{"id":6564,"date":"2024-10-23T13:07:08","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T17:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6564"},"modified":"2024-10-23T13:07:08","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T17:07:08","slug":"atomic-blonde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/23\/atomic-blonde\/","title":{"rendered":"Atomic Blonde"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Atomic Blonde<\/strong> (2017)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Focus\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 115 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (sequences of strong violence, language throughout, some sexuality and nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: David Leitch\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Kurt Johnstad\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Tyler Bates\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jonathan Sela\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 28, 2017 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, John Goodman, Sofia Boutella, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, Bill Skarsgard, Til Schweiger, Roland Moller, Barbara Sukowa, Sam Hargrave, James Faulkner.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $51.7M (US)\/$100M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0I briefly considered starting my review of Atomic Blonde<\/strong> by talking about Charlize Theron\u2019s character being a lesbian. Then I thought, why should I? While the trailer makes a big deal of it, the movie itself doesn\u2019t. It\u2019s just part of who she is, a female spy who prefers women over men. She has a couple of hot scenes with co-star Sofia Boutella but there\u2019s nothing shocking or exploitative about them. We\u2019re not talking Basic Instinct or Bound here. In other words, it\u2019s NOT the reason you should see Atomic Blonde<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The top reason to see Atomic Blonde<\/strong> is that it\u2019s actually a good movie. It\u2019s also the last of the summer movies that I was really excited about. Based on the 2012 graphic novel The Coldest City by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart, it\u2019s a solid kick-ass spy actioner starring Theron (Monster) as Lorraine Broughton, a top-level MI6 agent sent to Berlin during the Cold War to find out who murdered a fellow agent. Theron is totally bad ass in this flick!<\/p>\n

\u00a0The action is set in November 1989, just days before the Berlin Wall came down. After her colleague is killed by a rogue KGB agent, Broughton is sent to Berlin to retrieve the wristwatch he was wearing at the time of his death. It contains a microfilm listing every active agent in the Soviet Union as well as the true identity of a double-agent known only as \u201cSatchel\u201d. From the moment she arrives in West Berlin, bad guys working for an illegal arms dealer (Moller, Land of Mine) keep trying to kill her. She takes down two before meeting her main contact, Agent David Percival (McAvoy, Split), who\u2019s become disillusioned with the whole spy game.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One of the main plot points involves sneaking a Soviet defector named Spyglass (Marsan, Sherlock Holmes) out of East Berlin. He\u2019s the one who stole the microfilm; he\u2019s also memorized the entire list making him a valuable and dangerous asset. Meanwhile, Broughton becomes involved with Delphine (Boutella, The Mummy), a seemingly na\u00efve French agent who may or may not be trustworthy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Atomic Blonde<\/strong> is told in a series of flashbacks with Broughton recounting her mission to a trio of interrogators: her commanding officer Eric Gray (Jones, Captain America), CIA chief Emmet Kurzfeld (Goodman, Kong: Skull Island) and MI6 chief \u201cC\u201d (Faulkner, Underworld: Blood Wars) observing from behind a two-way mirror. This is where Theron really gets to act. Her calculating stare and take-no-BS body language say so much about her character. She\u2019s intelligent, tough and very easy on the eyes. She also likes to drink vodka on the rocks. We don\u2019t know much about her background yet Theron gives her character great emotional depth beneath her chilly, tough chick persona.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The thing that impresses me most about Atomic Blonde<\/strong> is the fight scenes. In a time when most filmmakers favor a choppy, overedited style that really doesn\u2019t allow the viewer to make sense of the action, David Leitch (co-director of John Wick) gives these scenes a more natural flow by employing a hand-held camera style and filming them in one continuous take, not unlike Paul Greengrass. The fights are violent, brutal and exciting. There\u2019s one great scene where Theron takes on a group of baddies in an East Berlin theater showing Andrei Tarkovsky\u2019s Stalker (1979). The vintage 80s soundtrack, which includes songs by New Order (\u201cBlue Monday\u201d), Nena (\u201c99 Luft Balloons\u201d), Re-Flex (\u201cThe Politics of Dancing\u201d) and David Bowie (\u201cPutting Out the Fire\u201d from 1982\u2019s Cat People), is totally awesome. More importantly, the songs fit the action perfectly. It\u2019s not one of those \u201cgreatest hits\u201d deals.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The only real problem with Atomic Blonde<\/strong> is that the plot is kind of convoluted. At certain points, you realize you\u2019re enjoying the action without really understanding what\u2019s going on. It all makes sense in the end though. The movie even has a couple of neat twists that I wouldn\u2019t dream of giving away. The important thing is that Atomic Blonde<\/strong> is solid, summertime, kick-ass action flick with a hot heroine and cool action scenes (including one really good car chase). I love the Cold War setting; it gives the movie a retro feel. I\u2019m old enough to remember a time when a wall separated East and West Berlin. I remember seeing then-President Reagan on TV saying \u201cMr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!\u201d I even remember Kurt Loder reporting on it on MTV. Much of this will be lost on the teens in the audience, but they\u2019ll love the action aspects. I think Atomic Blonde<\/strong> is one of the most fun movies of the summer.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Atomic Blonde (2017)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Focus\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 115 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (sequences of strong violence, language throughout, some sexuality and nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: David Leitch\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Kurt Johnstad\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Tyler Bates\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jonathan Sela\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 28, 2017 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, John Goodman, Sofia Boutella, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, Bill Skarsgard, Til Schweiger, Roland […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6823,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kick-ass-actioners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Atomic-Blonde-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6564"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6825,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6564\/revisions\/6825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}