Atomic Blonde

Let’s be clear from the start: I love Charlize Theron and I love this movie! Set in East Berlin before the fall of the wall, Lorraine (Theron) is an MI6 agent sent to retrieve a list of intelligence agents before it can reach Soviet hands. For her secondary mission, she’s to identify and eliminate a double agent who may already have set in motion plans to eliminate her as well. With a basic plot that is overwhelmed by acting from Theron and her contact Percival (James McAvoy), a first-time director in David Leitch (a former stunt coordinator who worked on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters) and visually stunning ’80s detail, the movie is a monument to just how a rock score of oldies should be used to punctuate action to perfection through every puncture or bludgeon conceived. Shrouded in a monochromatic wardrobe stenciled on a garish neon backdrop that recalls Liquid Sky and Café Flesh, there’s no way this movie could be set anytime other than the 1980s! David Hasselhoff is mentioned. Tarkovsky’s Stalker is being screened! And through it all A Flock Of Seagulls and Peter Schilling play to every thrust and punch!

[R]