ATOMIC BLONDE ■ Ice-cold potential
It’s easy to see how ATOMIC BLONDE was greenlit. First, take a bankable name in Charlize Theron (who’s both lead and producer for ATOMIC BLONDE). Next, sell it as a comic-book adaptation, even though it’s not really of the same ilk as the usual superhero movies. Finally, splice in some JOHN WICK-like action sequences, and ensure they’re front and centre in the trailers.
ATOMIC BLONDE is a thriller at an action-movie masquerade party, which is also trying to be overly dramatic. It’s shot well, cast well, has a killer soundtrack, and technically should hit all the right beats. Yet it falls flat, most notably in the first half, where it feels like director David Leitch can’t decide whether he wants it to be an action movie, a Cold War thriller, or a character drama.
Obviously, a well-executed movie can have these elements, but ATOMIC BLONDE struggles to even become the sum of its parts. Granted, the second half is a lot tighter and more focused than the first half, but the triumphs of the latter parts of the movie add to the frustration of what could have been if the creators could just decide what kind of movie they wanted to make.
The action is as brutal as it is fantastic, but the action sequences are far too scarce (and mostly back-loaded). It’s not thrilling enough to be a thriller, even if there is a rushed pay-off for audience patience close to the end. And the character drama is so scarce and often poorly developed that it might as well not be there.
Still, when ATOMIC BLONDE gets into a rhythm, it gets things really right in small doses. There’s enough good stuff to make it worth watching, but not quite enough to make it memorable.