Atomic Blonde Review!
Atomic Blonde is the latest film that has Charlize Theron kicking ass and taking names. It's electric, fun, and absolutely gorgeous to watch as bad guys are getting stabbed, strangled, punched, run over, and any other way to die that you can imagine. The film takes place days before the Berlin wall comes down, and it's about a spy battling other spies for a list that has every secret agent's identity, sound familiar?
It should, because that's the plot to every spy film, and one of the reasons I find the genre dull. It's uncommon for me to like a spy movie and be engaged by it, but Atomic Blonde tries and almost succeeds by not focusing on the spies for the first half of the film. The first half explains to you the set up, and after that you're watching beautiful scenes where action is choreographed to music which makes for some electric entertainment and fantastic action visuals. It reminded me how to have fun with action movies, in a world where every action movie tends to be too serious, and where it's okay to have a leading woman beating up everybody.
The story does get bogged down with spy gibberish, and the cliched dialogues you'll find about betrayal, trust, etc. Those scenes had me tuned out, and as the film chugs along those scenes get longer and longer to the point where I'm not sure if I understood the ending, or the whole movie. Luckily there was plenty of action and bright beautiful colors to distract me.
Atomic Blonde was marketed as a Theron/McAvoy spy action film, and in part that's true, but McAvoy doesn't have as much screen time as you'd assume. In a way I'm king of glad about that since I really enjoyed watching the story from Theron's character's point of view. That, and McAvoy is good in all his roles, so when he does pop up he stands out on screen, and I can see why the film would push him off at times since the film really is about Theron's involvement and her stance during this politically tense world.
Other actors in this film include John Goodman, Sofia Boutella, and Bill Skarsgard whom all have good performances, but their characters aren't meant to let them stretch their acting abilities. It's just nice to see how each of them is doing, and to remind me that Sofia Boutella is doing some interesting projects as I'm excited to see her in most anything.
There are pacing issues. The film does feel unbalanced at times when it's spouting exposition and trying to make you invested in the mole, the bad guys, and the list when compared to its action set pieces. Sadly, these sections of the film made it feel slow and quickly lost my interest until the next action sequence.
Overall, Atomic Blonde will be watched for the colorful look, the choreographed action and music, and Charlize Theron being yet another badass. At times the movie felt sluggish with exposition, but it redeemed itself again at the end with an incredible fight sequence that'll have you as exhausted as the actors. This is definitely a case of style over substance, but that doesn't make it bad by any means.
B-
