OldBoy

**SPOILERS WITHIN**

Please continue pre-release discussion here.

Movie:
"Atomic Blonde" (Starring: Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, Eddie Marsan, John Goodman, Toby Jones, Sofia Boutella)

Release Date:
7/28/17

Rating:
R (for sequences of strong violence, language throughout, and some sexuality/nudity.)

Running Time:
115m. (1h. 55m.)

Budget:
$30 million (estimated)

IMDb Synopsis:


IMDb Info and Rating:
7.3 (1,531 votes as of 7/23/17)

Rotten Tomatoes:
Fresh:17 Rotten:04 (81% as of 7/23/17)

Metacritic:
68 metascore ('Generally favorable reviews' as of 7/23/17)

Trailer:


Poster Art:

Arobin08

Can someone who's seen it please just tell me how it ends?

Ash Ketchum

Let's see: a mix of LA FEMME NIKITA, LONG KISS GOODNIGHT, SALT, and LUCY...or, if you will, JOHN WICK and KINGSMAN with a female lead.

The boots are nice, though.

faust69

Saw it a few weeks ago at a free screening. It should be so much better than it is. But it's mostly just okay with dips into dull at certain spots. Two-thirds in, it finally gets interesting, but the plot is too complicates and rather simplistic at the same time. However, Charlize proves she deserves to be an action star. She just needs a better vehicle than this. 3/5 for me.

dex14

I pretty much agree with this.

The action was fucking killer for sure. Charlize is badass. Boutella was sexy as hell too. I wish their scene wasn't such a tease.

OldBoy

yeah, i was gonna see this Saturday, but may just wait till home video...

Why So Blu?

Just came back from this and Theron is a fucking GODDESS. Wow. I loved it. Yes, it is plot dense and you have to stay until the last frame in order to get completion, which is fine, it's definitely not simplistic and don't expect the same John Wick formula. The fights in AB are dirtier and unpolished. I could feel every fucking hit. The score/soundtrack was phenomenal. Glad I saw it on the big screen. Mondo will be selling the soundtrack on a special vinyl run tomorrow morning. I will be getting it.

dex14

I thought some of the song selection (while I love the songs) were just too obvious. There are better songs that could've been chosen. By the end of the movie it was kinda like...we get it...it takes place in the 80s... It seemed more like a "Thats What I Call 80s" soundtrack.

Maybe I just listen to too much 80s music regularly.

dex14

Just watched Stuckmann's review. Completely agree.

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Draven

Enjoyed it thoroughly. The "one take" fight is extremely impressive and Charlize has the physical chops to pull it off. Really liked James McAvoy too.

It was more of a spy movie than an action movie but I thought it worked great. And the soundtrack was fantastic.

stingermck

Just saw it and it was cool AF. Great to look at, great fighting, great soundtrack. Just really fun. One of my favorites this summer.

Dr. DVD

Caught this today. Normally I would give a movie like this 2 1/2 stars, but because I have a thing for 80s New Wave music, raw action, and lovely women (who like to make out with one another, I'm bumping it to 3 1/2. It's all style over substance, I won't argue with that point. But it's damn good style over substance.

Decker

I really dug it. Great action, great soundtrack, cool setting (I went to East Berlin on Christmas Eve 1988 - - via Pan Am--so I remembered what it was like then). Charlize was really impressive and it was just a blast to watch. Better than Baby Driver in my book.
I do admit the plot was a little too dense for me but I still thoroughly enjoyed it.

Why So Blu?

Do tell, what was it like?

TomOpus

Speaking of the soundtrack, hearing David Bowie's "Cat People" during opening credits was amazing.

