Atomic Blonde - Style over originality

I'm annoyed.  I really wanted to love 'Atomic Blonde.' It certainly has two things I enjoy in a film - action and eighties neon (or 'three' if you count Charlize Theron!).  She plays Lorraine Broughton, a hard-hitting, super-spy from (eighties!) Britain and she's sent to a divided Berlin in order to prevent a stolen list of the world's secret agents from falling in to the wrong hands.

I'll stop right there.  How many times has a super-spy had to retrieve such a list?  Probably quite a lot.  However, it's a well-known fact that there are only so many different stories and the success or failure of a story is largely due to the WAY that it's told.  The problem is that 'Atomic Blonde' isn't told differently enough.  Which is a shame, because there's loads of positives.

First of all there's the cast.  Of course Charlize Theron is totally A-list and she looks and acts the part of a high-kicking, bad-a$$ spy who has a habit of getting her own way.  Accompanying her are whole host of other great actors including James McAvoy, Eddie Marsen, John Goodman and the excellent up and coming Sofia Boutella. 

Then there's the direction.  The film looks (i.e. visually) stunning.  Every shot is beautifully-crafted and the neon really highlights the eighties feel of the settings.  The soundtrack is effectively a playlist of some of the best songs you're likely to find from the era and I was delighted to hear some of them used to such perfection throughout the film.

But despite the cast all playing their parts well and the film looking and sounding amazing, no matter how many famous faces you have on the cast list or whether your favourite artists are included on the soundtrack, sometimes these sorts of things just don't take away from the fact that film is too unoriginal and too long.

The film is nearly two hours long.  Now, this wouldn't be that bad, but the problem is the film feels the need to have so many twists and turns that it requires nearly four potential endings in order to tie everything up.  Plus all the characters seemed like superheroes.  Now, it doesn't bother me that much when Thor or Captain America take what feels like an infinite amount of punishment when engaging in a hand to hand fight.  They're superhuman therefore the rules are different.  The problem is that in 'Atomic Blonde' everyone is plain old human and therefore shouldn't be able to take quite such heavy beatings and just get up and do it all over again.  It's worth noting that the fight scenes are very well shot and quite memorable, it's just they're also too unbelievable and I actually found myself laughing at just how much abuse each character took before getting up and continuing the battle.

Overall, I was disappointed with 'Atomic Blonde' and no one is more annoyed with that outcome than me.  However, judging from the other reviews I've read online, most seem really positive about the film and clearly enjoyed it more than me.  I've even seen online that it will be getting a sequel at some point, so I guess I'm in the minority with this one.

6/10 May just keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights