Hitting someone in the mouth, sending teeth flying across the room, followed by a stream of crimson red blood. Bashing a man’s head in with a random object as he cringes in pain, the blood painting a picture of abstract art on the wall behind him. Or maybe shooting several assailants at point blank range as they fall like dominoes, one after the other. These would be my descriptions of gritty action fight scenes in cinema. And what could be better if a female action superstar was causing all the mayhem?  So when I watched the trailer of platinum-blonde Charlize Theron beating someone endlessly with a high-heeled red shoe in the backseat of a speeding car, I was curious to see if she would live up to the gauntlet of hardcore female superstars before her.  As badass as she is in “Atomic Blonde,” still, somehow, the movie tries to be too smart for its own good.
“Atomic Blonde,” based on the graphic novel “The Coldest City” by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart, stars Academy Award-winner Charlize Theron as an undercover M16 agent sent to Berlin during the Cold War to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and recover a missing list of double agents. But she must decide who she can trust, and she soon discovers that there are no sides, just winners and losers in this unrelenting “spy game” she ends up playing.
The film’s setting is 1989, during the fall of the Berlin Wall at the end of the Cold War.  If you are a fan of late ’80s music, then the soundtrack, along with the bone-cracking fight scenes, will hold your attention. From “Blue Monday” and “Personal Jesus” to “Under Pressure” by David Bowie and Queen, the music and the action are carefully choreographed into an orchestrated masterpiece.  It is unfortunate that the story line is not.
Instead of telling the story and letting the circumstances intrigue the viewer, David Leitch (director) and Kurt Johnstad (screenwriter) rely on an assortment of disorganized flashbacks and random real-time sequences that are meant to mislead the viewer.  It is a poor attempt by the filmmakers to make it difficult to separate the “good guys” from the “bad,” and ultimately, is the movie equivalent of the shell game.
But on a positive note, Charlize Theron’s cinematic presence cannot be denied.  She is very convincing as a seductive but deadly covert agent trying to decipher whom within her circle she can trust. Her first on-screen appearance defines her character, as she emerges from a bathtub full of ice all banged up, with a black and blue bruised body. She slowly turns toward the camera, with a badly blackened eye, and enjoys a cigarette after a seemingly hard day at work. Theron looks like a model straight off the cover of vogue, but fights like a cornered, salivating Pitbull. She has a lukewarm place in her heart for the less fortunate or for the ones she truly cares about, but she also has ice in her veins.  When crossed, the outcome is the same—a severe beatiing to a pulp or death. Theron’s performance, alongside the intense action scenes, overcomes the complicated story line.
Some people will compare this to the Bond films, due to the main character being a British operative. But does that make Leitch’s action-spy drama Bond-ish like? Of course not.  ”Atomic Blonde,” although filled with tons of action, ultimately lacks the style and elegance of a Bond film, yet it is still worth a watch. However, the $1 million-dollar question remains, “Should the next Bond film cast a female as Bond?” If Johnston’s “Atomic Blonde” is any indication, the idea of a female Bond is absolutely on the table now, if wasn’t already. Although Theron bashfully avoided this question on Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight Show” recently, such a casting move, in my mind, would be a “no-brainer,” because the Oscar-winning actress would turn the franchise on its head.
And no disrespect to Daniel Craig (“Casino Royale” is still my favorite Bond film), but after four films (three of which received mixed reviews), it might just be time for EON Productions to find a new face to push its product.
And why not the face of a woman?