Review: "Atomic Blonde"

Look, I see a daggone lot of movies -- 200 a year, I reckon -- so it’s pretty hard to impress me. I’m the guy who yawns at a 20-second piece of CGI that cost $5 million and took a team of computer animators six months to create. But there were parts of “Atomic Blonde” where I had to scoop my jaw off the sticky floor of the theater.

Essentially the first imitator in the “John Wick” mold, this spy action/thriller combines unbelievable kick-butt stunt sequences with a whole lot of intrigue and double crosses. Charlize Theron plays Lorraine Broughton, a British MI6 agent sent into the rat’s nest of Berlin on the eve of the Wall coming down in 1989.

The plot is a largely forgettable dance through the usual spy movie tropes: enemies, allies, those lying somewhere in between, all sides playing the long game of leverage, with the threat of a double agent and a MacGuffin-esque “list” that could bring the whole order tumbling down.

What sets “Blonde” apart are the in-your-face stunts. Director David Leitch is a rookie behind the camera but a veteran stunt coordinator -- much the same as "Wick" -- and he shows an audacious verve that kicks the usual hand-to-hand combat scenes to the next level.

The high point is a sequence on a flight of stairs that segues from one group of opponents to the next, with the camera following Broughton every step of the way. She gets thrown down a flight, the camera tumbles right along with her. And Leitch uses minimal cutting, so we get to see the whole thing play out from beginning to end, as the combatants grow battered and exhausted.

Theron proves an able physical presence, completely believable as someone who could take on her all-male gallery of adversaries. She also brings subtle acting chops to the connective scenes, lending Broughton a haunted quality -- a deceiver and killer who flings herself into the life she’s chosen, but doesn’t enjoy it.

James McAvoy plays David Percival, a fellow Brit agent who acts as her sneering host, helper and foil. He’s been stationed in East Berlin for a decade, carving out an identity as a black market dealer in Western goods and information. Percival knows everyone, has all the angles covered, is familiar with the back ways and hidden passages. What’s unclear is where his true loyalties lie.

Based on the graphic novel, “The Coldest City” by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart, the screenplay by Kurt Johnstad (“300”) is long on too-cool mood and punk imagery. What people say isn’t nearly as important as how and why they are saying it.

It seems a Soviet intelligence agent code-named Spyglass (Eddie Marsan) is ready to defect, and is dangling a list that contains the identities of every known spy of every nationality. Everyone is desperate to get their hands on it, so the orders are “trust no one.”

Sofia Boutella plays a mysterious French woman tagging along everywhere, whose importance will grow. Roland Møller is Bremovych, the local Russian chief, who has hands in every pot. Bill Skarsgård plays a helpful young proto-computer geek, and Daniel Bernhardt is memorable as a local tough who goes toe-to-toe with our heroine in a couple of brutal blond vs. blonde matchups.

The film is told through the framing device of a debriefing interview back in West Berlin, where Broughton has turned up beaten to a pulp, her mission failed. Toby Jones and John Goodman play English and American spooks, respectively, giving her the business and trying to interrogate some straight answers out of her.

Theron works the poker face, letting her mask slip but once.

Sexy, smart and seriously high-energy, “Atomic Blonde” is like James Bond mixed up with steampunk fantasy and a heavy dollop of feminism. John Wick, meet your match.

Video review: "300: Rise of an Empire"

Like its 2007 predecessor, “300: Rise of an Empire” is lusty parade of six-pack abs and copious bloodlettings, set against a historical backdrop that’s been washed through the spin cycle of modern fantasy tropes.

It has all the violence of the last movie, though no equally compelling figure like Gerard Butler’s commanding Leonidas, and certainly none of the verve and wit. If the last movie was dumb-but-glorious, the sequel is the same, minus the glory.

Set soon after the Battle of Thermopylae, “Rise of an Empire” depicts the sea battle between the forces of Persian god/king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and the Greek armies, led by Athenian general Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton). Artemisia (Eva Green) is his primary nemesis, a ferocious military leader with a mysterious and tragic background.

