Ultimately, Atomic Blonde isn’t quite the “Jane Wick” it’s being marketed as, but the decision to do so was by no means incidental. The pseudo-progressive hype machine that fuels vehicles like these attempt to capitalize on the under-representation of women in the industry by morphing the gender (and occasionally race) of its lead star into an “angle” or selling point. This is counterintuitive. The end game we should be striding towards sees pop culture garbage deem race and gender an afterthought of the product at hand. Films like Mad Max: Fury Road showcase a human story that is accessible regardless of the identity of the protagonists at the wheel, but is made that much more powerful in the big picture because Theron happens to be a woman. Her gender informs the message of the narrative, but it is by no means beholden to it. Atomic Blonde fails in this respect.
Theron is as brilliant in this as she is in most things she stars in, but unfortunately the film around her thinks a shamelessly perfunctory spy story can be absolved by this and this alone. That’s not the case. Her performance is owed the same degree of competence and forethought that was afforded Keanu Reeves in John Wick 1 and 2. The contrivance of a gender swapped version of a film we’ve seen ad nauseum isn’t enough to redeem Atomic Blonde’s carelessly convoluted story. The foundation of which to craft a female answer to James Bond or the Bourne series molders beneath the magnetic if not underdeveloped execution of its lead.
You leave the theater with the sense that the “pitch” proceeded the script. Like before Focus Features even decided on “The Coldest City” as the property to adapt (a starkly dry graphic novel that bears virtually zero resemblance to its highly stylised live action counterpart), they had the machination of “girl version” of “fill-in-the-blank-here.” Miraculously, the end product is by no means a bad film. It’s a flawed one that is hindered by its admirably imaginative and well choreographed action sequences, or sequence if we're being a honest. Not that I have to say, but the one that features Loraine, a staircase and a horde of unfortunate KGBs. That scene goes a long way to remind you of the film Atomic Blonde is suppose to be.
I reported earlier this year, in regards to the success of Wonder Woman , that the inclusion of marginalized groups amounts to very little if the vehicle forgets to be good, first and foremost. We're far beyond the era where heroines should impress us. That’s an antiquated notion and powerhouses like Kate Mckinnon and Charlize Theron deserve better. It is very possible that the shortcomings of David Leitch’s Atomic Blonde are not rooted in as cynical intentions as I surmised. In any case, I refuse to give it a pass.
