This movie was not what I expected. I saw the trailer and the marketing, and thought it was going to be a comic-book movie, kind of like an 80s Sin City, with pink and neon instead of fedoras and gristle, all mixed with some John Wick badassery…and instead, it’s a bonafide, old school spy flick.
The Blurb:
Sensual and savage, Lorraine Broughton is the most elite spy in MI6, an agent who’s willing to use all of her lethal skills to stay alive during an impossible mission. With the Berlin Wall about to fall, she travels into the heart of the city to retrieve a priceless dossier and take down a ruthless espionage ring. Once there, she teams up with an embedded station chief to navigate her way through the deadliest game of spies.
What Worked:
Most of the spy stuff, actually. The double, triple, and quadruple-crossing was fun to the very end. Liz figured out where they were going with it, but I didn’t. So, that was fun. Unexpected, even.
Charlize Theron is also just a fucking badass. Loved, loved, loved her in this role, as did–clearly–the director. It’s shot after shot of her just being a badass. From outfits, to lighting, to fight choreo…really, truly a showcase for a wickedly dope actress.
Music was fun, too. They followed through with the music they featured in their teasers and trailers. 80s music with a 2018 twist.
Lastly, I do have to call out a singularly incredible fight sequence, which is toward the end, as she’s trying to protect another character from assassins in an old apartment building. Good lord. It’s. Dope. Makes me think about the The Raid, and how when that movie came out, everyone was talking about how it was going to change the martial arts style we see in movies. Well, this movie is proof they were right. Same kind of brutal, grungy, bone-breaking choreo. Dope.
What Didn’t Work:
A lot of the minor characters didn’t work for me. In particular, I was not a fan of James McAvoy in this movie. His character made no sense to me. He seemed like he was acting in the movie I imagined this film to be, and everyone else wasn’t.
Speaking of expectations…the kind of ruined this one for me. I was expecting something much, much more bombastic and fun…and this was…not that. It’s controlled. It’s twisty and turny, and it’s not the movie its aesthetic is tied to. It doesn’t match the neon, the colors, the “I fucking love Berlin!,” and the craziness the marketing promised it to be.
It’s a spy flick. Cold-war era, old school, figure-out-who-the-mole-is spy flick.
Another obvious movie to have expected this one to align with is John Wick, given that it’s the same director…and while there was definitely some carry-over in how it LOOKED, with lots of shiny, slick, cool-toned shots…it had none of the reckless I-don’t-give-a-fuck abandon of that movie. It was so restrained.
I don’t really know what else to say about it…someone clearly wanted to make a throw-back movie with this one, and it just didn’t land for me. I really, truly feel it’s because the look and the marketing promised me one thing, and then the movie delivered something entirely different. It was far more like the slow, cerebral and very polite Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy than it was like Watchmen (very different genre, obviously, but still super 80s style, turned up to 11).
I was ultimately a bit bored with it. Never got sucked in to the twists and turns.
6 out of 10 – definitely not a must-see, but not terrible