Atomic Blond

Laer Carroll

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I love a good fem kick-ass movie. My lady and I rented Atomic Blond over the weekend. We got about a third of the way through before, disappointed, we switched to watching the latest Murdoch Mysteries (a terrific Canadian murder mystery series starring a turn-of-the century Toronto detective who uses the latest forensic techniques and sometimes invents them).

The problems we had were the overall visual tone of the film. It either happens at night, in dim rooms and clubs, or a relentlessly grey day. That paled (yes, I know!) besides the inane plot. There seemed to be no important reason for all the action. This made the relentlessly vicious killings relentlessly meaningless.
 

Frankie007

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i enjoyed the movie, and the 80s soundtrack. could have done without the sudden girl on girl action. that seemed to really interrupt things rather than flow with it. it felt more forced than natural.
 

Anna Iguana

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It was based on a graphic novel, I hear. Every shot was visually rich. I'm not a big fan of action/thrillers/spy movies, but I enjoyed it. I loved the soundtrack, too. (I had no idea I knew so much German pop music.)
 

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The problems we had were the overall visual tone of the film. It either happens at night, in dim rooms and clubs, or a relentlessly grey day. That paled (yes, I know!) besides the inane plot. There seemed to be no important reason for all the action. This made the relentlessly vicious killings relentlessly meaningless.

The ending struck me as if the writers just went, "Ah, we can't think of a good twist - oh, we have it! Let's have the spies on the same side kill each other for no good reason! That'll do!"
 

Melanii

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i enjoyed the movie, and the 80s soundtrack. could have done without the sudden girl on girl action. that seemed to really interrupt things rather than flow with it. it felt more forced than natural.

This was my original reason for wanting to see since I got tired of straight or guy x guy stuff in media. >>
 

Myrealana

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I liked it in the theater. I didn't love it, but I definitely enjoyed some aspects. The fight scene in the stairwell was really intense. I loved seeing her actually get exhausted in that long fight.

I also kind of liked the way the "sudden girl on girl action" was not treated as a big deal - just like James Bond will hook up with a random girl.
 

VileZero

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I was disappointed in ATOMIC BLONDE. I really, really wanted to like it - but it felt like a mess to me. That said, the stairwell fight scene is one of the best action scenes of 2017 - so the film does reward your patience. It's filmed to look like it's in one take, and although it's tonally out of sync with the rest of the film, it is incredibly intense.
 

SimaLongfei

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I really loved Atomic Blond. Not because the of characters (they were alright, but I never got invested), or the mystery (sort of standard for a spy thing), or most of the story merits (I will say that the color composition was interesting to watch and beautiful). But because of the action. When you're a big martial arts movie nerd like me, modern Hollywood is internal suffering.

To get what I mean, watch this editor talk about action sequences.

Atomic Blond was like a pool of water in the desert, and some of the best hand-to-hand choreography of the last decade. I particularly loved how they showed fights to be both technically beautiful and sloppy, gritty brawling at the same time, with everyone huffing and puffing, but refusing to go down. Great stuff!