Atomic Blonde (2017) - Written Review

In what feels like the most crowded Summer movie season ever, Atomic Blonde - from John Wick co-director Leitch - enters the ring as a mid-budget, adult-oriented action movie. Some have described it as a spiritual sequel to John Wick, a female-led James Bond movie and pretty much everything in between. Is the film actually as good as the strangely positive hype leading up to it though?

It's 1989, and as the Berlin Wall is about to come down, Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) is sent by MI6 (including Toby Jones) to investigate the death of a former agent there, gain as much information as possible from David Percival and retrieve a list of various allied spy agents...hang on a second, this is sounding familiar.

Yes, the whole "list of agents" shtick has been done to death in the spy genre, and its difficult to get invested in the stakes when you've seen them so many times before. I mean, Skyfall - the most successful spy film to date - even gets bored of this half-way through and drops it in favour of something more interesting. Sadly though, this is the clichéd plot we're dealing with here, and its a bit of a shame.

It turns out that the dead agent was actually Lorraine's partner...but sadly the film never fully establishes this element, and gives us no idea as to what their relationship was actually like, making it difficult to understand Lorraine's emotional connection to the case.

The film then proceeds to go down a series of predictable twists and turns that don't really help the narrative. Character motivations remain unclear, and seem only in service of the greater plot at hand, and John Goodman's role as a member of the CIA feels oddly misplaced in the story.

Despite this, there's some pretty great action sequences spread out throughout the film. The violence is pretty brutal throughout, and the film isn't afraid to get Charlize Theron really beaten up. She isn't really a John Wick character as some have said, but comes across more as a 15-rated gender-swapped Daniel Craig Bond, which in some ways works better. She appears to be doing most of her own stunts, although the film frequently has some slightly obvious cuts to help the various goons she faces change into their stunt doubles. The single-take sequence comes across as a bit amateur in some aspects, with the obvious cuts not really helping. You can tell why each camera movement is made - it all looks painfully choreographed to make everyone's lives easier as opposed to giving us a dynamic range of camera movements. The soundtrack, filled to the brim with 80's music, is aided by some wonderful neon cinematography that makes Atomic Blonde pleasing to the eyes are ears, but the story isn't so pleasing for the mind.

And I think that sums Atomic Blonde as a whole. Good action sequences, good cast, lovely visuals and music, but a rather weak story and pacing. Might be worth a watch, but it won't really stick with you. 6/10