Last week, I criticized Dunkirk
for not having much in terms of story or characters. As much as I tend to harp
on movies for not having enough plot, I do recognize that sometimes story can
get in the way and simple motivations can be enough to keep it going. We don’t
need to know the backstory of every single person there. The fact that everyone
had the common goal of getting those soldiers off that beach alive was enough. This
is especially true for action movies. Take John
Wick, for example. The only real motivation that movie needed was a dead dog and a pissed off Keanu Reeves. That said, while a movie
doesn’t necessarily need a complex plot or deep characters, it does need
something to keep us invested. In the case of Atomic Blonde, which is brought to us by half of the directing team
behind John Wick, the connective
tissue of her getting from one scene to another tries to have this tangled web
of intrigue, but just ends up tripping over itself.
Our story is set in Berlin in 1989 on the eve of the fall of
the Berlin Wall. With the city in disarray, an East-German defector (Eddie
Marsan) with a list of double-agents escapes to the West, so the MI-6 sends
Special Agent Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) to track him down and get
him out of Germany alive. Enlisting the help of a hard-partying deep cover
operative (James McAvoy), she soon finds out that everyone from the KGB to the
CIA to the French want to get their hands on that information, not everyone is
who they say they are, and it becomes more and more abundantly clear that
Lorraine is going to have to fight her way out if she wants to escape with the
info and her life.
Atomic Blonde is a
movie that has a lot going for it but still comes up a bit short. Judging by
the movies they made after John Wick,
it’s easy to see that Chad Stahelski brought in all the craziness while David
Leitch brought in the cool factor, but what made it such a brilliant action
movie was the know-how both directors brought in from their experience as
stuntmen. The action is expertly choreographed, and even though Theron spends
half the movie looking like she just came off the runway at Fashion Week, she
does not come out of those brawls the same way. You feel the impact of every
hit she gives and receives, and she wears every scar, bruise and black eye from
scene to scene. The crown jewel of the movie hands down has to be this
elaborate one-shot fight sequence where Theron takes down a wave of Russian
thugs, winding through her hotel room and the stairwell, following her all the
way outside transitioning seamlessly to an equally intense car chase. It’s
extremely brutal, expertly executed, and leaves everyone as bloody, broken and
bruised as a real-life beatdown of that scale would leave someone. If this movie
is remembered for one thing, it’ll be this scene.
If it’s remembered for anything else, it’s Charlize Theron
herself. Theron has long since proven herself to be one of the most versatile
actresses working today, and she’s proven to be quite adept as an action woman.
She’s no Furiosa, but she has all the charisma of a badassery of a Bond Girl who
can easily hold her own. The rest of the cast is no slouch, either. McAvoy is a
good sleazy foil to Theron’s straightness, John Goodman does fine as her
American handler, and Sofia Boutella is great as a rookie French spy who hooks
up with Theron in a way that’s quite titillating, but their relationship is
treated in a very matter-of-fact way.
Too bad the rest of the movie is such a tangled mess.
It’s clear that the movie is trying to have this intricate
cloak-and-dagger plot filled with misdirection, dialogue of characters lying to
each other while figuring out who’s lying about what, but since the characters
are so one-note and shallow with no clear motivations and the script leaves
everyone lost within the first 45 minutes, the various twists and big reveals
will leave the audience with a big resounding “meh”. And the few key points
that everyone can pick up on have been done before in better spy movies. It
doesn’t matter how many neon colors, 80’s new wave songs, lesbian sex scenes or
Andrei Tarkovsky references you squeeze in there, if we’re not given a reason
to care or even a thread that we can follow, it’s all going to ring hollow.
Overall, Atomic Blonde
is a solid action flick but a dud as a spy thriller. It tries to jam so much in
there, but it just ends up stretching itself thin. When it’s good, it’s one of
the most magnetically watchable things to come out this summer. It’s just a
shame that it’s held back by a plot that had more than a few kinks that
could’ve been ironed out. But if you want to watch one of the most beautiful
women in the world kick ass and strut her stuff, there are better ways to do that
and there are worse ways.
6/10
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