Atomic Blonde
(Rated R for sequences of strong violence, language throughout, and some sexuality/nudity.)
The cast: Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, Sofia Boutella, Toby Jones and John Goodman.
What it’s about: British spy Lorraine Broughton (Theron) is tasked with traveling to Berlin – right before the wall comes down in 1989 – to retrieve a vital document stolen from a murdered agent. She teams with another embedded spy (McAvoy) who knows the area, but his extended time there has made him a bit unstable.
The good: Atomic Blonde is a lot of fun. Theron is fantastic as a tough, sexy spy and McAvoy gets to have a ball as her unhinged partner. David Leitch, director and former stuntman, excels at the movie’s frequent fight scenes, emphasizing the brutal toll that violence takes on the characters. This isn’t some mindless action movie where someone takes a beating and then shakes it off. When someone gets hit, stabbed or shot, there are realistic consequences.
The sets and costumes are stylishly retro, and the soundtrack is packed with terrific ’80s hits. Best of all, even though this is a self-contained story, they leave the door open for a sequel if the movie does well enough. I certainly wouldn’t mind hanging out with Lorraine Broughton for a couple more movies.
The not-so-good: The plot occasionally gets bogged down in needlessly convoluted minutiae. I imagine some viewers might think Leitch and his crew are trying a bit too hard to be cool, but I liked spending time in this world.
Grade: B+
Dunkirk
(Rated PG-13 for intense war experience and some language.)
The cast: Fionn Whitehead, Harry Styles, Kenneth Branagh, James D’Arcy, Mark Rylance, Tom Glynn-Carney, Barry Keoghan, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy and Jack Lowden.
What it’s about: When the Nazis invaded France in 1940, approximately 400,000 Allied soldiers retreated to the seaside city of Dunkirk where they found themselves trapped by the enemy. With unrelenting tension, director Christopher Nolan (who also penned the screenplay) chronicles the miraculous chain of events that allowed most of these men to be evacuated when all hope seemed lost.
The good: Simply put, Dunkirk is one of the year’s best films. Nolan structures the story in a brilliantly innovative way, splitting the story into three sections – land, sea and air – each with its own clear time frame. The “land” subplot plays out over the course of a week, focusing on a young solider (outstanding newcomer Whitehead) trying – and failing – to catch a ride home.
“Sea” takes place during a single day, when a heroic Englishman (the phenomenal Rylance), his teenage son (Glynn-Carney) and a kind neighbor boy (Keoghan) set out to rescue as many troops as their small, wooden boat will hold. Finally, “Air” spans a gut-wrenching hour as two iron-willed Allied pilots (Hardy – who can convey a monologue with his eyes – and Lowden) engage in a relentless dogfight with a host of Nazi bombers attacking the stranded men below.
Nolan brilliantly cuts back and forth among these subplots, emphasizing how such traumatic ordeals can become routine as these men experience the horrors of war. In the film’s third act, as the various timelines inevitably converge, the individual stories suddenly click into place and viewers realize they’ve been watching the director masterfully assemble a puzzle in front of their eyes.
Nolan does this with minimal dialogue, communicating thoughts and emotions in visual ways. Even when characters do speak, the dialogue almost doesn’t matter. It’s how or when the words uttered that matters, generally drowned out with explosions or engines.
The not-so-good: Some viewers might take issue with the fact that character development is practically nonexistent (I had to look up main characters’ names on IMDb because I don’t think some of them are even mentioned), but that’s clearly a purposeful choice by Nolan. All 400,000 men on that beach had a story just as important as the three we see here. The filmmaker can’t possibly tell all of them, so these characters must act as representatives for the rest.
(Note: This probably isn’t a realistic option for everyone, but I strongly recommend seeing Dunkirk in 70mm IMAX at the Mall of Georgia. Nolan shot most of the film for that format and the difference in scope and sound is astounding. It’s an immersive experience.)
Grade: A
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| Courtesy of Focus Features |
(Rated R for sequences of strong violence, language throughout, and some sexuality/nudity.)
The cast: Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, Sofia Boutella, Toby Jones and John Goodman.
