4 stars out of 5
ScarJo, why can’t you make this sort of action flick? Because Atomic Blonde is a real good time at the movies, is what this is. A “female James Bond” is the easy shorthand — Lorraine Broughton is an MI6 agent — but this movie is looser and more raw than your standard-issue 007.
It’s 1989 in Berlin, in the days leading up to the fall of the Wall. The city is as grey as you’d expect it to be, and the soundtrack pulses with appropriate period music, including the obligatory “99 Luftballons” and “Der Kommissar.”
But things don’t truly heat up till Charlize Theron, as Broughton, hits the screen, and then — oh boy — they scorch. She is a force of nature, you can’t take your eyes off her, whatever other clichés you want to throw in there. I’d take her in a scrape with Wonder Woman any day of the week. Other actors appear in this movie, but it’s no use, this is Charlize’s show. Nice to see John Goodman and Toby Jones, though they don’t get very much to do. My old fave James McAvoy does have some fun as a British agent who is perhaps not so trustworthy.
Much credit must also go to first-time director David Leitch. He’s a former stuntman and it shows. The fight scenes positively crackle, especially an extended sequence in and around a stairwell. Theron goes hand-to-hand, kicking ass and getting her ass kicked, with the occasional gun, knife, or blunt object tossed in.
Atomic Blonde never gets too stylized, a common risk for films based on graphic novels. (I’m looking at you, Road to Perdition.) There’s a lesbian love scene that is gratuitous but I’ll admit to enjoying it nonetheless. And plot-wise, recovering a stolen list of the world’s undercover agents is a little tired. But the movie still held my interest and kept me guessing till the very end. With this and Fury Road, Charlize Theron may be the top action star of the twenty-teens.
Jack Silbert, curator