who is willing to reveal to the British ultra-important information about a Soviet mole at the very top of MI6. Why would this general use a go-between and thus increase the chances of being discovered, exposing his go-between (probably a dear and trusted friend) to a mortal danger? It's absurd.

The Budapest operation had already been betrayed, however, and the Russians know. So they are supposed to be in full control - remember, the stakes couldn't have been higher. Instead, they let a sloppy Hungarian agent mimic nervously in front of everybody and let sweat drop in front of the British spy among other revealing signs and yet the British spook omits all those. Then the stupid Hungarian agent shoots the fleeing Brit, why, when they can just surround the place and apprehend him???? Only after all this nonsense takes place, some Russian spy chief pops out of nowhere and shouts that everybody is stupid.

A young woman breast-feeds there right in the middle of it, sitting in the open, in the cold, so that she gets shot in the head by mistake - the bullet aimed at the fleeing spy takes a left and ends up inside her brains contrary to real life ballistics. How cruel can the spy world be! Really? How dumber and more contrived can this go?

Then, the captured Brit is tortured, why, when the Russians have this much better informed mole, higher, at the very top of MI6. And then the Russian master spy, named Karla (because that's how Le Carre wants to present him - a master) lets the Brit back to the UK, so that he would tell how he was tortured, how they unnecessarily blew the brains out of a young nice woman in front of him absolutely for no reason, and most importantly, the captured British agent had talked to the mole before leaving for Budapest. So if he is let back to the UK, he would immediately point at the all important mole as the potential source of the information that betrayed the entire Budapest operation. This officially makes Karla, the worst agent-runner in history, despite Le Carre's half-baked attempts to make him a master spy.

But it is not only the Russian "master" spies who are stupid. So are the British: when the mole (played by Firth) is finally caught and in custody, the British let him outside the safe house, in the open (???), nobody guarding him (???) so that everybody who wants revenge or just to shut his mouth can easily sneak in and put a bullet in his head, no sweat. Really? This is how the British will keep their uber-important detainee? The man who is supposed to give them some idea how much damage has been done, how many operations have been compromised???

And this goes on and on ..., nothing makes sense in the "spy" story.

The director is employing a series of cheap shots to impress the easily impressionable - the young breastfeeding woman, the completely unnecessary violence all along. The story is boring, as many already pointed out, incoherent from A to Z.

On a personal level, Smiley, as smart and deeply intellectual as he pretentiously is supposed to be, finds out his wife is cheating on him only by chance, simply because she is so careless that she makes out with the mole at some ridiculously set party at the MI6 headquarters. I thought he was supposed to be able to read people, if he is so good. It turns out his wife was betraying him every step of the way.

Most of the characters are 2-dimensional at best, John Hurt's Control is a caricature of a human being, who would allow a person with such unhinged behavior to be the head of British intelligence? We've heard about British eccentricity and propensity for alcohol, but how do you go up in such a hierarchy with behavior that outrageous?

The gay element also seems contrived. For obvious political correctness. Since we all heard how some of those Soviet moles in MI6 were homosexual, here comes Le Carre (or the director) to remind us that gays can also be the good gays who catch moles. And sacrifice their personal lives, for the cause. This is sophisticated world, people, make no mistake.

We don't learn anything about most of the characters and their motivation with very few exceptions, such as the British rogue agent in Istanbul, who wants to save a Russian damsel in distress just out of some basic human decency. This, give or take, is the only plausible event in the whole story.

Oldman's acting is reasonable but nothing extraordinary, although I found some elements of his performance rather pretentious than anything else. But it could only be me.

The director employs clichés that I'm sure the cinema-snobbery would fawn over. For example, the main character, Oldman/Smiley is shown several times swimming in some pond with deep, deep, dark, dirty waters. So if you are so dumb and not getting it how Smiley is swimming in the dangerous and muddy waters of international espionage, here comes the director of this movie with his mind-blowing 'symbolism', generously helping you out.

The film was tremendous disappointment for me, especially since I saw some of the ads on British TV, presenting it as something like the best spy thriller ever. What?

Just the right blend of comedy, action and drama. The three main characters are perfectly played by the actors. Very well written, well, the spy plots are often contrived but the show is rather tongue-in-cheek than realistic spy series, so ... it's OK. The references to other movies make it fun for the true connoisseur as well as the overall aesthetic value of the show as a whole.

The music pieces serve the show ideally. The support characters, Jeff, Lester and Morgan are extremely funny most of the time. Yvonne Strahovski is as good as it gets, especially when it comes to expressing nuanced emotions. Truly amazing for an actress who had been completely unknown.

Zach Levi is the ideal Chuck probably because the actor is close to the character in real life. Adam Baldwin is both hilarious and plausible which is incredible for such a character.