What it’s about: British spy Lorraine Broughton (Theron) is tasked with traveling to Berlin – right before the wall comes down in 1989 – to retrieve a vital document stolen from a murdered agent. She teams with another embedded spy (McAvoy) who knows the area, but his extended time there has made him a bit unstable.
The good: Atomic Blonde is a lot of fun. Theron is fantastic as a tough, sexy spy and McAvoy gets to have a ball as her unhinged partner. David Leitch, director and former stuntman, excels at the movie’s frequent fight scenes, emphasizing the brutal toll that violence takes on the characters. This isn’t some mindless action movie where someone takes a beating and then shakes it off. When someone gets hit, stabbed or shot, there are realistic consequences.
The sets and costumes are stylishly retro, and the soundtrack is packed with terrific ’80s hits. Best of all, even though this is a self-contained story, they leave the door open for a sequel if the movie does well enough. I certainly wouldn’t mind hanging out with Lorraine Broughton for a couple more movies.
The not-so-good: The plot occasionally gets bogged down in needlessly convoluted minutiae. I imagine some viewers might think Leitch and his crew are trying a bit too hard to be cool, but I liked spending time in this world.
Grade: B+
Dunkirk
 |
| Courtesy of Warner Bros. |
(Rated PG-13 for intense war experience and some language.)
The cast: Fionn Whitehead, Harry Styles, Kenneth Branagh, James D’Arcy, Mark Rylance, Tom Glynn-Carney, Barry Keoghan, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy and Jack Lowden.
What it’s about: When the Nazis invaded France in 1940, approximately 400,000 Allied soldiers retreated to the seaside city of Dunkirk where they found themselves trapped by the enemy. With unrelenting tension, director Christopher Nolan (who also penned the screenplay) chronicles the miraculous chain of events that allowed most of these men to be evacuated when all hope seemed lost.
The good: Simply put, Dunkirk is one of the year’s best films. Nolan structures the story in a brilliantly innovative way, splitting the story into three sections – land, sea and air – each with its own clear time frame. The “land” subplot plays out over the course of a week, focusing on a young solider (outstanding newcomer Whitehead) trying – and failing – to catch a ride home.
“Sea” takes place during a single day, when a heroic Englishman (the phenomenal Rylance), his teenage son (Glynn-Carney) and a kind neighbor boy (Keoghan) set out to rescue as many troops as their small, wooden boat will hold. Finally, “Air” spans a gut-wrenching hour as two iron-willed Allied pilots (Hardy – who can convey a monologue with his eyes – and Lowden) engage in a relentless dogfight with a host of Nazi bombers attacking the stranded men below.
Nolan brilliantly cuts back and forth among these subplots, emphasizing how such traumatic ordeals can become routine as these men experience the horrors of war. In the film’s third act, as the various timelines inevitably converge, the individual stories suddenly click into place and viewers realize they’ve been watching the director masterfully assemble a puzzle in front of their eyes.
Nolan does this with minimal dialogue, communicating thoughts and emotions in visual ways. Even when characters do speak, the dialogue almost doesn’t matter. It’s how or when the words uttered that matters, generally drowned out with explosions or engines.
The not-so-good: Some viewers might take issue with the fact that character development is practically nonexistent (I had to look up main characters’ names on IMDb because I don’t think some of them are even mentioned), but that’s clearly a purposeful choice by Nolan. All 400,000 men on that beach had a story just as important as the three we see here. The filmmaker can’t possibly tell all of them, so these characters must act as representatives for the rest.
(Note: This probably isn’t a realistic option for everyone, but I strongly recommend seeing Dunkirk in 70mm IMAX at the Mall of Georgia. Nolan shot most of the film for that format and the difference in scope and sound is astounding. It’s an immersive experience.)
Grade: A
Blu-ray Review: The Fate of the Furious
(Rated PG-13 for prolonged sequences of violence and destruction, suggestive content, and language.)
The cast: Vin Diesel, Charlize Theron, Michelle Rodriguez, Dwayne Johnson, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jason Statham and Kurt Russell.
