Notable Cast: Charlize
Theron, James McAvoy, John Goodman, Til Schweiger, Eddie Marsan, Sofia
Boutella, Toby Jones, Bill Skarsgard, Sam Hargrave
It wasn’t that long ago that the action genre got a well-deserved
injection in the mainstream consciousness from the first Taken film. It hit all the usual action tropes, but it struck a
chord with audiences who bought into it with vigor. This same burst happened
again with John Wick a few years ago,
but this time it was less about fine tuning the action film style that was
popular at the time and more about using style, simplicity, and an old school
approach that made the connection with audiences. Call it what you will, but
action right now is being propelled by the ‘John
Wick Effect’ which itself was still riding a bit on the Taken and Bourne momentum. It has launched the creative careers of the
members of 87 Eleven and made a stylistic impact. So when the two directors of John Wick decided to go their separate
ways, it only meant that fans would get more. From Chad Stahelski we got the
just as impressive John Wick: Chapter 2
and from David Leitch we got the graphic novel based film, Atomic Blonde. Now, the reason this brief recap of the events
leading to Atomic Blonde is important
is that it’s the measuring stick that this film will judged and it’s one of the
reasons that it ultimately feels like more of a mixed effort. Atomic Blonde features some dynamic
visuals, a fun classic action concept, and the usual impressive action, but it
also suffers from one key problem: forced narrative, leaving the film feeling a
bit more uneven than initially expected.