Post by joekiddlouischama on Dec 18, 2017 8:15:06 GMT
Aug 2, 2017 1:01:41 GMT Nora said:
July must have been a month of the biggest disappointments for me, at the cinema. Dunkirk, Baby Driver and Atomic Blonde.Atomic Blonde was probably the smallest disappointment of the 3, but still.
Here is what bugged me about it:
1. Not enough James McAvoy whose character had the most impact on the story it seemed
2. We knew virtually NOTHING about the main character. I mean I dont need a bible on each character, but even Wick at least showed us "he loved his wife and his puppy". Case closed, I would have been happy to take as little as that with Therons character.
3. I understand the appeal of
lesbian scenes including two hot women
but it felt too forced and marketing-driven. 4. The visuals looked like John Wick, its characters talked like those from John Wick but yet somehow it was feeding us a story as complicated as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, in its ambition? What the hell was that?
5. the ridiculous ending
6. Theron was not a strong enough action lead for me. I dont mean she didnt do her own stunts or stuff like that, I know she did a lot, but her on-screen presence didn't fit the part. Spy in Berlin during that time wouldn't have dressed and styled as her, as that would instantly get her noticed and killed. Again, I get it, its marketing, but you know, unlike Kingsman or Wick where there was this additional part of the world so their spies could have pulled off wearing what they did and acting like they did, this story was saying its in a normal world. So she just looked ridiculous to me most of the time, with her facial expressions, those hair and clothes.
7. I am all for female power, but when a 115 pound girl is wrestling with and punching a 230 pound guy, (or two!) it does look ridiculous no matter how much martial art and corkscrews you throw in there. Especially since the scenes didn't show her using flexibility or speed as much as pure "horsepower" often. Ugh..
8. useless and story-breaking scenes from London, and a waste of John Goodman.
BUT - I am totally sold on the idea of crossing the Atomic Blonde and John Wick universes and have them meet. And I do believe in second chances so I hope for the best for the director as well as the sequel if it gets made.
What did you think?
I viewed Atomic Blonde twice in the theater; both times, I found the film enjoyable and entertaining, but both times, I ultimately considered the film just "decent." The action is pretty spectacular while still suggesting human vulnerability and an actual toll on both the body and the mind, and the agent's concluding soliloquy about Berlin is intriguing. Unfortunately, the emotional payoff fails to occur because—and the film is similar to Dunkirk in this regard—there has not been enough sustained character development and thematic exploration all along. Like Dunkirk, Atomic Blonde is preoccupied with spectacle.
But as with Dunkirk, the spectacle in Atomic Blonde is spectacular. Jonathan Sela's cinematography, with its shady or exotic lighting, elegant closeups, and gliding camera movements, is impressive, as is the deft editing by Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir. The score, with its mix of techno and New Wave, is dynamic, and the action is memorable—exaggerated in a way that fits with the source material (a graphic novel) yet not so heightened as to lack a sense of visceral impact and physical or emotional harm. Plus, I love the "classic" opening credits sequence, with the credits tailored to the presentation of a star, something that we almost never see nowadays.
While what you say about a female spy not dressing in that extremely sexy and stylish manner and not being able to physically triumph against men twice her size is undoubtedly correct, Nora, those aspects do not bother me because Atomic Blonde is hardly supposed to constitute a realistic espionage movie. Instead, the film is supposed to be a postmodern, stylized action-spy film that represents the cinematic translation of a graphic novel. In other words, the stylistic choices—while dubious or ridiculous from a realistic perspective—fit the film's tone, intentions, ambitions, and source material. Likewise, while I concur that the ending feels overextended or overwrought, it is unsurprising given the sub-genre.
Atomic Blonde is not supposed to be Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg, 2015) or The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (Martin Ritt, 1965). Its ambitions are largely different, yet with a little more character development and thematic rigor, the movie could have proved that much better.