Just as John Wick brought back a faded star in Keanu Reeves, Atomic Blonde brings back a not-so-faded star in Charlize Thereon. Despite some initial confusion on my part about Charlize's career...she's had some big hits in the last few years. She practically took Mad Max over from Tom Hardy, and this year she played an ultra-villain in the newest Fast and Furious franchise.
But Atomic Blonde is HERS, she's the star, she's the reason the movie exists, and she earns her star pay. We're reminded that Thereon won a Best Actress Oscar, and for playing a female serial killer with a hideously worn, wrinkled and ragged face. We're reminded that Thereon played her Mad Max character with a buzz haircut, a ravaged face, and half her arm missing.
The absolutely gorgeous Ms. Thereon is willing to "ugly up and dress down" for Oscar and for other reasons, and she does so in "Atomic Blonde," sometimes. 2/3 of the time she's gorgeous in this movie, but 1/3 of the time, she looks terrible -- black and blue and beaten, no make-up, the haggard face of a woman who kills for a living and feels the pain of every kill.
Thereon does a few brief nude scenes in Atomic Blonde, but in the first one, her Amazonian body(hey there, Wonder Woman!) is nude but bruised and bloodied and her body suddenly looks heavy and muscular in its nudity...almost mannish. Not arousing. This is how Thereon got her Oscar.
But the rest of the time...va va voom. The body. The face. The ice-blue eyes. Hey, Keanu Reeves was a beauty , too and both of these films conflate the erotic charge of very pretty people getting down and dirty with physical opponents, to the death.
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ecarle (14979)
7 years ago
BTW, Charlize gets a girl-on-girl sex scene in which we come to believe that though it is "for King and Country" (Lorraine is a Brit), there is a love connection between the two ladies. As one critic has pointed out, a male action star would not have been permitted a same-sex love scene in a big budget movie. But, well, Charlize runs the table here. She fights well, she loves well -- men and women.
Other than John Goodman(who seems to be in EVERY movie in 2017) and Toby Jones, the cast is fairly faceless, here. A lot of Germans -- I caught one actor who was the serial killer recruited for the Inglorious Basterds.
Yes, the cast other than Thereon is Goodman(CIA) and Jones(M-16) and faceless. Except for the co-star: James McAvoy, fresh from playing the lead psycho in "Split." For me, McAvoy now has the key quality of a True Star: I recognize his face. He's in. He's no longer anonymous to me. And its interesting to see McAvoy playing a regular guy after the Split psycho. Except -- since everybody in this movie is a murderous spy with martial arts powers -- he's not THAT regular.
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ecarle (14979)
7 years ago
Did I like "Atomic Blonde"? Sure. How many stars? Oh, I dunno -- three?
I didn't like it as much as John Wick, because I'm still convinced that John Wick(my personal favorite of 2014) was a very special type of action movie with a very appealing star performance by Keanu Reeves -- who is an actor I root for. "Atomic Blonde" sinks its "enjoyment factor" under a heavy load of spy movie confusion (we've been here with Bourne) and over-familiar double-crossing.
To the positive: some of the shots in Atomic Blonde of East Germany match up with Hitchcock's Torn Curtain...a movie which looks more relevant all the time as modern movies catch up to the Cold War(see also: Spielberg's Bridge of Spies; Guy Ritchie's Man from UNCLE) .
Oh, Atomic Blonde has fewer fights than John Wick, but the big one comes near the end, and its a lulu, as Thereon fights four men "up close and personal" up, down, and around a stairwell. Its a much more brutal and "practical" fight to the death than the ones in John Wick, and Thereon amazingly allows herself to be thrown down stairs and into walls several times(if there was some CGI or a stunt double in there, I didn't catch it.)
In its animal brutality, this fight on the stairs reminds me of one in a movie called "Eastern Promises" of ten years ago, when Viggo Mortensen faced off against assassins coming at him with knives in a steam room. Mr. Mortensen did that fight against bladed weapons -- full-frontal nude -- and I haven't forgotten the harrowing nature of THAT fight. No nudity here, but the same kind of desperate savagery. (You might say that the bladed brutality of these fights is a many descendants-down variant of Psycho, and this movie DOES have a "staircase scene.")
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ecarle (14979)
7 years ago
Perhaps one more point to make about Atomic Blonde. The fight scenes are brutal, and I was reminded of John Huston's "Kremlin Letter" in the positing of spy games as being played dirty and cheating and nastily by all concerned.
This all comes together in a sequence in which a sympathetic character is slowly strangled, ala Frenzy, with all the disturbing power of that disturbing Frenzy strangling. But the conceit of this strangling scene is to place it in the context of "the spy game" -- the strangler pretty much apologizes to the victim for having to do this, its just business. This scene and a few others make "Atomic Blonde" almost a "seventies movie" in its nihilism and belief that "the good guys CAN'T win." I noticed this tone throughout the movie, and its another reason this isn't "John Wick." Its hard to root for anybody.
Except the lovely, fearless, sexy, mannish, chameleon-like Charlize Thereon.
Her star credentials remain well in order.
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swanstep (2715)
7 years ago
This scene and a few others make "Atomic Blonde" almost a "seventies movie" in its nihilism and belief that "the good guys CAN'T win." I noticed this tone throughout the movie, and its another reason this isn't "John Wick." Its hard to root for anybody.
