'ATOMIC BLONDE'.........DO YOU REALLY WANT TO HURT ME?

Atomic Blonde (2017)    If there'd been any movie theaters in the dank, rain-soaked dystopian Los Angeles famously depicted in "Blade Runner", they'd probably be playing a film like "Atomic Blonde".....

              Welcome, for better or worse, the movie of the future, here today.......slick and electric as an eel, .......mindless, heartless, consumed with nothing but tactile sensation, a stripped down version of a spy/action movie that ruthlessly eliminates anything that might get in the way of its delivery of adrenalin fueled wham-bams.......including plot, characterization, and anything resembling human behavior on planet Earth......

              Imagine the 'Bourne' films stripped of any aspiration to recognizable drama or cinematic art. Based on a graphic novel and perfectly designed as a movie that unfolds in comic book panels come to life, "Atomic Blonde" really has only one central concept driving it........pain. The dispensing of pain and the absorption of pain.......

              Nothing else matters.

              This is a movie whose one and only goal is to make you sit there and mutter, "Ooo, I bet that hurt like a motherfucker....."

               Judged by that criteria, we suppose the filmmakers can declare their movie a raging success.  Charlize Theron, solidifies her standing as cinema's ultimate lithe, platinum Amazon, demolishing countless assailants with repetitive kicks, punches and and smacks to the noggin with assorted furniture and appliances.

               Ouch. We bet that hurt like a.......well.....you get it.

               You can enjoy this movie (we guess) if you take it in as some huge meta-joke......a movie that sticks up a middle finger at all the higher-toned, classier studio action blockbusters. The hell with sub-text. The hell with trying to figure out who's doing what to whom or why in a film that's primarily concerned with inflicted agony.

                It doesn't matter, after all.......as long as you get to see Charlize beat down and decimate loads of bad guys......and look damn hot while she's doing it. (When she's done, the makeup department arranges her bruised face like a work of art,  a Picasso of contusions suitable for framing.....)

                Nothing much else to say here........the only other actor who makes an impression in the piles of collapsing bodies is James McAvoy as a manic, rogue MI6 agent, playing the role as if it's one of his leftover multiple personalities from "Split"

                 Think of it as watching one of Charlize's perfume commercials........only one that lasts close to 2 hours with lots of secret agent schlubs getting their collective asses kicked. 2 stars (**), mostly for the fights.