Atomic Blonde is a sleek and stylish thriller with Cold War intrigue and a kick-ass female spy. What could be better on a Saturday night? Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) is an MI6 agent sent to Berlin just before the fall of the wall to retrieve a list, stolen by the KGB, of every British agent under cover in the Soviet Union and to discover and assassinate a double agent named Satchel. She is aided by the Berlin Chief of Station (James McAvoy) who may or may not be her ally. I found it to be an interesting, if sometimes convoluted, story with one twist after another but what makes this movie so much fun to watch is the action. The set pieces are pretty violent (Lorraine does get pretty battered and bloody) but, as I mentioned, they are extremely stylish with incredibly complex choreography and camera work with multiple angles. There is a fantastic sequence involving a stiletto heel in a moving car, another one involving a garden hose over a balcony, and yet another in a stairway (which goes on for at least ten minutes without any discernible cuts). Charlize Theron does most of her own stunts and it is impossible to take your eyes off of her as she punches, shoots, and kicks her way out of trouble in one fabulous outfit after another. James McAvoy looks like he is having so much fun with a "disastrous Sinead O'Connor haircut" and a knowing smirk. As a child of the 80s, I really loved the soundtrack which features at least a dozen pop songs from that decade. I think I giggled out loud when I heard the opening notes to "Der Kommissar." My only complaint with this movie is that we see Lorraine naked multiple times (she takes an ice bath, not once but, twice and she has quite the sex scene with another female agent) for no reason beyond titillation. Can we please have a strong female character without resorting to objectifying her? However, this is a fun movie and I recommend it to fans of the spy genre.
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