Review: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Or well, rather random thoughts and musings than a proper review, but hey...
So, I went to see "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" yesterday. The trailer looked really cool, the reviews I had read so far sounded pretty good calling the film intelligent and good drama and well, there were some good actors in it. ;-) I assumed I would like it a lot.
Well, sadly while I didn't think the movie was bad, I didn't really enjoy it either. Now, I have to say that I don't mind movies that don't have a lot of action in it. In fact, I prefer films where you don't have cars exploding every second minute. And if a movie has a lot of fast cuts, I get confused very easily. (To the point where I have to ask what's going on so frequently that my boyfriend thinks I'm not paying any attention at all...) So I really don't mind films with a slower pace, either.
Yet somehow TTSS was so slow it felt drawn out while it managed to confuse me a lot at the same time. I am bad at remembering faces and there were so many characters which were introduced in such a rapid succession that I had a hard time telling them apart until almost the end of the movie. Which of course made it rather difficult trying to guess who was the spy... And even when he was found out, I didn't really care because I didn't feel any of the four suspects had been developed enough for me to have formed any kind of emotional attachment with him.
The movie certainly was suspenseful and I liked seeing all the little plots and background stories unravel. Still, I think they could have done a much better job, especially with giving us clues to figure stuff out. Here, all things needed to be explained in very long monologues and you had almost no chance to figure anything out by yourself. I felt they created suspense and confusion simply by not telling us facts rather than by creating a complex and intriguing story. Or if there was this story, we only got to see tiny glimpses of it. But maybe I'm just spoilt by Sherlock and it was done normally here...
Speaking of Sherlock, I thought Benedict Cumberbatch was really amazing in this movie! Now, I am normally not an avid Cumberbatch-fangirl despite being a Sherlock-one, but I honestly think he gave one of the best performances in TTSS. His character was the easiest to like, anyway, because although he had worked for the secret service some time, he was kind of new to the whole actual spying stuff and thus introduced us to everything. But Benedict's performance (like his hair ^^ - which I expected to hate, but which was strangely okay) really was a spot of light in the otherwise very darkish movie and I always had to smile when he was in a scene. Except for his sad scenes, obviously.
Though to be fair to the other actors - most of them were really good, too, they just weren't given a lot of good scenes or a lot of scenes at all. Which was a bit of a shame.
So, well. I guess if TTSS had spent more of its time developing the single characters and less time on overly dramatic close-ups or shots of people sitting or walking around, it would have been easier for me to get more invested in the characters' stories and I would have enjoyed the movie a great deal more...
So, I went to see "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" yesterday. The trailer looked really cool, the reviews I had read so far sounded pretty good calling the film intelligent and good drama and well, there were some good actors in it. ;-) I assumed I would like it a lot.
Well, sadly while I didn't think the movie was bad, I didn't really enjoy it either. Now, I have to say that I don't mind movies that don't have a lot of action in it. In fact, I prefer films where you don't have cars exploding every second minute. And if a movie has a lot of fast cuts, I get confused very easily. (To the point where I have to ask what's going on so frequently that my boyfriend thinks I'm not paying any attention at all...) So I really don't mind films with a slower pace, either.
Yet somehow TTSS was so slow it felt drawn out while it managed to confuse me a lot at the same time. I am bad at remembering faces and there were so many characters which were introduced in such a rapid succession that I had a hard time telling them apart until almost the end of the movie. Which of course made it rather difficult trying to guess who was the spy... And even when he was found out, I didn't really care because I didn't feel any of the four suspects had been developed enough for me to have formed any kind of emotional attachment with him.
The movie certainly was suspenseful and I liked seeing all the little plots and background stories unravel. Still, I think they could have done a much better job, especially with giving us clues to figure stuff out. Here, all things needed to be explained in very long monologues and you had almost no chance to figure anything out by yourself. I felt they created suspense and confusion simply by not telling us facts rather than by creating a complex and intriguing story. Or if there was this story, we only got to see tiny glimpses of it. But maybe I'm just spoilt by Sherlock and it was done normally here...
Speaking of Sherlock, I thought Benedict Cumberbatch was really amazing in this movie! Now, I am normally not an avid Cumberbatch-fangirl despite being a Sherlock-one, but I honestly think he gave one of the best performances in TTSS. His character was the easiest to like, anyway, because although he had worked for the secret service some time, he was kind of new to the whole actual spying stuff and thus introduced us to everything. But Benedict's performance (like his hair ^^ - which I expected to hate, but which was strangely okay) really was a spot of light in the otherwise very darkish movie and I always had to smile when he was in a scene. Except for his sad scenes, obviously.
Though to be fair to the other actors - most of them were really good, too, they just weren't given a lot of good scenes or a lot of scenes at all. Which was a bit of a shame.
So, well. I guess if TTSS had spent more of its time developing the single characters and less time on overly dramatic close-ups or shots of people sitting or walking around, it would have been easier for me to get more invested in the characters' stories and I would have enjoyed the movie a great deal more...