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.

Mummy reboot offers few redeeming qualities

Sofia Boutella as the eponymous Mummy in The Mummy. Image courtesy Universal Pictures.

Any sense of remarkable for the Tom Cruise starring iteration of The Mummy comes from how bad the movie is. Although it isn’t quite interesting enough to qualify as a trainwreck, it is a great example of how bad the screenwriting by committee method can get. There are six people who have their names attached to this thing, and it’s difficult to find areas where more than two of them agreed on a plot point or piece of dialog. The lack of cohesion is stunning and somewhat impressive in how it results in an otherwise unimpressive movie.

The messiness The Mummy exhibits starts with a random text opening quote followed by uninspired voiceover courtesy of a bored Russell Crowe. Then the movie starts in England circa 1127 A.D., then bounces back to present day England, then flashes back yet again to ancient Egypt before stopping for a while in the Middle East in modern times again. The writers in effect created four separate openings to this film, three of would be OK on their own but none of which work in unison with the others. What remains is a good indicator the movie lacks a single direction, a tone it wants to follow and an identity worthy of its predecessors.

What, then, is The Mummy supposed to be? Previous adaptations have worked as a horror film, using the supernatural aspects of the ancient evil to invoke terror. But no one involved in this version seems interested in having this movie be truly scary, and the trace elements of horror that sneak into this movie are subpar. The Mummy character has background comedies tracing back to the days of Abbott and Costello, and this movie does work best using the comedic elements. The writers mine solid material from the moderate silliness of the monster, with one scene involving Cruise, the monster (Sofia Boutella), a few henchman and an awkward entrance by Cruise's love interest (Annabelle Wallis) working as an entertaining example of awkward comedy. Appropriately enough the filmmakers abandon the intentional humor in the middle of the second act, leaving the one enjoyable part of this movie behind.

So what's left is an action-adventure movie, not too far off from the 1999 version, albeit with a slightly darker tone. Except the 2017 Mummy isn't particularly good as an action-adventure flick. The surprisingly sparse action sequences have little vigor and excitement to keep the viewer interested in the fates of Cruise and the far too young for him love interest Wallis. The adventure is limited to England and the early sojourn to the Middle East, making it a less than enthralling globe trotting journey. It's difficult to spend more than $125 million on a movie and come out with something this blasé.

The Mummy becomes remarkably stupid toward the end of the second act with the proper introduction of Crowe's character, the mysterious leader of a secret organization, Dr. Henry Jekyll. That's Henry Jekyll of Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde fame. The reveal is as dumb as it sounds, and the scenario only gets worse when Crowe hams it up when he inevitably transforms into Mr. Hyde. It feels like one of the writers or a few people from Universal decided threw that in there to kick off the Universal monster movie universe, and it comes across as awkwardly as it sounds. It also makes little sense to have a man as volatile as Henry Jekyll be in charge of any secret organization, but that's one of the lesser problems this movie faces.

If there's any single potentially interesting aspect to The Mummy, it's an ending that isn't as saccharine and easy as it could've been. A real sense of tragedy sneaks in for the final few moments that makes sense despite all of the messiness beforehand. But, again, this movie is dumb. It's not smart enough to end at the right time, favoring an ending with even more asinine voiceover and a similarly useless closing scene with Cruise and resurrected co-star Jake Johnson. The Mummy is the type of movie that not only isn't able to do anything right, but doubles down on doing the exact wrong thing.

Review: One and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 110 minutes

Genre: Action

Ask Away

Target audience: Tom Cruise followers and viewers who want to see the start of a monster universe.

Take the whole family?: This'll probably be a little intimidating for kids younger than 8.

Theater or Netflix?: Once again, stay at home and let it come to you.

Is the film sexist?: It is with its treatment of Sofia Boutella's character. Having the monster as a woman is fine and kind of cool, but the filmmakers portray her as a Jezebel creating mayhem for the men around her. That the filmmakers literally bind her at one point is troublesome for a whole host of reasons as well.

Watch this instead?: The 1999 Mummy with Brendan Frasier and Rachel Weisz isn't great, but the action is solid and the characters are fun enough. It also has one of the cooler haboobs ever depicted in a movie.