What it’s about: The eighth movie in the Fast and the Furious series finds leader Dominic Toretto (Diesel) betraying his teammates because he’s being blackmailed by a mysterious woman (Theron). The rest of the team (including Rodriguez, Johnson, Gibson, Bridges and Emmanuel) set out to figure out why. But it won’t be easy considering enigmatic government agent Mr. Nobody (Russell) is forcing them to work with a bitter enemy (Statham).
The good: Longtime screenwriter Chris Morgan and director F. Gary Gray continue to lean on the series’ strengths. They know these movies are essentially testosterone-fueled soap operas (complete with faked deaths and bouts of amnesia), which mostly keeps viewers from rolling their eyes at the latest plot twist.
Gray knows his way around action sequences (especially the riveting climax, which involves a stolen Russian sub, a bunch of sports cars and a militia convoy) and the creative team clearly picked up on the chemistry between Johnson and Statham, who get their own wildly entertaining buddy comedy subplot.
The not-so-good: Because of Paul Walker’s untimely death, his character – Brian O’Conner – quit the team to be with his family. It was a touching creative choice, but it means that odd, musclebound Dom is now the de facto central character when he always worked best as Brian’s strong, silent partner.
You can’t knock Diesel’s commitment to these movies, but the dude’s a charisma vacuum. That’s clearly why more magnetic performers like Johnson, Statham and Russell were brought in over the years. Plus, spending most of the movie separated from his costars shines a spotlight on Diesel’s inability to realize what kind of movie he’s in.
The rest of the cast understands they’re in a dumb action extravaganza and have fun accordingly. Diesel plays it completely straight, as if he’s in a docudrama about the dangers of cyberterrorism. His “serious acting face” is a work of constipated beauty.
Special features: A few standard featurettes about Cuba, car culture, stunts and the series’ emphasis on family. More intriguing is the commentary with Gray and a special code to unlock a digital version of the extended edition.
Grade: B-
 |
| Courtesy of Universal |
(Rated PG-13 for prolonged sequences of violence and destruction, suggestive content, and language.)
The cast: Vin Diesel, Charlize Theron, Michelle Rodriguez, Dwayne Johnson, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jason Statham and Kurt Russell.
What it’s about: The eighth movie in the Fast and the Furious series finds leader Dominic Toretto (Diesel) betraying his teammates because he’s being blackmailed by a mysterious woman (Theron). The rest of the team (including Rodriguez, Johnson, Gibson, Bridges and Emmanuel) set out to figure out why. But it won’t be easy considering enigmatic government agent Mr. Nobody (Russell) is forcing them to work with a bitter enemy (Statham).
The good: Longtime screenwriter Chris Morgan and director F. Gary Gray continue to lean on the series’ strengths. They know these movies are essentially testosterone-fueled soap operas (complete with faked deaths and bouts of amnesia), which mostly keeps viewers from rolling their eyes at the latest plot twist.
Gray knows his way around action sequences (especially the riveting climax, which involves a stolen Russian sub, a bunch of sports cars and a militia convoy) and the creative team clearly picked up on the chemistry between Johnson and Statham, who get their own wildly entertaining buddy comedy subplot.
The not-so-good: Because of Paul Walker’s untimely death, his character – Brian O’Conner – quit the team to be with his family. It was a touching creative choice, but it means that odd, musclebound Dom is now the de facto central character when he always worked best as Brian’s strong, silent partner.
You can’t knock Diesel’s commitment to these movies, but the dude’s a charisma vacuum. That’s clearly why more magnetic performers like Johnson, Statham and Russell were brought in over the years. Plus, spending most of the movie separated from his costars shines a spotlight on Diesel’s inability to realize what kind of movie he’s in.
The rest of the cast understands they’re in a dumb action extravaganza and have fun accordingly. Diesel plays it completely straight, as if he’s in a docudrama about the dangers of cyberterrorism. His “serious acting face” is a work of constipated beauty.
Special features: A few standard featurettes about Cuba, car culture, stunts and the series’ emphasis on family. More intriguing is the commentary with Gray and a special code to unlock a digital version of the extended edition.
Grade: B-
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