Review of Atomic Blonde (2017) by Andreas K — 13 Nov 2017

This movie looks great in 4K UHD, and the soundtrack is really fun even though its strange at times how they use the sound. Sometimes the music is part of the score, then it is part of a car's radio and gets muted when a door closes... So its a bit inconsistent in that way.

I couldnt help feeling like I was watching a less entertaining Salt, with Angelina Jolie. It had the same story and the same twists and both characters even lose a lover, though it was done much more effectively in Salt.

Characters trying to act cool and deliver their lines was a bit cringe worthy as it didnt come off smart and intriguing but dull and anti climactic.

There wasnt as much action as I would have liked and the scenes in between werent all that interesting which made the film feel quite a bit longer than 1 hour and 54 minutes.

The action scenes it did have were well done and very entertaining, with the exception of a few things:

First, there is a car chase scene where one car is hit from the sire by a bigger truck and is sent flying through the air. The problem , is that the truck was moving far too slow to send the car flying, and you can clearly see the truck does not make contact with the car at all. its at least a foot away before the car goes flying.

There is also a scene near the end where Charlize fights off some goons in a hotel room.

The scene is in slow motion and so its easy to spot these mistakes that could have been fixed in editing.

The first henchman attacks her and then he flinches a half second before she shoots her gun at him and kills him. She dispatches a second guy then a third comes at her but he stops and jerks his head back before she fires off her gun. It was just very obvious and I couldnt help but notice it.

The main character wasnt likable and had no personality. It also felt like Sophia's character didnt have much to do and was shoe horned in for some lesbian scenes to take place.

I can suspend my disbelief for many things in movies. But a 110 pound woman throwing a 200 + pound man over her shoulder to the ground and just overpowering all these guys one after another is really stretching it.

They could have easily overcome this by having her be a lot more acrobatic and dispatching people with guns or one hit stab kills not back and forth hand to hand combat.

This movie could have been about 20 minutes shorter.