MOVIE REVIEW – Compared to sexy and lethal Charlize Theron’s Atomic Blonde, the most brutal James Bond movie with Daniel Craig feels like Cinderella. Indeed, Charlize Theron is the hero we need right now: as devilishly self-serving and smooth as Bond, as physically dynamic and stoic as John Wick, Charlize Theron’s Lorraine Broughton is self-confidently and charismatically equipped to join the legacy of great movie action heroes and she doesn’t need your permission to do it.

Charlize Theron is the female spy hero in a stylish thriller from one-half of the directing duo behind John Wick. Still, the first solo directorial effort from David Leitch is a more “James Blonde” than “Lorraine Wick” but that’s a good thing. It’s definitely more plot-driven (while at times, somewhat convoluted) than John Wick, but no less enjoyable, and though the action scenes are every bit as awesome as you’d hope, it’s not quite the film you might be expecting.

A true spy movie

From its opening seconds, Atomic Blonde lets you know what kind of a movie it is. Set in East Berlin in 1989 with only a few more days to go until the Berlin Wall is torn down, the film opens with raw footage of President Ronald Reagan making his famous speech in front of the wall. But then the footage is cut short, with a couple lines of text explaining the historical significance of the time, before all of the words are quickly covered in neon-green spray paint, proclaiming, “This is not that story.”

Indeed, that is the attitude at the beating heart of Atomic Blonde, which uses the destruction of the Berlin Wall as little more than window dressing. The film is less interested in the political and societal turmoil that was festering at that time, and more in the muddled and convoluted spy games that may have been taking place behind-the-scenes, in shady dealings and interactions between undercover agents in the territory. And it’s even more interesting, than just how many enemies Lorraine has to take down to accomplish her mission.

James Bond’s action feels weak sauce compared to that

Atomic Blonde gives Charlize Theron her first legitimate shot at being an action star, a long overdue gift to a performer who has time and again proven her genre worth but has never had the chance to shine solo.

In Atomic Blonde, Leitch wisely lets Theron loose and ensures no one gets in her way. As the lithe, extraordinarily deadly spy Lorraine Broughton, the most British name in the history of espionage, Theron expertly mixes the chilliness of a thousand-yard stare with the sharpness of a knife as her character saunters around Cold War-era Berlin.

She will kill you, and because Theron is so committed to Lorraine’s icy cool, you will thank her for doing so. The first time she cracks someone’s skull, that ripple sound you’re hearing is a thousand studio executives slapping their own heads so hard that they, too, fracture, so ashamed are they for not thinking of this movie first.

Paper-thin comic book adaptation

Perhaps, the only negative side of Atomic Blonde is that the plot is a paper-thin excuse on which to hang the action sequences. The story is set in Berlin just prior to the collapse of the wall, Theron’s Lorraine Broughton is assigned to track down a much sought-after list of all the double agents deployed by MI6 throughout the Cold War.

Still, what worked for Mission: Impossible and Skyfall can work just as fine here. We’re here for the Stoli, the neon lights, and Charlize’s brawling blonde, after all. This is where Leitch’s balancing act gets a bit murky. But the twist-laden story is only there to move Theron’s heroine from one fight scene to the next, and in that, Kurt Johnstad’s script succeeds marvelously.

Atomic Blonde is bold, brazen and frequently crazy. But it’s also killer. Ice cold killer.

-BadSector-