Review of Atomic Blonde (2017) by Allan C — 16 Jul 2018

From the uncredited co-director of "John Wick" comes an action film of equal badassery. Charlize Theron is dynamite in this Cold War action film, where she plays an undercover MI6 agent tasked with recovering a missing list of undercover agents.

The plot is perfunctory at best, but it does serve to take Theron through a 1989 East and West Berlin right before the wall came down, featuring 80s punks, neon drenched nightclubs, and a killer soundtrack that ranges from The Clash, to David Bowie, to Queen, and loads more.

"Atomic Blonde" would have been a solid action film without the Cold War 80s setting, but adding this retro element turned this film's cool factor up to eleven. Theron is amazingly 80s cool with her short hair and go-go boots, but shines most strongly when she's kicking ass (she actually did a majority of her fighting and stunt work on the film).

Enough cannot be said of how much Theron adds to this film. She's an Oscar calibre of actress starring in an unabashedly popcorn film, which greatly elevates "Atomic Blonde" from if the filmmakers had simply cast a pretty face like Milla Jovovich or even legit badasses like MMA fighter Gina Carano (everyone should watch her film "Haywire" though).

It also helps that you have a solid supporting cast that includes Toby Jones, John Goodman, and James McAvoy as a terrifically sleazy undercover agent. The other hero of this film is director David Leitch, who bring the same level of relentlessly intense action he brought to the John Wick films.

The fight scenes and shoots outs are as fast as a Hong Kong action film, but also embrace the more muscular American approach to action films, which adds up to a style of action that feels like something wholly new (Kurt Wimmer's "Gun-Fu" in "Equilibrium" and "Ultraviolet" was the last new style of film action I can recall that felt like something new and not tried before).

As with the best action films, the action builds, starting smaller at first to a quite impressive climactic action sequence. I think the apartment fight sequence that gives the appearance of being one long continuous shot is the most impressive action sequence of the film, but "Atomic Blonde" is filled with memorable action scenes.

Overall, even though the script is heavy on plot cliches and is short on character development, who really cares when the you have Charlize Theron taking out rooms full of dudes in knee-high boots to awesome 80s tracks!