Atomic Blonde: 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Review
The Movie:
Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) is sent on a covert mission into Cold War Berlin, she must use all of the spycraft, sensuality and savagery she has to stay alive in the ticking time bomb of a city simmering with revolution and double-crossing hives of traitors. Broughton must navigate her way through a deadly game of spies to recover a priceless dossier while fighting ferocious killers along the way.
I was very curious about this film for the simple reason that it’s a spy film that looked stylized with tons of action. It’s definitely all of those things and it’s entertaining BUT it did miss the mark on a few things that prevented it from being so much better. The fight scenes were good but a lot of the choreography seemed slow and missed that impact for me. It just looked like they were doing a dance and it lacked power. Another thing that I did have an issue with was the amount of nudity in the film. I don’t usually mind it and if it’s something that compliments the story then that’s fine. It just seemed like every few scenes there was nudity for no (good) reason so that could’ve been pulled back a bit. The plot was really good and I thought it had a lot of twists and turns that kept my attention the entire time but I will say that the ending should’ve been different. If I would’ve had a stack of papers in my hand I would’ve tossed them in the air. It was a little frustrating but like I said, I did enjoy the plot for the most part. Would I give the movie a second viewing though? Probably not any time soon but I still do suggest giving it a watch if you’re looking for a no-brainer type of action movie. 6/10
4K Presentation:
The stylistic approach to this film lends itself nicely to this version of it. All the colors throughout the film look nice and vibrant and pretty much every scene looked nice and crisp. The skin textures in close ups looked impressive to the point where you could see their pores. That can kind of be off putting to some but from a technical aspect I thought it was great. There are a good amount of darker lit scenes where the black levels are corrected and you’re able to see more of the area. Although it didn’t completely blow me away it was a very good presentation of the format.
Special Features:
Welcome to Berlin – A look at the city as it was in the late 80’s as well as a lot of the production design.
Blondes Have More Gun – Theron talks about what made her want to take this role as well as the training and gunplay that went into the production of the film.
Deleted/Extended Scenes – Around 6 scenes here that are okay to watch but aren’t anything too exciting.
Spymaster – This feature focuses on the director of the film and what he was able to bring to it.
Anatomy of a Fight Scene – A picture in picture feature with the director detailing a certain fight scene along with behind the scenes footage.
Story in Motion – Animated storyboards for a few scenes with optional commentary by the director.
Feature Commentary With Director David Leitch And Editor Elisabet Ronaldsdottir
