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Awix (3310 KP) rated Atomic Blonde (2017) in Movies

Feb 11, 2018 (Updated Feb 11, 2018)  
Atomic Blonde  (2017)
Atomic Blonde (2017)
2017 | Action, Mystery, Thriller
Blondes Have More Gratuitous Nudity (Apparently)
Self-consciously stylish action thriller in which Charlize Theron swanks around 1980s Berlin for two hours in a series of thigh-flashing outfits, pausing only to beat the living daylights out of groups of grown men, engage in a little modish girl-on-girl hot action, and interrupt revivals of Andrei Tarkovsky movies (for shame!).

Quite good fun if you like this kind of movie: the plot is rather secondary to the look of the thing, but it has a good cast and the action is very well-staged. Can't help thinking it's just a little bit exploitative - don't imagine the studio would have been quite as keen on the main character being gay, or indeed so frequently naked, were they male - but it doesn't come across as offensively so.
  
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018)
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018)
2018 | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Terry Gilliam emerges victorious from his epic battle to the death with Miguel Cervantes' famous novel. Not quite the movie he famously never finished making with Johnny Depp, nearly twenty years ago, but a subtly different tale of a film director finding himself entangled in different versions of the Quixote story and, perhaps, looking for redemption.

After a slow and rambling start the film eventually becomes a charming, funny, and occasionally thrilling and moving adaptation (sort of) of the book - if it's picaresque and episodic, that's the nature of Quixote. The knowing wit and intelligence of the novel survive too. Strong performances, visually very impressive - the fact the film exists at all is remarkable, let alone that it's this good. Very reminiscent of Gilliam's movies from the 1980s: hugely imaginative, narratively chaotic, very individual, and equally easy to like.