Charlize Theron brawls her way through glossy, inconsistent Atomic Blonde

Charlize Theron fights her way through some cops in Atomic Blonde. Image courtesy Universal Pictures.

Atomic Blonde is just fun enough to enjoy despite its many, many flaws. This movie is a sizable mess, littered with inconsistencies and banal ideas like the McGuffin lifted from the first Mission: Impossible movie, and it is difficult to reconcile Atomic Blonde's flaws due to their basis in disinterest rather than experimentation. Fortunately, the visceral response is stronger than the logical disruption caused by this movie. Turning the brain off for a while is a prerequisite for allowing the empty mind to absorb all the fights and rad '80s music that streams through the cinema speakers.

There really aren’t many particularly notable aspects to Atomic Blonde, starting with a pretty basic plot involving Charlize Theron engaging in a series of spy games in Berlin circa 1989. The elements of the basic spy thriller are there, including dealings with fellow British spy Percival (a rather bonkers James McAvoy), French agent Delphine (Sofia Boutella), the well-informed East Berliner Spyglass (Eddie Marsan) and a series of Soviet flunkies to fight off. She's also stuck in an extended debrief to a pair of MI6 leads (Toby Jones and James Faulkner), and a CIA suit (John Goodman), which is standard spy stuff as well. It’s all very functional without a lot of excitement or passion for anything too far beyond Theron using garden hose to whip some poor German cop. There’s an underlying emptiness of the whole endeavor. Sure, this is a movie that lives for its aesthetic and retro '80s style, but that doesn't have to result in the level of emptiness Atomic Blonde seems to aspire to, content in its inability to offer viewers a more complex viewing experience.

Any attempts at depth are grasped at the characterization of Theron's agent, Lorraine Broughton, and the plot itself. Starting with the second before returning to the first, Atomic Blonde uses its plot to deceive the audience in a less than satisfying fashion. Twists are thrown in out of some expectation of necessity and, to steal a line from The Room, to just makes things interesting. Or, rather, appear interesting for a moment or two. Atomic Blonde throws in two major twists in the last five minutes; the first is telegraphed heavily through dream fragments and some heavy dialog, the second is effective. Neither is vital for the viewer and only seem to contribute to a movie in which 90 minutes would have more than sufficed to complete the story.

Both twists do speak to Atomic Blonde's attempts at painting Lorraine as a figure for decency despite spending 95 minutes or so outlining her as a more morally ambiguous figure, someone willing to save lives when needed but whose end goal remains something of a mystery. Rather than leave her as a woman of great intrigue and allow for some ambiguity in the narrative, the filmmakers use one of the two aforementioned twists to push her toward the side of angels and effectively vindicate some of her actions from before. It’s a pretty solid letdown for a movie that, at least for a while, actively fights against such easy portrayals. There's a streak of punk running through this film's veins, so it becomes a little sad when the filmmakers normalize things for narrative laziness.

At least the aesthetics are enough to keep viewers somewhat engaged in the movie's many twisted machinations. The action sequences are rather effective at diverting viewers' attention away from the weak plot and to root for Theron’s spy, who is tough as hell but still small compared with many of her adversaries. Director David Leitch – who has spent much of his career working on stunts as a director, coordinator or active participate – reveals a knack for showcasing gritty sequences that float between brutal and darkly humorous. Atomic Blonde shines as bright as the neon in its logo when it allows Theron to punch, stab, kick, lasso and shoot her way through a series of enemies.

Much of the entertainment belonging to Atomic Blonde comes courtesy of Theron's force of will and icy charisma. Her performance transforms someone designed to be a prototypical action hero – stoic and centered on fights and vengeance – into a fleshed out character worth rooting for despite the mayhem she causes and very much in spite of the writing around her character. For a movie that focuses more on the late '80s patina than depth, it's vital to have someone who can pull the audience into the movie with her. Without her, Atomic Blonde would be lose a good amount of the style it values so much, along with almost all of the intrigue.

Review: Three and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 115 minutes

Genre: Action

Ask Away

Target audience: Viewers interested in some largely mindless violence and anything involve Charlize Theron.

Take the whole family?: Definitely not.

Theater or Netflix?: Wait for a home viewing with a few friends.

How great is James McAvoy?: He is pretty fun in this movie, carrying the charismatic insanity he had in Split over to this performance as well. The movie rightly belongs to Theron, but McAvoy does his best to keep his character worth watching in the scenes where she isn’t around. A movie dedicated to his character Percival’s adventures in Berlin could make for a heck of a time.

