When an MI6 spy is murdered in Berlin and a list of active double agents stolen, fellow operative Lorraine Broughton must retrieve it. Her contact in Berlin, David Percival, has gone native, enthralled to the sleazy, scuzzy side of the city. With days to go before the Berlin Wall comes down, it's a race against time to find the list and prevent it from falling into the hands of the Soviets. But there's a double agent- codenamed Satchel- who could throw a spanner in the works.
Atomic Blonde is based on the graphic novel series The Coldest City by Antony Johnson and Sam Hart. Now, I went into the film knowing very little about it: I knew it had Charlize Theron in it, I knew it had a 1980s setting and... that was about it.
It is true that, plot-wise, it's not the most original story- spy must retrieve (insert McGuffin here) but there's a double agent in the midst and so on. However, setting it in Berlin in the final days before the Wall came down is an inspired choice and there's an authentic feel to the fashion and the music to evoke the era. The film's style also marks it out; it's cool without trying to be cool and there's a gritty feel to the Berlin underground which I liked.
Director David Leitch used to be a stuntman, so the fight scenes have been choreographed and shot really well. Whilst they are stylised, they're also absolutely brutal and, what's even better, is they show the combatants struggling to breathe and struggling to stand (as you would if you've had seven bells kicked out of you). They're not invincible super-soldiers; they're real flesh and blood people. There are several scenes of Lorraine sitting in an ice bath to help repair her battered body.
Charfize Theron gives a truly kickass performance as Lorraine. Reminiscent in places of Angelina Jolie in Wanted, she owns every scene she's in. James McAvoy is great as Percival, a slippery and morally flexible guy who lives for the double-dealing and duplicity of the city. In some ways, Lorraine and Percival function as a rather dysfunctional buddy comedy- she the inexperienced newbie, he the grizzled old veteran- but that's just one side to a complex and complicated relationship.
There's able support from Toby Jones as Lorraine's MI6 superior who interviews her about Berlin; John Goodman shines as a CIA agent who has an interest in the case. Eddie Marsan is great as a former Stasi officer who wants to defect (and has memorised the list), plus there's nice turns by Bill Skarsgard as Lorraine's assistant Merkel, and Sofia Boutella as a seductive French agent.
This has been a year of strong movie soundtracks and Atomic Blonde has one of the best I've heard this year: 'Blue Monday' by New Order, 'Cat People' by David Bowie, 'Father Figure' by George Michael, 'London Calling' by The Clash, 'Under Pressure' by Queen & David Bowie and '99 Luftballons' by Nena all play their part in creating the world of the film.
I thoroughly enjoyed Atomic Blonde, and more so for the vast majority of the film being a surprise. Definitely worth watching.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Tez
It's a banner year for the Star Trek franchise as it celebrates 50 years since the original TV show started airing. So how better to commemorate this than to release another Star Trek movie?
The crew of the Enterprise are well into their five-year mission, but Captain James T. Kirk is starting to feel a little disillusioned and is thinking of moving on. When they dock on Starbase Yorktown, an unknown alien ship in distress hails the base. Their crew has been taken to a nearby planet by the villainous Krall and the Enterprise is the only ship that can make it through an unstable nebula to help rescue them. But things are never quite what they seem and the planet- and Krall- are more dangerous than the crew could imagine...
Written by Simon Pegg (also reprising the role of Scotty and therefore giving himself a bigger part) and Doug Jung (who cameos as Sulu's husband Ben- more of that later) and directed by Justin Lin (the Fast and Furious franchise), Star Trek Beyond is big, bombastic and a lot of fun. It makes for very easy watching.
Lin is very much at home with the action sequences- including a very stylish distraction involving Kirk and a vintage motorcycle- although there's an over-reliance on shakycam which is annoying and, yet again, a major Hollywood blockbuster skimps on the lighting budget to its detriment with some scenes (noticeably one fight scene between Jaylah and Krall's minion Manas) almost bordering on the unwatchable. One thing to Lin's credit, however- there's minimal lens flare. A few lighting and camera issues aside, the visual effects are- as you would expect- superb with the reveal and exploration of Starbase Yorktown particularly stunning.
Performance-wise, it's all pretty solid. The main returning cast all fit back into their roles well (although having Scotty call Jaylah 'lassie' every few minutes got annoying really quickly). They know these characters well by now so there's no questions there. What the script does, which is interesting, is play around with the usual dynamics by splitting the Enterprise team and pairing disparate characters up. Pairing Bones and Spock up is inspired and both Karl Urban and Zachary Quinto seem to be enjoying their odd-couple bickering. Idris Elba makes for an imposing villain in Krall- even if the back-story felt a little rushed and bolted on. There's a really impressive performance by Sofia Boutella as the alien Jaylah who helps the crew out on the planet.
Some people may be wondering what I made of the decision to make Sulu gay (a decision which dismayed original Sulu actor George Takei). To be honest, whilst I probably would have preferred them to create a new character, I wasn't massively bothered by it. The scene between Ben and Sulu was played very nicely- it's a bit of a blink-and-you-miss-it moment to be fair- and it wasn't really mentioned again, although Ben does appear again at the end. It certainly wasn't sensationalised or felt lurid or done just for shock value. I can appreciate that it sometimes feels like tokenism but you can create a LGBT character and not let their sexuality be their only defining feature; for me, it's the difference between having a gay character (where it is) and a character that is gay (where it isn't).
The film pays a touching tribute not only to the late Leonard Nimoy- whose death is directly addressed and provides one of the more poignant scenes between Spock and Kirk- but also to the original crew of the Enterprise who started the journey off half a century ago. It also pays tribute in the end credits to Anton Yelchin, the Chekhov actor who passed away earlier this year. I couldn't help but feel a little pang of sadness every time the excitable Russian navigator appeared on screen. He has left a big hole in the Star Trek family.
I went to this film to be entertained, to turn my brain off for a few hours and just let the sci-fi silliness wash over me. Whilst it delivers that in spades, don't be surprised if you feel a little emotional throughout it too.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Tez
