Watch & Remark: Atomic Blonde

Let's start by saying this: Carlize Theron is a goddess of film, and should do more stuff like this.

Atomic Blonde is one of the most action-packed movies of the summer, based on the graphic novel The Coldest City. It's stuffed full with bullets, gore, and spies, and it's a bloody spectacular mess with a tough setting and a hearty cast of characters.

I didn't know anything about this movie going in, and it made for a slightly confusing start, but I settled in easily, and enjoyed it a lot. Go in expecting a Cold War spy-fest, and you'll be happy. Go in not expecting it, and you'll be amazed.

Theron plays Lorraine Broughton, MI6 operative charged with retrieving a missing list of all active agents, while also investigating the possibility of a double agent. Sent into Berlin just days before the wall came down, her undercover mission is a crucial step to stopping the Cold War.

Of course, nothing is as it seems, and very little goes to plan. With foreign agents, some intense fights, and a package with a photographic memory, Broughton is fighting against a hornets nest with no end in sight, and no clear right or wrong in a battle against someone who might be a traitor to their country.

The most spectacular things in this movie were the fight scenes. Impossible to count, beautifully choreographed, and appropriately and accurately bloody and painful, every punch and pained scream was a symphony of a well fought fight. Each one was intense and loud as well as impactful. They were never unneccesary, and often added just the right amount of tension to tide the narrative over until more plot-heavy scenes took their places. With a twisted plot and a convoluted yet extremely satisfying ending, Atomic Blonde is a riot of brutally intense film.

The sheer amount of pain you see onscreen is cruel, and Theron is an expert at stunts. Her reactions to each hit are a part of the fight itself, and we see her deal with the repercussions of each hit rather than shrugging them off. Broughton is a polarizing character, contrasted with the world around her because of her black and white color scheme, a stark refusal to wear color unless injured until the very end. Even better, Theron doing her own stunts created a backdrop to the shots that made them feel more real and the pain more intense.

James McAvoy is wonderfully talented and deranged (and a boss for filming all of his action scenes with an injured hand). His character is the perfect counterpoint to Theron's straight-laced spy, and their dynamic is a masterpiece of contrast.

If I have one complain, it was the obvious male-gaze focus of the intimate acts onscreen. The sex scene between two women is something I like seeing represented onscreen, but it wasn't done the way it should have been. It was obviously shot for the aesthetic pleasure based on the male gaze, rather than realistic woman on woman intercourse. We get artful shots of them back-to-front, which, I have to say, is not a particularly woman-focused position.

In the end, I'd see this movie again, but probably not in theaters because it's a bit too intense. Cozy up with some Stoli and enjoy a film with a bad-ass female lead who gives no shits and can take down a man with a garden hose then jump out of a window, no sweat.