Watch this as well?: Drive does the stylized bit a lot more effectively than this movie does. For folks who want to see Theron fight her way through swarms of enemies should check out Mad Max: Fury Road and the underappreciated Kubo and the Two Strings.

Dunkirk a lean, intense war movie

Soldiers contemplate their fates in Dunkirk. Image courtesy Warner Bros.

The sound of a ticking clock comes out and in throughout Dunkirk. The clock never strikes, but the sound persists as the body count grows and the odds of surviving the titular French town shrink hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second. Ticking down closer and closer until a few minutes before the movie ends at an unexpected moment. It indicates the terror and mayhem the characters have survived has come to an end, at least for the moment.

The ticking clock is difficult to ignore because of how it hangs over the fates of Dunkirk's characters. This is a movie in which every character is at risk of drowning or getting taken out by a few random potshots or even getting caught in friendly fire, as is the case with what amounts to the movie's main character, a lowly private named Tommy (Fionn Whitehead). He's not the prototypical lead for a war movie, more fragile and reedy than the square-built stars the genre is built upon. Yet he does make a lot of sense for this movie, his actions to survive the carnage around him indicative of the mindset of the soldiers at the time. It's difficult to fault a guy like Tommy for cheating his way to safety amid a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as the friends he meets in his encounters begin to die gruesome, PG-13 deaths. The clock ticks on though in a fittingly unnerving fashion as Tommy's chances of survival shrink accordingly. It is the advantage of having someone as average as Tommy be the center of attention; the fact that he's not particularly notable means he's just as likely to end up in the bottom of the sea or with a few bullets around him as the other soldiers.

Even as time ticks away and the fear and the body count rise, the story of Dunkirk qualifies as a feel-good story. In the hands of many directors and writers it would be just that, focusing on the strength and vigor and how indomitable the English spirit truly is. Writer/director Christopher Nolan indulges in that a little toward the end, but he never loses sight of the dangers the troops faced in the hours, days, minutes before the evacuation finished. The clock, courtesy of Hans Zimmer's score, ticks down, down, down as the many paths to safety and salvation are blown up in the faces of the broken soldiers. Hope is always around the corner in Dunkirk, but it becomes more and more difficult to see and harder and harder to believe in.

A lot happens in Dunkirk in a remarkably short amount of time. This is an amazingly lean World War II movie, with a run time of less than two hours and with the dialog is sparse and the bloodshed on screen is minimal. There are a lot of bodies though, the corpses of soldiers floating in the ocean off the coast of France not too far away from home or becoming engulfed in flame after a well-targeted German torpedo. The blood isn't necessary to convey the atrocities of the situation; showing the faces of the thousands of soldiers stuck on a beach surrounded by Germans is more than adequate to express the horrors of the situation. Nolan just doesn't require the bloat of a traditional war movie to tell his story effectively, doesn't require a traditional star studded cast (Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Cillian Murphy, Kenneth Branagh, and, randomly enough, Harry Styles are the most famous names in this movie) to get the point across. Even the action sequences – excellently staged and wildly effective – are quick and efficient, with any elements of CGI blending seamlessly with the live action. Nolan doesn't need a lot to make a great war movie; engaging action and a ticking clock will more than suffice.

It's all horribly effective, a thriller/horror movie masking as a war movie to sneak up on the audience and keep them lost in the action. Nolan throws in a non-linear story to aid in that little trick of deception, leading viewers down one story path while jumping back in time to events that happen in another before all the players converge at the end. The result is a dizzying experience, with the ticking clock the only thing keeping the stories tethered for a long period of time. That the sounds of fate represent the closest thing to comfort viewers have while watching Dunkirk reflects how horrifying this movie is, as well as how effective Nolan is at manipulating viewers. They, like the soldiers, are never in control.

Review: Four and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 106 minutes

Genre: Action

Ask Away

Target audience: People who like World War II movies and/or Christopher Nolan.

Take the whole family?: It's going to scare the heck out of kids, so stick around the recommended age rating.

Theater or Netflix?: Theater is a good option for this. The IMAX experience even proved to be a worthwhile addition to the viewing experience.

Is this a new shift for Christopher Nolan?: Not really. His last few movies have been big box office movies with star power and loaded with special effects, but his roots are in these small, atmospheric movies. Movies like Insomnia and Memento put their emphasis on mood and intensity, maintaining a certain level of confusion and allowing a sense of fatalism to guide the action. Dunkirk blends the big budget flicks with those smaller movies, putting it right on par with The Prestige.