The blood and guts fly prodigiously, and new director Noam Murro copies predecessor Zack Snyder’s penchant for speeding up and slowing down the action so we can gaze at the beautiful ribbons of crimson arcing across the screen. This movie has few of the mythological beasties of the last one, so it’s essentially man-on-man carving of flesh.

There are a lot of silly moments here, but probably the goofiest is when Themistocles and Artemisia hold a parley prior to the battle, which soon devolves into much grabbling of flesh. It’s supposed to be sexy; instead it’s laugh-out-loud awful.

Even if you’re a teenager or still one in heart, “300: Rise of an Empire” quickly grows tiresome, then pathetic.

The video comes with a decent-enough array of extra features, including a making-of documentary titled “The 300 Effect.” There are also featurettes on “Real Leaders & Legends,” “Women Warriors,” “Savage Warships” and “Becoming a Warrior.”

Extras are the same for Blu-ray and DVD versions.

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Review: "300: Rise of an Empire"

Audiences were torn asunder over "300," the 2007 over-the-top bloodletting set against the (largely fictionalized) backdrop of the Battle of Thermopylae -- including me. The sober critic found it a transcendently silly movie, but my inner 15-year-old thought it cool beyond reasoning.

The entirely unnecessary sequel picks things up where they left off ... well, to be more accurate, it picks up 10 year prior to Spartan King Leonidas' brave, doomed stand with 300 men against the entire Persian army, then it flips to slightly before, and then slightly after, that battle. Part of the new film's fatal downfall is we're never quite sure how what we're seeing relates to the greater conflict.

Set largely at sea, "300: Rise of an Empire" features much of the stylized action of its predecessor, with men cutting each other apart in slow-mo, beautiful ribbons of crimson blood arcing toward the camera.
(For extra exposure to the spurting and squirting, see it in 3-D. Or don't.)

But it lacks any of the visceral punch of the original, and certainly has no figure to match with Gerard Butler's commanding Leonidas. The dastardly 8-foot-tall god/king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) is back, briefly, but following a pithy origin story he exists mostly in the backdrop while his pet general, Artemisia (Eva Green), takes the fight to the Greeks with her armada of 1,000 ships.

Sullivan Stapleton is our stalwart stand-in as Themistocles, an Athenian general who (according to the prologue) slew Xerxes' father in an old battle, and now must unite the fractious city-states of Greece into a free nation and face down the invading horde.

Of course, it soon becomes personal between the opposing leaders, with the slithery Artemisia supplied a frightening backstory about an epic wrong committed against her by Greek soldiers. Themistocles is more mysterious, a charismatic but solitary leader -- and apparently a chaste one, too, preparing monk-like his entire life for this great battle.

In keeping with the franchise's signature mix of goofiness and self-seriousness, the pair enjoy a bedding before their inevitable showdown that's somehow even more violent than when they're playing with swords.

Previous director Zack Snyder, who seemed harmonically in tune with Frank Miller's lusty graphic novel, returns here as producer and co-screenwriter (with Kurt Johnstad). New director Noam Murro, whose only other feature film credit is the comedy "Smart People," lacks Snyder's primeval feel for the material, so that even the many beheadings and eviscerations are curiously flat and emotionless. It's like watching a butcher cleave lifeless flesh.

The first "300" also had a more fantastical element, with a pantheon of supernatural creatures filling out Xerxes' horde. Here, it's pretty much workaday guys trading spears and arrows from the decks of their ships, then switching to swords after they ram and grapple. Though once again, somehow every single Greek soldier boasts washboard abs. (The ancients were into cutting carbs and stomach crunches, don'cha know.)

"300: Rise of an Empire" kept the silliness of the original film but lost all its glorious verve. The combatants carve each other up prodigiously, but the mayhem carries no sting. It's got all the blood, but none of the guts.