Review of Atomic Blonde (2017) by Tina B — 03 Aug 2017

On the show "Cake Wars", bakers compete in creating elaborate and amazing sculptures entirely out of cake. There's a rumor, however, that despite looking incredible, the cakes themselves don't actually taste that great. Atomic Blonde fits that mold perfectly: stylish and pretty, but mostly tasteless and empty. An onslaught of sight and sound amounting to little more than a hedonistic fever dream, without much meaningful depth or clarity.

In this mediocre John Wick / Drive knock-off, Theron plays a spy in the 1980s who kicks butt and does...spy things. It's kind of a woman-empowerment movie, but Wonder Woman it's not. If she's not fighting, she's in various states of undress; it all screams of the male-gaze, and not of sexual liberation. Plastered with distracting modern renditions of 80s pop song, ill-fated attempts at humor, and piles of thriller movie clichés ("Have you noticed how everyone you get close to ends up dead?"), it's more obnoxious than exciting.

I've often contended that the biggest sin a movie can commit is being boring, and Atomic Blonde mostly isn't that. One scene in particular, a long-take hand-to-hand fight in a staircase, is not only the best scene in the movie, but maybe one of the most impressive of the year. However, the second biggest movie-sin may be a desperate desire to seem cool over all else, which this definitely commits. The constant neon lighting, the insecure directing, the completely unnecessary framing device, even that one great scene could be watched completely out-of-context and you wouldn't miss a thing. Skip the film, and just google that scene. You'll save $10 and 2 hours that I can never get back.