Atomic Blonde

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, "This day calls for some Lil Kim!" She was as raw and as filthy as they come on the mic and she didn’t care what anyone thought about it either! She wasn’t particularly attractive but the way she talked about sex made you want to give up your bonus money for just a taste test of what she had to offer. But the last time we really heard from Kim was about 15 years ago. I wonder what she’s up to these days. Is she still rapping or is she simply a stay at home mom now? And if she is, does she have kids? Can you imagine them coming across one of her old albums or videos? How can you look at your mom the same again after hearing her say "Sucking on your dick was like sucking a roach! I went from first class to coach!" Um…mom?!?! Or who knows, maybe they dig it. I can totally hear Kim saying "I know you hear me on Pandora radio. I know you saw my old school sex video" And her kids replying with "Truuuuueee!"

Ok, so I realize that only fans of 90’s hip hop will get those jokes but the point is, there still happens to be a 40 year old out there in the public eye who hasn’t lost her sexiness or her talent and she still produces art that her children (if she has any) can be proud of, and that’s Charlize Theron. She rose above being type cast as the pretty blonde white girl in films like 2 Days in the Valley and Reindeer Games and made her mark in Hollywood by starring in dramas like The Cider House Rules and Monster. But thankfully for action fans like me, she finally found her true calling in films like Aeon Flux, Prometheus, and Mad Max: Fury Road; so naturally she was the perfect choice to star in John Wick 3 aka Atomic Blonde.

The same guy who helped make John Wick 1 is the very one who brings us this perfect mix of Wonder Woman, James Bond, and Jason Bourne. And in it Theron plays undercover MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton who is called into Cold War Germany to not only investigate the murder of a fellow agent but to also recover a secret document that contains the code names of every undercover agent who is currently in enemy territory. Obviously if this list gets out in the wrong hands, this can be bad news for everyone involved.

Now I get that on the surface this sounds like every other secret agent film you’ve seen before and the fact that it includes a supermodel in Theron as the main tough guy so to speak, makes you think that you’ll have to completely suspend reality to enjoy it, but that’s simply not the case. Unlike the stellar John Wick films that preceded it, this film relies just as much on the plot and character development as it does the brutal action itself. Theron literally can’t trust anyone as the contact she’s been paired up to work with, David Percival (played wonderfully by James McAvoy) clearly has his own agenda. He’s either an agent who has been undercover for so long that he’s lost his way or he’s a double agent who may be involved in stealing the list himself. Either way, she has to stay on her toes to keep from ending up in the dirty rivers of Berlin like her fellow agent before her. And then of course there’s her having to work around the fact that Germany is spilt by the Berlin Wall and the rising political tension that accompanies that. Will she be shot by the corrupt Russians or will she be arrested by the suspicious German police? And I haven’t even mentioned the beautiful French agent, Delphine LaSalle (The Mummy’s Sofia Boutella) who is following Theron around and attempting to seduce her. And yes, this does lead to one of the best surprise sex scenes on record. I nearly stood up in the theater and started applauding when this happened!

Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned the fact that the 80’s music in it is unbelievable. Now I realize that a lot of the Oh Mickey You’re So Fine pop music sucked, as did the majority of the Rock n Roll hair bands that were around during that time, but we can’t let that overshadow all of the amazing music that came from that era. There was The Cure’s Just Like Heaven, Falco’s Der Kommissar, Til Tuesday’s Voices Carry and I haven’t even gotten to Duran Duran, Bowie, Echo & the Bunnymen, or Depeche Mode, all of whose songs were prominently featured in this film. And I don’t mean that they were just playing for nostalgia purposes, I mean that they were actually an integral part of the story. Much like in the movie Baby Driver, all of the characters were listening to or singing the songs that were featured and they matched up to the situation that was playing out in the film. Now this could have been unbelievably cheesy but thankfully director David Leitch knows what he’s doing. It added yet another cool element to the story and really took you back to the general sense of unease that everyone in the world was feeling at the time as it felt as though we were on the brink of another World War.

And last but certainly not least was the incredible action. I went in thinking that this film would either feature over the top action scenes that involved Theron effortlessly knocking out men who were 100 lbs. or more heavier than her or would involve so much shaky cam that you couldn’t really see what was happening on screen anyway. Well I’m happy to say that neither of these was the case. Did Theron take out some fairly big dudes? Yes, but it almost killed her to do so and she had to utilize some Jason Bourne tactics to do so, such as using normal every day household items like water hoses or car keys to take dudes out. The water hose scene is one for the ages by the way. But it was nothing compared to the 20 minute single shot action scene where Theron has to take out an entire gang of bad guys while protecting her only remaining asset. This absolutely floored me and I can honestly say that I haven’t seen anything like this since the classic Korean film, Old Boy.

Do yourself a favor and go see a female with brains kick some serious ass! I rate this movie as unbelievably FRESH!