Review of Atomic Blonde (2017) by Abm0 — 03 Aug 2017

OK, I went in expecting better fight scenes than in Wonder Woman and I was not disappointed (for the most part). Particularly impressive was the realism of how 1. someone of lower general body weight has to focus almost entirely on direct weak spot attacks (throat, groin, joints, eyes) like in Krav Maga or jujutsu, or else if the fight goes on too long against someone too much heavier our hero can expect to get severely **** up, and 2. she actually checks if she has a round in the chamber by partially pulling back the slide, before she goes into a gunfight. Nobody **** does that. :) Everyone in action movies just fully racks the slide without a second thought, even if they've racked it before when they were gearing up (which means the second time around they should be throwing out a perfectly good unused round like a dumb ass).

But what I was also expecting was the fast pace that makes sense in - and is typical of - assassin/secret agent movies, where there's a mission to complete under time pressure and there are lives at stake. Here the feeling of urgency is interrupted by chillout/dialogue scenes so much that you just lose the excitement and it stops feeling the way a secret agent action movie should feel. Big let-down there.

Minus 2 points for turning it into a CIA glorification piece, sadly, though as we know by now the writers don't really get a choice when trying to portray such institutions.