Review of Atomic Blonde (2017) by Kaptenvideo — 13 Aug 2017

Film industry really loves spy action these days. They have produced tens and tens of them since 2002’s „Jason Bourne“ kickstarted the current wave.

These kind of movies appear in seemingly every possible genre from superserious John le Carré adaptations to mainstream comedies a la „Spy“ starring Melissa McCarthy and Jason Statham.

„Atomic Blonde“ is one of those ass-kicking ones, direct descendants to Jason Bourne series, where there’s a lot of Eastern European locales, moody lightning, serious important people discussing serious stuff which will remain largely mysterious to the viewer, bone-crushing fighting which still never knocks the main character out for good, shooting, hurting countless evil henchmen and so on. You know the drill.

The selling argument here is that there’s never too much female heroes in movies, especially action movies, so you get one in the form of Charlize Theron who has proved her fittingness for the genre many times already.

For a famous and beautiful actress, her screen career has been surprisingly varied, and she doesn’t disappoint in ass-kicking department also. IMDB says she had eight personal trainers to make her ready for the role, and she managed to crack two teeth while filming.

So, „Atomic Blonde“. It is yet another comic book – OK, graphic novel – that needed to be adapted to the big screen.

If you can bear with the pretty generic story full of usual spy action cliches from everybody being hardass and drinking and smoking too much to series of twists in the end that are the substitute to real character and story-building, you won’t go away disappointed.

For one, the movie looks amazing. It takes place in 1989 in East-Berlin just before the wall separating two parts of the city was taken down, and people behind the camera have used this exciting place to the maximum effect.

It has enough of tasty 1980’s and Soviet nostalgia but also enough sense of place to woo us to just enjoy how everything looks. Cinematography is so artistic and striking here that it deserves an Oscar nomination: all the shadows, lighting, and dark and ominous atmosphere….

Spy action fans have seen lots of exciting hand-to-hand fighting since „Bourne“ raised it to new level in movies, but „Atomic Blonde“ excels here also.

Especially the long brutal seamless battle near the finale where the heroine tries to keep both herself and the colleague alive, is so inventive, exceptional, and downright brutal that justifies seeing the movie alone. (It was actually made seemless with the help of CGI, but who cares.).

David Leitch has done a lot of work as stuntman, stunt coordinator and second unit director – used to make action look good in movies -, so it does not come as a surprise that his first solo directing gig would turn out to be so adrenaline-pumping. He was the uncredited co-director of „John Wick“, too.

The surprising part is that the budget was only 30 million US dollars, which seems way to little for action movie this awesome. Next up, he’s directing „Deadpool 2“.

The cool cast of actors is doing their best to enliven the story and dialogue, including John Goodman, James MacAvoy, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan and Sofia Boutella. But it’s not really an actors’ movie – their first and main order is to keep it cool. Which they can and will.

„Atomic Blonde“ looks great and is only let down by ho-hum story which is just an amalgam of genre cliches.

For 115 minutes, it overstays its welcome a bit, at least for anybody who’s not madly into the particular genre. But it’s every bit watchworthy for bloody action lovers.