REVIEW: Atomic BlondeBy Quinn OxleyJuly 28, 2017Yet another summer released that leached credibility from retro music. I have to say, I’m not hating this trend.

Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) has come to kick butt and smoke cigarettes. And she’s all out of cigarettes. (JK, she smokes pretty much constantly.) Rest assured there will be a lot of butt-kicking, and that’s pretty much all you need to know about the story to enjoy the movie.

Atomic Blonde was the first movie in a long time that I’ve not… responded to very passionately. I was pretty lukewarm about the whole affair. I had to sit and think about how the movie made me feel in order to even form an opinion.

The story wanders a bit much to really be considered a spy thriller. Even the movie admits that it wanders a little too much when, halfway through, Toby Jones’ higher-up character notes something along the lines of, “You had no leads and lots of distractions.” It’s a lot less about the story and a lot more about Charlize Theron’s femme fatale, which would be fine if it didn’t kind of come off as a long perfume commercial (AKA, there’s a lot of intent staring into the distance, smoking cigarettes, and sexy outfits).

However, Atomic Blonde has more than the usual amount of awesome in order to make up for the meandering story. One Man-of-Steel-length fight scene finds a way to keep things interesting and shatters the mould for such action sequences. As I said before, the use of a retro soundtrack once again appears, and I don’t mind it. The frame story technique also helps inject some intrigue where the story leaves it hanging.

After a story that was a bit here and there and seemed it could only really end one way, I did really appreciate the last fifteen minutes.

Rating: 6.5/10

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