Seanette
Since: Jan, 2001
12/25/2011 01:26:23
•••
Film Amusing series, horrible film
The series (with whichever female lead) is an enjoyable way to spend some entertainment time.
The movie was awful. Both my husband and I concluded that Fiennes and Thurman were doing what they could with the script and direction they were stuck with, although it would have helped if they'd had any familiarity with the series versions of their characters (granted, this would have made them the only ones associated with the project who did).
Film A Missed Opportunity
This is not a good film. It is not a horrible film, it isn't even really a hilarious failure of a film. It's just a regular bad film that relies too much on one joke (the politeness of the main characters) and some sexual tension between the main characters to carry the story, and the length of a film (about one hour thirty minutes long) is simply too long for that to work. What's more, even if scenes deleted from it are added back to give it more coherency, that doesn't change the fact that the basic problem of relying on a joke and sexy actors can't carry the film.
However, what makes the movie noticeable is what an opportunity was wasted. Not for a film adaptation of the television show. No, watching this I realized what an opportunity this was to be a mockery of the spy genre. We have spy agencies using overly complex messages just to get someone to pick up a phone, a weather control device, a secret gathering of shady types in bear costumes, clones, an invisible man and Sean Connery threatening the world with destruction if he isn't paid. It's almost as though someone merged two completely different scripts, one for a serious spy/action movie and the other for a witty parody. Unfortunately, ultimately it manages to be neither.