Atomic Blonde Review

The Cold War spy thriller. Perpetual snow (it's never summer in the Soviet bloc), coats, double agents, bad hair, Germans, retro tech, shifting loyalties and no shortage of scenes at checkpoints giving the slip with fake passports. Atomic Blonde injects it with a killer soundtrack, LOTS of reds and blues, Charlize Theron brawling her way through Berlin, leaving the rest of the film stuck on the wrong side of the wall.

Mostly it's all flash and very little bang. It strains to be effortless and a fuck-you-and your-country kind of smart. I deign to go into the lazy John Wick as female territory (even though one of the directors helms this) since Atomic Blonde admirably leaps past that comparison (if not the film itself). The interview as framing for the bullets, booze, and fisticuffs within—where Theron's MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton (no she's not called Atomic Blonde) gives her own recount of an agent's murder and the hunt for a micro film listing deep cover agents, as is wont to happen during the Cold War.

There's connective tissue to 2009's Inglourious Basterds—Bowie's Cat People (Putting Out Fire), and the local watchmaker/black market dealer (Til Schweiger) being Gestapo murdering Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz that makes the movie feel like a vague, distant cousin to a lesser Tarantino work crossed with the graffiti happy graphic designers of Suicide Squad (yeah, I've got confused feelings about this whole thing).

So we're along for the ride with Lorraine as the untrustworthy narrator, and the twists and turns come like a grocery shopping list, or land with nary a whimper. Not that the espionage and search plots matter much. It's basically connective tissue for the action, and for Theron to show off her (literal) chops once more. She's not bulletproof, which makes each punch, kick, hurl or stabbing feel that little more heavy. She doesn't expect things to be easy, and almost yearns for the blood and the bruises, as long as she gets away.

It culminates in a brutal, stunning piece of action taking place on multiple levels of an apartment building—the physical toll catching up with her, and the goons she's taking down. It's a messy, glorious sequence that rips open in a (somewhat unnecessary) single take. Bodies thrown, blood strewn across the floor, Lorraine, and the camera. And my god does Theron sell it. It makes you wonder how it could have been if it was stripped down to its leading lady and her force of nature dominance of the screen.

Admittedly Lorraine is barely a sketch of a character but Theron carries over the physicality first of her 'get down on your knees and thank god we witnessed it' Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road. It does a lot of the heavy lifting—she keeps things quiet and conveys it all in looks and poses. She doesn't need to be loud, especially with how creaking the dialogue often is. Although James McEvoy, going delightfully unhinged once more as an operative in Berlin chews all the scenery—his morals and motivations shot to pieces. The rest of the cast do all relatively well for the material laid out. Toby Jones and John Goodman as MI6 and CIA agents respectively keep things respectable and play off well with each other Theron in the all too diverting, tire screeching of the story interrogation scenes.

The plot machinations only threaten a dismissive shrug, even as everyone takes themselves way too seriously. Lorraine's own hand in all of it seems obvious on the surface before switching it up way too many times to matter once we're left on the tarmac. There's no confusion, just a collective 'meh.' Essentially it's all filler to navigate from action to action. Safe in the knowledge that Theron will inject it with shards of thrills, legit and heavy sensuality which feels just so... right for it. The film might be mostly an empty affair but Lorraine—whether brunette or blonde, dressed to the nines or in more functional attire—keeps us engaged. Watch it, and then watch Fury Road again as a cleanser. Or just watch Fury Road.