Atomic Blonde

ATOMIC BLONDE (David Leitch, 2017)

Set in 1989 prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, ATOMIC BLONDE takes MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) to the divided German city in search of Satchel, a spy who is double crossing the West to work with the Soviet Union. His latest collaboration with a KGB officer resulted in a British agent’s death and the theft of a sensitive list that names all of the spies secretly working in the USSR. Lorraine is tasked with killing Satchel, retrieving the list, and helping with the defection of Spyglass (Eddie Marsan), a Stasi officer who initially stole the list to give to the West and who has it memorized.

Lorraine’s cover is blown as soon as she lands in Berlin. Although she’s more than capable of taking care of herself, she gains information and assistance from David Percival (James McAvoy), a fellow MI6 agent who has been working undercover there for a long time. Meanwhile, French agent Delphine Lasalle (Sofia Boutella) is keeping close tabs on Lorraine.

ATOMIC BLONDE shares a lot of similarities with JOHN WICK, which comes as no surprise as director David Leitch was an uncredited co-director for the Keanu Reeves revenge film. Both feature staggeringly talented and stylishly dressed killers cutting swaths through underworlds in dark cities edged with neon. Lorraine works for the government while John is an assassin for hire, but otherwise they’re characters cut from the same cloth. Leitch exerts great effort to make the action and fight scenes legible. The violence is choreographed and edited to appreciate the viciousness of it, but the action isn’t just a demonstration of sheer power. Equal importance is placed on admiring the elegance in how the hero moves and how she looks in her fashionable clothes.

The action centerpiece comes late in ATOMIC BLONDE with a long sequence constructed to seem as though it is one unbroken take. Lorraine engages in hand-to-hand combat with some bad guys and then hops into a car for a perilous drive through the city. Even if one can tell where shots are stitched together, this stunning section cranks up the excitement so that there is more investment in marveling at what’s happening than how they pulled it off.

As in MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, Theron proves herself to be a dynamic action star. Her long lines lend aesthetic grace to the action, and her physicality drives home the force. Leitch employs dark, brooding, modern rock hits to complement the emotional coolness that Theron channels from French film noir. Lorraine is not a great character, but ATOMIC BLONDE hands Theron a role that capitalizes on that je ne sais quoi that differentiates movie stars from other actors.

ATOMIC BLONDE’s plot is needlessly complicated, especially as the espionage intrigue delivers little in the way of surprises. Leitch devotes more energy to developing the atmosphere. While ATOMIC BLONDE coasts on touring through the chic and dingy corners of a city that will soon be upended, soaking up the grimy pleasures of this setting with a natty heroine as a guide satisfies.

Grade: B-

The Mummy

THE MUMMY (Alex Kurtzman, 2017)

In THE MUMMY Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) and his partner Chris Vail (Jake Johnson) are soldiers of fortune traversing Iraq while also looking for antiquities they can resell on the side. They get into a firefight with some insurgents and are bailed out with an airstrike by the military. Those bombs also reveal a long-hidden tomb for the Egyptian princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), who was buried alive far away from her homeland because of the evil she sought to bring into the world. Nick and Chris would be happy to grab what they can from the site, but archaeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) notes the importance of this find and persuades them to remove Ahmanet’s sarcophagus for further examination.

Supernatural forces under Ahmanet’s control crash the plane transporting them all back to London. Although Nick appears shockingly unharmed after plummeting from the sky, it’s determined that the revived Ahmanet has cursed him and intends to give physical form to the ancient god Set through him. Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe), who leads a monster hunting squad named Prodigium, considers Nick the bait for destroying Ahmanet.

THE MUMMY is intended to launch the studio’s Dark Universe film series that will unite Universal Pictures’ classic monsters in a manner similar to the Marvel Connected Universe and DC Extended Universe. THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN is in the works, and films featuring The Wolfman, Dracula, and The Invisible Man will all presumably follow, not to mention MUMMY sequels if this one performs well enough. While this makes sense in terms of asset and brand management, the creative benefits are questionable, particularly in this first entry. THE MUMMY struggles to assert its own necessity beyond being the foundation for several other movies.

THE MUMMY credits three people for screen story and three others for screenplay, which suggests the script was worked over quite a bit. The film itself confirms as much. THE MUMMY often feels like it is trying to cobble together several ideas with different origins and purposes. The film lacks consistency as it attempts to do right by the franchise, the monster, and the star. It is not the unqualified financial success the studio would want for Dark Universe’s introductory offering, but worldwide returns suggest that THE MUMMY has done well enough to justify more chapters. Creative missteps can always be fixed with retconning. The mummy could refer to Boutella’s character or someone else in the film who encounters the supernatural. Regardless of who you consider to be the monster, the mummy gets shortchanged as an attention-demanding presence. THE MUMMY shows signs of being tailored for Cruise, but all that does is make even more of a hash of the story. It’s no secret that commercial films are products; THE MUMMY just seems more engineered for getting to market without a distinguishing quality.

Like the version of THE MUMMY with Brendan Fraser, this one is doing an Indiana Jones imitation of sorts. Cruise’s character, like everyone else, is poorly defined, which makes his self-centered rogue come off as unlikable or dull despite the actor’s efforts to turn up the charm. The grim Dark Universe name does not extend to THE MUMMY’s tone. Director Alex Kurtzman plays up the goofy and lighthearted nature of the material, particularly as Cruise gets tossed around like a rag doll. Films like this should be fun. Although THE MUMMY isn’t good, its lack of self-seriousness helps this compromised film play better.

Grade: C