Interesting... I *will* see Atomic Blonde eventually but having just got around to seeing John Wick 2 (and also Guardians of the Galaxy 2) I've sort of had my fill of endless, far-fetched, ultimately-jokey-because-outcome-never-in-doubt fight scenes for a while (Kingsmen 2 can wait for a while too for the same reason). I gather that AB is nihilistic in some way that JW2 isn't (and GOTG2 isn't either) but I confess to still being somewhat perturbed at being invited to revel in the brain-splattering details of wholesale slaughter of nominal bad guys by John Wick and Yondu. It's *some* sort of nihiism that the characters whose side we're on are kind of gifted psychopaths, and even deeper nihilism that we're identifying so closely with their aestheticized violence.
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swanstep (2715)
7 years ago
I also finally saw both Wonder Woman and Baby Driver. WW didn't do much for me although Gal Gadot was impressively well-cast. BD was a lot of fun - not quite up to the level of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz for me but lots better than Scott Pilgrim in my view. The high-concept-ness of BD, however, meant that I never embraced BD as more than exercise in style, and the central couple weren't as interesting to me as the Charade-like circle of villains. In any case, I haven't thought about BD much in the weeks since seeing it. 'Empty calories' is a phrase I keep coming back to. BD's a rush I suppose but not as well-balanced a one as the (very different!) '90s and early 2000s films it slightly, vaguely reminded me of - Run Lola Run (1997), Trainspotting (1996), Heat (1995), Go (1999), Head-on (2004).
I guess that overall I'm going through a period when I'm *not* *really* liking most new films I'm seeing (I'm mostly disappointed to some degree right now).
I still haven't seen Dunkirk tho'. (I gap-filled Wyler's Mrs Miniver (1942) for it.... and didn't enjoy that much either, so maybe I'm just in a bad mood right now.)
The main movies I've enjoyed without reservation recently are a couple of French films, Heal the Living and Nocturama (and rewatches of 12 Angry Men (1957) and Lost in America (1985) which Netflix just added down under).
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ecarle (14979)
7 years ago
I also finally saw both Wonder Woman and Baby Driver. WW didn't do much for me although Gal Gadot was impressively well-cast.
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I'm intrigued that this very week, James Cameron sparked some debate with his contention that while he liked Wonder Woman, "its a step backwards." Evidently he found Gadot's pin-up ready model looks to be retrograde versus his "tough women" played by Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton (not to mention the butch Lady Marine in Aliens.) Some women struck out against Cameron's opinions("He doesn't know what he's talking about, because he's not a woman") , but his point is to be taken: are our female action heroes to be "macho and muscular and mannish" or can we allow girlie-show sex appeal in?
I say: let the girlie show sex appeal in. But it becomes its own problem. "Justice League" is coming in November and while its got Batman, Aquaman, the Flash, and some Cyborg guy...its also got Wonder Woman, and its being promoted as "Sexy Wonder Woman and some guys." Females get a role model; males get eye candy...
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ecarle (14979)
7 years ago
Interesting... I *will* see Atomic Blonde eventually but having just got around to seeing John Wick 2 (and also Guardians of the Galaxy 2) I've sort of had my fill of endless, far-fetched, ultimately-jokey-because-outcome-never-in-doubt fight scenes for a while (Kingsmen 2 can wait for a while too for the same reason).
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Outcome never in doubt fight scenes are...pretty boring. I gotta admit.
But I guess it is the nature of the Summer Season.
I've been watching the 1972 action movie "Prime Cut" and I guess its been ever thus. Lee Marvin easily bests Gene Hackman and his team of bad guys.
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I gather that AB is nihilistic in some way that JW2 isn't (and GOTG2 isn't either)
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Very much so. I talk about John Huston's 1970 "Kremlin Letter" around here sometimes. THAT film posited American spying as conducted by sick, ruthless, amoral people uncaring about whom they hurt or kill. Well, so does Atomic Blonde. Its a movie where you keep asking yourself "Why did Thereon's character sign on to such a brutal, nihilistic life? What's the point of her job and is it at all linked to patriotism? Or what?"
At least the biggest fight scene in AB is pretty good about all parties (including Thereon) getting winded and bruised and savaged and bloodied until finally she emerges the wobbly winner. Its REAL. Somewhat.
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ecarle (14979)
7 years ago
I confess to still being somewhat perturbed at being invited to revel in the brain-splattering details of wholesale slaughter of nominal bad guys by John Wick and Yondu. It's *some* sort of nihiism that the characters whose side we're on are kind of gifted psychopaths, and even deeper nihilism that we're identifying so closely with their aestheticized violence.
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In general, I'm in agreement with you. Weirdly, though, while I think this applies to John Wick 2, I don't think it applies to John Wick (1.) The original gave Wick a righteous rationale for his vengeance(the mobster's son killed his PUPPY, which was given to him by his dying wife), and made his every murderous confrontation a matter of principle(and he spared a couple of people -- a door bodyguard and the female killer.) But John Wick 2, for all its style, is "violence porn."
You have a much more wide-ranging taste in film than I do, swanstep, but I think we may share this: the modern action film has gone beyond our tastes as an audience. It might be the age thing. The video-game-meets-torture-chamber ultraviolence of John Wick 2 likely fits today's youth. 70's action films like Charley Varrick and Prime Cut had some sadistic elements, but nothing like THIS. Is this reflective of a wholesale decline in human empathy and caring? Maybe not -- not everybody goes to the movies.
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