Atomic Blonde review: Charlize Thereon kicks, punches and shines through this incoherent story.

Movie: Atomic Blonde

Cast: Charlize Thereon, James McAvoy, Sophia Boutella, John Goodman

Director: David Leitch

Music Director: Tyler Bates

Producer: Charlize Thereon, A.J. Dix, Kelly McCormick, Beth Kono, Eric Gitter, Peter Schwerin

Rating: 3/5 Stars

The moment you see the poster of Charlize Thereon’s Atomic Blonde, you know that you’re signing up for some really gruesome kicks and punches and some serious injuries being inflicted upon the baddies that Thereon and the director of John Wick are capable of delivering, and I was not at all disappointed by that.

In fact, there is a whole 10-minute sequence of a fight in a building which seems to be done with a handheld camera and all in one take. With this style of direction, the makers did make us believe that we are indeed next who will be terribly bruised and been given a fancy head shot at the end of it all. Thank god that Leitch is directing Deadpool 2.

Thereon plays a MI-6 super-agent who has been sent off to Berlin to recover a valuable artefact which has the names of all the double agents that intelligence agencies from across the world are after.

Although mundane, this would have been a cool concept to keep at the crux of a story, had it not been set in the same week as the falling of The Berlin Wall in 1989, because given the tension that was in Berlin at the time, the recovery of a list of agents, creatively called The List, seems really unimportant. Charlize Thereon and James McAvoy make their characters completely believable and play them like it’s their alter ego. In fact, (God be willing) If I ever meet Thereon at any point before her next release, I would suspect that I would be horrifically beaten into pulp within five minutes of our encounter.

McAvoy brings the perfect manic elements to his character to the extent that he completely wipes off his persona of the righteous Professor X from our minds. On the other hand, Sophia Boutella and John Goodman aren’t too far behind in their performances.

The main culprit here is the script. Right from the era to the incomprehensible plot line are a complete turn off in the film. There’s so much double crossing and pointless (but gorgeous) action sequences happening that you might consider taking a small stroll in the theatre lobby. Such a star cast deserved a good script, which we hope that Thereon gets for the second part of the film, because I’m head-over-heels for Thereon’s Atomic Blonde.