Atomic BlondeDirector: David LeitchStarring: Charlize Theron, James McAvoyRating:★★★

FILM REVIEW
By DANIEL TAN

It is difficult to review David Leitch’s latest action flick Atomic Blonde without drawing comparisons to his previous fast-paced film about an assassin extraordinaire, John Wick.

This time, the title character, Lorraine (Charlize Theron, who keeps adding to her list of incredible badass characters), is a spy who is as much of a renegade as John, but the film itself fails to keep up.

If you loved it when John slammed someone’s head into a pencil, you’ll love what Lorraine does to people with some keys.

But that’s where the similarities end. Atomic Blonde has none of John Wick’s pacing; Lorraine spends most of the film in a stuffy room narrating while the action happens in flashback. This means there are breaks to the narrative that are as jarring to action junkies as Lorraine’s punches to the face.

The film takes place during the height of the Cold War, so the players involved are the usual suspects — MI6, CIA, and KGB.

A special agent carrying a McGuffin list is killed in the opening moments of the film. The ramifications of not retrieving the list are Cold War-era apocalyptic.

Enter top spy Lorraine, who was recovered from a mission to repossess the list and assassinate a double agent in Berlin.

The trailer showed oodles of style and action, but in truth it became increasingly boring to watch as the movie went back and forth between the stuffy interrogation room and the flashbacks.

One of the off-putting aspects of the dialogue was excessive swearing. Perhaps the filmmaker was looking to show characters who were carefree, but the dialogue came off as forced. When Lorraine first meets Percival (James McAvoy) — her key contact in Berlin — they put in an expletive before the subject in almost every sentence.

Perhaps the biggest drawback of the film is that the plot is both confusing and sluggish. Lorraine often fights her way through a dozen men to move the plot along, which means that the action — while impressive — is also somewhat pointless.

After a while, all the punching and kicking fades out and it is almost the same as watching a metronome tick back and forth – one has to try not to nod off while waiting for something different to happen.

But credit has to be given to a 10-minute action sequence that seems to have been filmed in one take. The scene was reminiscent of the hallway and stairwell scenes in Daredevil Seasons 1 and 2 respectively, but this time Lorraine fights her way both up and down stairs, then moves on to the street, and ends up in a car chase.

The latter half of the movie sees numerous twists — some that you can see coming a mile away, others that seem to compensate for the confusion throughout the movie.

Although the cars in the film fit the time setting, the fashion Lorraine showcases is awkwardly modern. Lorraine is sexy and dangerous, but in a very 2017 way, rather than what would have been the case during the Cold War.

The soundtrack was cleverly used, and some scenes were made extra immersive as the music fades when doors close.

Atomic Blonde is good for a one-time watch, but don’t go in expecting another John Wick.