Decker

Sure. My dad and I went just for a night. It was so weird. Like going back in time, almost literally going from color to B&W when I went from West Berlin to East. We had to stop at Checkpoint Charlie. There wasn't exactly an admission fee, but there really was because you had to convert a certain amount of W. German Marks into E. German currency. Since that E German currency was useless outside the Wall, it was an admission fee. All the buildings were same-y, boxy and very old. The cars were terrible, ugly and boxy (well represented in the movie). This was Christmas Eve. EVERYTHING was closed (something we didn't count on). We wandered abound until we found something open -- it was a pub. We sat down and neither of us spoke German, which made it hard since nobody speaks English. We ordered some sort of meat -- "Wildebeast" is what they said. We ordered "zwei beir", the waitress pointed at a glass and seemed to ask us something. My dad said "Sure, we want a glass" and nodded. The waitress returned with two huge steins of beer and two huge glasses of champagne . We sat down ready to tackle our massive drink order. Then a weird looking little man came over. He told us he spoke English and told us about the night the Wall went up. He asked where we were from. My dad said "Honolulu", but I'm not sure he really knew what or where that was. I told him "California" and he grabbed my hand and had tears in his eyes "California?!" he said in disbelief. My dad asked him when he thought the Wall would come down and he said "Not in my lifetime" (it came down 11 months later). He then warned us that the legal driving limit was like 0.00000001. My dad freaked a bit. There was another guy sitting with us - a visitor from Yemen. He gave us some cardamons to chew to mask alcohol on his breath.
When we left we tried to drive back. Dad got lost and we were driving down these dark, bland E Berlin streets. Then we see .... Flashing Lights! We get pulled over. I have visions of spending Christmas in an East German jail cell. My dad plays his dumb American card to perfection "Checkpoint Charlie!" he says "We need to get to Checkpoint Charlie". The cops take our passports and discuss for an agonizingly long time. Then he comes back to the car and silently mimes the directions to the checkpoint. Then he says, in English "Merry Christmas!". We make it back to the border and man, they spend like 20 minutes searching our car. That's one thing the film fudges on - Charlieze was hiding in the trunk but that wouldn't have worked. They searched every inch of our car for stowaways including under the carriage with mirrors. Then they waved us through. It was quite the adventure. I'm glad I did it once - especially since it was the last time I could have. But yeah, it wasn't something I'd want to go back to.

DJariya

I caught a matinee yesterday.

Overall I thought it was just okay. A little disappointed. This could have been so much better.

I did watch Stuckman's review and I agree a lot with what he said. One big issue I had was how the story was told (non-linear style). IMO, it did take away a lot of the suspense.

But, on the plus side, Charlize was great. Some really cool action scenes and hand to hand combat scenes. The hand to hand combat scenes felt really real and gritty and it felt like the characters were really beating the shit out of each other.

Soundtrack was pretty cool. Although it was a little weird how it popped in and out at times.

The last sequence where she took out all those Russians was pretty damn cool.

I gave it 3 1/2 stars. Probably between a B- and C+ Not sure I would watch this again, but it was a decent matinee.

gmanca

I really liked this movie, it is an art movie masquerading as an action movie; it's a way better version of The Limits of Control, a blender of a film mixing the styling of Hanna, the narrative of Spy Game, and the aforementioned arthouse Limits of Control with a great 80's soundtrack used extremely well.

Stuckmann mentions how the After the Fire version of Der Kommissar was used and makes it seem like a failure, that was actually a great use of a song whose meaning is referenced exactly in the film, i.e "Don't turn around uh oh, der kommissar's in town uh oh" and then bam, the police commissioner is right there. Or how they used Voices Carry over the sequence where Theron finds out about the recordings, really great stuff.

Just a really well made movie with a great twist at the end that used the whole flash back/forward sequence to setup rather nicely.

Ash Ketchum

Great story, Decker. Thanks for sharing it with us.

TomOpus

I didn't mind that so much. And it does switch to linear later in the movie. Much like Bond or John Wick or Ethan Hunt, you know they won't get killed but there's still the suspense of the hunt for the list.

fumanstan

Watched it today, I rated it a half star higher but generally agree. Starts off great and then it's a little slow for the next hour of the movie. I was hoping for a little more action, although the scene at the end right in to the car chase is fucking great. The plot was more convoluted then it really needed to be, and I also didn't care for the non-linear cuts to tell the story.

Charlize is fantastic in this though. I can buy her kicking ass a lot more then say, Angelina Jolie in Salt or Scarlett Johansson in Lucy. I enjoyed McAvoy and Boutella quite a bit too.

DWilson

It's a slightly different film than they're selling, -I've been seeing the trailer every week for two months, -and expected more of a "John Wick" in heels. It's much more brutal, -surprisingly so, -which gives it a different, more downbeat feel than "Wick". However, it delivered on the '80s score, though I think one or two songs referenced in the trailer are not in the film (not unusual, of course).

majorjoe23

I enjoyed seeing Kurt Loder's Berlin Wall coverage, which ended with talking about sampling with "a new art from, or plagiarism?"

When the familiar dings of the closing song started it made me wonder for a second if it would be Ice Ice Baby instead of Under Pressure. I think Under Pressure fit better with the established soundtrack, but the Loder line and the fact that Ice Ice Baby came out in 1989 would make it fit the timeline.

gmanca

I thought the ending song wasn't a good choice, I would have preferred Pet Shop Boys' This Must Be the Place I've Waited Years to Leave, which started as a demo for The Living Daylights.

Why So Blu?

As far as the songs that do not appear on the soundtrack (to purchase) It's the original version of Blue Monday and Under Pressure that are not on it. There is a cover version of Blue Monday by HEALTH that is on the release, though.