Watch this as well?: Saving Private Ryan has less intensity but a greater amount of brutality than Dunkirk. Mixing the two provides a pretty solid look at the horrors of war.

Homecoming gives Spider-Man a fresh start

Spider-Man (Tom Holland) keeps things together in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Image courtesy Sony.

One of the things that makes Spider-Man: Homecoming fun and worthwhile is the direction Marvel took eponymous character. Or, rather, the direction they didn’t take in what is, technically, a reboot for a flailing franchise. Instead of going back to the beginning and rehashing the origin story, this movie is about the growing pains the character suffers after discovering his powers but not quite learning how to control them either. Homecoming is proof that watching a hero fail repeatedly can be more interesting than watching them succeed.

Shifting focus away from a retreaded origin story makes a lot of sense. Practically speaking the Spider-Man origin story is well-covered territory in comics, cartoons and movie theaters (this marks the fifth Spidey flick in the last 15 years). Marvel – taking over the creative work from Sony – banked on the character being known enough to make a reboot redundant, and the result is a movie focused less on how Peter Parker (now played by Tom Holland) became Spider-Man and more on the aforementioned trials and errors he endures to become a hero. Unlike in previous iterations in which the follies are glossed over, this mid-teen Spider-Man spends most of the movie crashing into walls and rooftops and succeeding because of his wits but in spite of his inherent clumsiness. Even his big battle with Adrian Toomes/the Vulture (Michael Keaton) is won by Spidey's ability to find moderate competence. This isn't necessarily new ground for a superhero movie, but it is a refreshing break from the strict formula Marvel and D. C. have followed in recent years.

Homecoming is refreshing, light summer flick of a movie. A fair portion of the story takes place in and around Parker's high school and involve the foibles of his best friend (Jacob Batalon), crush (Laura Harrier), rival (Tony Revolori) and constant observer Michelle (Zendaya). The setting is smart for a movie about Spider-Man, as his high school misadventures are often overshadowed by dangerous opponents and the fact that previous actors to receive radioactive spider bites are far too old for high school (Holland at least looks the part). Homecoming follows the same path as the better Marvel movies by blending the superhero genre with something else, in this case the classic John Hughes movie. What that provides is a balance for the life of a superhero against the inherent drama of being a teenager, with the obligations of homework, detention, and constant supervision by his protective Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) getting in the way of the superhero responsibilities.

In a universe populated by gods and aliens and green monsters rocking purple pants, everything in Homecoming is refreshingly human. The closest thing to a super powered being this movie has is Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), whose powers are based on his relentless drive and inability to just stop tinkering with the things around him. He's also sort of a villain in this movie because of his incessant meddling, or at least the impetus for the start of the Vulture's career as a villain. One of the common traits for these Marvel movies is the consequences of heroism, or at least what happens when Tony Stark messes up and the effect his failures have on the world around him. Stark's business pursuits nearly cost Toomes his livelihood, directing a person who is at heart a working class fellow to turn to crime to support his family. His grand plan does not entail destroying the world or taking over the universe; he just wants his family to live in a nice house and to keep his friends employed, at least until the life of crime inevitably corrupts his sense of morality. One scene in particular reveals how conflicted Toomes is as a person, understanding the good his enemy has done but still willing to kill if it means keeping his family safe. That combination, along with a great performance by Keaton, makes him the perfect starter villain for an inexperienced Spider-Man.

Homecoming’s main downer are a few false notes it hits in the third act. They’re rooted in the one cliché it couldn't avoid; the hero's moments of self doubt that require deep existential pondering. It would have been more interesting if the movie was willing to step around that trap, but as is Homecoming remains refreshingly enjoyable and an excellent restart for Spider-Man.

Review: Four out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 133 minutes

Genre: Action

Ask Away

Target audience: Viewers who continue to follow everything happening in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Take the whole family?: This is a tamer PG-13 movie, so bringing the kids along to watch it won't be too rough on them.

Theater or Netflix?: It's big enough effects wise to justify a theater experience.

Is there an end credit scene?: There sure is, and it is my favorite MCU one thus far. It's worth sticking around for because it pays off a recurring joke and hits the tone of the movie itself. Nothing groundbreaking is revealed, although it serves as a pretty great capper to a very good movie.

Watch this as well?: This movie falls just a few steps short of besting Spider-Man 2, one of the great superhero movies. The first Spider-Man movie with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst is worth a watch, as are a few of the cartoons that have come out. I'm partial to the Spider-Man animated series from mid 1990s; that, plus X-Men, made for a pretty solid Saturday morning