I just watched this movie and I got two main questions.
First the good: visually stunning, great action, Charlize! But…
The bad: Who the hell generated “the List”? And for what purpose? It must of been a good one because who ever did it didn’t just write the names on a piece of paper, they had it converted to microfilm and, presumably, hired a machinist to embed it into a watch.
MI6 has been trying to discover the identity of a double agent mole in their organization for years. Gascoigne had the list so he knew it was Lorraine. Why not just pick up a phone and call that info in? Surely that would have gotten a tea with the queen.
And the other thing, why would the CIA want or need to have a triple agent working against MI6? If the mole had been a problem for them then presumably some of their secrets had made it to the KGB or else how would they known there was a mole? What possible motivation would the United States have for doing that?
I didnt care for it. Seems like Charlize didnt actually do much other than kick ass in boots… which is cool to watch, sure but doesn’t make for a film.
I had the same questions.
And the director REALLY fucking loved smoking- the camera lingered on the smoking like it was giving him an erection.
She didn’t really even do that. Sure, I guess she technically “won” all the fights, but I wouldn’t characterize any of them as her “kicking ass”; it would be much more accurate to describe them as “Charlize Theron got her ass kicked but eventually won the fight anyways, mainly just because she’s the protagonist.”
I liked it. Admittedly, I only half paid attention to the plot. The fight scenes were great. More realistic than fight scenes in many movies where the protagonist barely gets a scratch on him/her.
I assume that Percival wasn’t a double-agent, and his shenanigans were solely for the purpose of maintaining status quo - he didn’t want anyone to get The List. But as Asimovian asked in the other thread, then did that mean Lorraine wanted Spyglass killed? She certainly seemed to be trying to keep him alive, but she had a lot to lose if he were able to identify her as the mole.
The movie is pretty, but I lost all interest in the increasingly-incoherent plot about halfway through. At the end, when they reveal Theron’s character was a CIA agent all along, I was content to shrug that off with a “sure, whatever.”