Review – Atomic Blonde

In Atomic Blonde, the Blonde in question is Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron), a sexy, badass M:I6 agent with a love for vodka.  Like most cinematic spies, like James Bond or Jason Bourne, she is stealthy with a gun, quick with the hands, and leaves no henchmen left behind.  However, unlike those two, Broughton is far from perfect at her job, but gets things done by being a pure badass.  The movie is much like our blonde agent; far from perfect, but incredibly badass.

Atomic Blonde takes place in Berlin right after the Cold War in the late 80’s.  Broughton is sent there to retrieve an important government list that identifies a double agent within M:I6 after the agent who was originally holding the list was killed by a KGB agent.  Helping Broughton find the list is David Percival (James McAvoy), a wild card of an agent who may have some alternate motivations of his own.

Like most spy movies, the plot is complicated, and that is the biggest issue with this movie.  This isn’t the kind of movie that needed a complicated plot.  It should have been a relatively straight forward plot with a couple twists, but focusing mostly on Broughton and the badass action.  Aside from Broughton and Percival, every other character in the film is relatively useless and under developed, except for the mysterious and sexy Russian spy Delphine (Sofia Boutella), but even she gets thrown on the back burner.  The movie does have a cool twist at the end, but other than that, the plot is less than stellar.

But even with this overly complicated plot, this movie still rocks in every way and that is all because of Theron and director David Leitch.  Atomic Blonde has some of the best action sequences of 2017.  Leitch co-directed the first John Wick (2014) and made his name as a stuntman for decades, and here, he really shows his knowledge of action and stunts.  These sequences are perfectly choreographed and executed and Theron doing her own stunts adds another level of awesomeness to them.  From the George Michael-set apartment fight to the single take stairway battle, these scenes have your heart racing and when they’re over, you’re out of breath.

Charlize Theron owns every bit of this movie.  She rocks a British like a pro and her bleach blonde hair just adds to the swagger and attitude of Broughton.  As I said before, she does her own stunts which is amazing, but you also really understand Broughton and see her flaws as an agent. This is more than just a a woman kicking ass and taking names.  Broughton is a flawed character, one who, for her field of work, gets too attached to people and that skewers her vision of the mission.  She is also not the slickest fighter.  Where as past cinematic agents like Jason had no problem taking out bad guys, Broughton comes out battered, bloody, and bruised.  Theron shows us every side of Broughton and makes us understand this woman who isn’t suppose to be understood.  She rocks the physicality like a boss and really gets inside the head of Broughton.  It is one of my favorite performances of the year, though it has no shot of any awards.

Set behind a terrific, 80’s-themed alternative soundtrack, Atomic Blonde is one of my favorite movies of the summer.  It’s plot is too muddled for its own good, but that easily gets overlooked by the brilliant action scenes and sensational performance by Charlize Theron.

Did you see Atomic Blonde?  What did you think?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter and Instagram, @kevflix, or on Facebook, by searching Kevflix.