Atomic Blonde (2017) [Blu-ray]
Action | Mystery | Thriller

An undercover MI6 agent is sent to Berlin during the Cold War to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and recover a missing list of double agents.

Storyline: The crown jewel of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Agent Lorraine Broughton (Theron) is equal parts spycraft, sensuality and savagery, willing to deploy any of her skills to stay alive on her impossible mission. Sent alone into Berlin to deliver a priceless dossier out of the destabilized city, she partners with embedded station chief David Percival (James McAvoy) to navigate her way through the deadliest game of spies. Written by Focus Features

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, October 31, 2017 Ah, the 1980s. Great music, cool culture, and the Cold War. Fun times. Scary times. The world is a drastically different place now, just some three decades later, radically altered by the fall of the wall and the exponential, meteoric rise in technological progress. It almost makes the spy story of Atomic Blonde seem quaint, in which secret rendezvous, good old-fashioned pursuits based on human intelligence, and coded messages transmitted in crude but effective ways were the means of silently fighting the Cold War at its hottest flashpoint in Germany. Of course, there's also plenty of raw action in one of the most gritty and cool Action flicks in some time. Director David Leitch's (making his "official" feature film debut following uncredited work on the highly regraded John Wick) is a time capsule of sight and sound, a Spy film fully embedded in and defined by its time. Rather than Bond tuxedos and martinis, Blonde makes hardcore blood-and-guts action and infectious 80s beats its lifeblood. The film certainly maneuvers through genre tropes, but it's defined by its period, not its narrative, by its muscle, not its brain, resulting in a movie that's more or less empty in the center but engaging on the surface.

Berlin, Germany, 1989. The wall has yet to come down, and the East-West spy game remains increasingly intense and lethal. When a list of agent names -- a list that, if it were to fall into the wrong hands, could extended the Cold War by as long as four decades -- is taken from a murdered MI6 operative, Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron), herself a member of MI6, is called in to retrieve it. Her contact is David Percival (James McAvoy) whom she suspects may be more deeply involved in an unfolding conspiracy than anyone realizes. She finds herself a target and forced to fight for her life in order to retrieve and protect the information, even as the world changes before her eyes.

Atomic Blonde is a sight-and-sound picture that just works. The film's plot -- despite existing in the narratively rich, politically dense, and harrowingly dangerous world of divided Germany in the time of the Berlin Wall, Reagan, Gorbachev, and mutually assured destruction -- is about as wafer-thin as they come, reliant on crude spy game maneuverings centered around a "list" that could extended the length of the cold war by as much as four decades. None of that really matters. The basic plot is little more than a propellant to move the film from one action scene to the next, to absorb the audience not in dramatic details and the political quagmires on the ground level of the Cold War but rather indulge in the sultry curves and high octane music that truly shape the film. The movie is brimming with an infectious 80s flair and flavor. It's completely absorbed in its culture, from lighting to music, with the latter in particular its lifeblood as songs from George Michael and After the Fire blare atop the film's expertly choreographed fight scenes. Atomic Blonde nails the approach of style over substance, and while the central plot might still leave some audiences wanting more, there's no mistaking the film's credentials as a top-flight entertainer that knows its way around its timeframe, its sex, its sounds, and its violence.

The film certainly favors its graphic novel origins (based on the story The Coldest City as created by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart), taking on a (reservedly) stylized look and feel that's often devoid of significant color but still capable of feeling fresh and invigorating thanks in large part to the complimentary 80s structure and sounds. The film's action scenes, in connection with its music, yield expert choreography and timing that stays in beat, the two necessary and fully entwined compliments. That said, the film's best action sequence comes entirely without music a little past the midway point, a raw, intense knock-down, drag-out fight in close spaces in which Theron's character goes ups against a handful of well-armed, stout, and determined male foes. Theron is on the top of her game in this sequence and throughout, physically dedicated to the part, stripping bare in several scenes, including one in which she sexually engages with another woman, while dominating action with impressively hyper-realistic fisticuffs, gun fights, and ability to make use of various props as she takes down men who are larger and better equipped. The supporting cast falls perfectly into role and melts into the movie. Goodman and Jones play smaller but critical roles while McAvoy absorbs himself into a culture caricature, smoking and swilling Jack like there's tomorrow, while adding an air of mystery to a part, and a movie, that finds a unique balance between traditional genre narrative tropes and a frenzied style that makes it one of the more unique takes on a somewhat stale genre, here infused by an infectiously detailed look into a fascinating and culturally and politically evolving and dangerous time period.

In Atomic Blonde, there's a scarcity of compelling narrative content and thematic purpose, but the film is teeming with raw and intense action and era-specific and expertly integrated sights and sounds. The movie is, really, an empty shell when it comes right down to it, recycling basic genre tropes and maneuvers, but it's in the flash, the style, that allows it to easily overcome the dearth of substance, particularly as it relates to the basic storyline. The action is cool, the actors are committed, and the film is one of the more uniquely enjoyable takes on the spy genre in some time. Sick of Bond? Go Blonde. Universal's Blu-ray delivers solid video, excellent audio, and a fair allotment of bonus content. Recommended.

(Based on Comic Book)

[CSW] -2.8- The action in this movie was pretty cool. Now, the physical strength of Charlize Theron had to be exaggerated in order for her to compete with large strong men, but the fighting techniques and the damage one takes as they fight like that was very realistic. The plot was not as hard to follow as some reviewers have said, but it was also a very typical spy plot. I do have to admit that the plot was a little weak and since it's was all being told in flashback you know she makes it out of Berlin, which kind of takes some of the edge off of the story. The eighties soundtrack was really cool. A large part of the two hour length was used to add style to the movie. All in all it was an enjoyable movie that held my attention. The triple agent twist at the end was an acceptable part of any spy movie.
[V4.0-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - D-Box


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