K-SCORE: 77
Director: David Leitch
Writer: Kurt Johnstad
Based on: The Coldest City by Antony Johnston
Starring: Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, John Goodman, Til Schweiger, Eddie Marsan, Sofia Boutella
Spoiler Level: Minor
“There are double-crossing double-crossers and secret agents secretly working for secret agencies that are really working in secret for the most secretive of agencies.”
In the opening scene of Atomic Blonde, Charlize Theron’s character Lorrain is naked, lying bruised and bloodied in a tub filled with ice. I said to myself then, “split narrative,” and shook my head. How cool would it have been if this scene arrived at a point through the normal chronology; we saw a character progress to where her body was in such a state and where her solution was merely to take a frigid bath? There’s essentially a cap on the quality of a story when told in such a way. I immediately had a sense of what kinds of people wrote and directed it, and what kinds of choices they made because they found such choices interesting. It could be good, and certainly was fairly good, but it couldn’t be exceptional and it couldn’t be innovative.
Atomic Blonde would have been far better served had it been created with a love of Berlin-wall falling stories and with an adolescent-like idea of an intense lesbian spy. It’s strength is in its slightly strange style, a little graphic novel, a little 80s neon punk. Lorrain is a compelling character to watch all on her own and Charlize Theron does a good job of giving her mystique with barebones dialogue and casual grace delivered almost as if she doesn’t care if whoever she’s speaking to hears her or not. Others of the characters are acceptable. McAvoy does McAnnoy, but only occasionally and he has some genuinely interesting moments too. The character who memorized the MacGuffin deserves even more exploration and screen time than he gets. And Sexy Twenty-Something Princess is at the very least sexy again.
Where it goes wrong is being too obsessed with its intricate espionage plotline. There are double-crossing double-crossers and secret agents secretly working for secret agencies that are really working in secret for the most secretive of agencies. Everyone is recording everyone else and I’m pretty sure they should be checking their wiretaps for hidden wiretaps. Though it is a story set in the background of a major historical event, of course this is the event that is actually of paramount importance to such event. I didn’t need any of that. It would have been better served with simplicity and letting its style speak for itself, told less through exposition and more through action. That also would have left far more time for scenes where characters were doing something other than discussing given circumstances with one another. The fight sequences that are in there are really quite cool.
These flaws might be a problem with the adaptation, staying true to the graphic novel source material too closely or not closely enough, but I can’t say because I haven’t yet read it. Atomic Blonde isn’t bad though; worth a quick watching, but don’t go in expecting so much that you think by the end the title will make sense.