Atomic Blonde

First Hit:  Action filled with Charlize Theron showing strong fighting skills.

Although this film is done in a flashback mode, following the story is not hampered. Although, as the film unfolded and after the end, I wondered how it would have played out if it was done sequentially?

The film begin by showing agent Lorraine Broughton (Theron) being interviewed by her boss Eric Gray (Toby Jones) and CIA department head Emmett Kurzfeld (John Goodman) while Gray’s boss Chief ‘C’ (James Faulkner) watches this behind glass. Lorraine is badly bruised but being sure of her story, she begins telling it.

She starts the interview with talking how she was sent to Berlin to find and obtain “The List” which has been put on microfiche and stored inside a watch. The list has information about each agent in British Intelligence and possibly the CIA, where they are and their possible covers.

Immediately after getting to West Berlin she gets attacked by Russians who what to kill her because they are the ones who are trying to obtain "the list" at all costs. Her contact and co-agent is David Percival (James McAvoy), however, the audience sees that Percival is sabotaging Lorraine’s attempt to obtain the watch (list). The one who put this list together and stored it in a watch has a code name and it’s Spyglass (Eddie Marsan). He’s doing this because he wants to trade giving up the list for freedom to West Berlin.

As the story unfolds and until the end, the audience thinks David is on multiple sides but so is Lorraine, it is just that the audience doesn't know how many she’s on.

Lorraine gets involved in so much fighting, shooting and stabbing that I can only imagine that she was really sore after doing this film.

One of the things I loved about this film was the color mood used to present this film. Everything was muted down from a color perspective. This in honor of being in both West and East Berlin at the time the wall comes down between the two parts of the city.

Theron was amazing in how she used her body and gave the audience a perception that she fights for a living. I loved her character and at times I laughed out loud in the audacity of some of the scenes. McAvoy was strong and his smart-alecky version of the character worked for me. Jones was perfect as Lorraine’s boss. Marsan was very good as the meek Spyglass. Goodman was very good as the CIA connection. Kurt Johnstad wrote an wild and fun screenplay. David Leitch had a clear vision in mind and for me it clearly worked well.

Overall:  It was a fun film and Theron was a joy to watch.

X-Men: Apocalypse

First Hit:  Much better than the other Marvel (Comic) film “Captain America…” but it felt worn and reaching.

The beginning is a set up based on some past historical idea about a demonic force called En Sabah Nur/Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) wanting to finish his evolvement which will give him total world domination. But to complete this task he has to usurp the powers owned and inherent in Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), the leader of the X-Men (and women). By obtaining this power he can rule the world.

The film fails to make this important task engaging enough thereby making the film uninteresting, let alone believable by any stretch of the imagination. The other story is that Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto (Michael Fassbender) has distanced himself from the other X-Men(women) and Professor Xavier.

In this distancing, Magneto has joined with Apocalypse and will execute his commands to rearrange the planet by removing the metal structures of the earth thereby making earth’s inhabitants helpless. The interplay between the X-Men is good and does make this film interesting in ways that has some depth.

The most fun part of the film has to do with Quicksilver/Peter Maximoff (Evan Peters) because his scenes are lighthearted, well-conceived, and simply fun to watch. He brings a humorous element to the whole film and when he’s on the screen, I was engaged.

What seemed pressed were scenes with Raven/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) as it seemed she really didn’t want to be in this role and is done with the X-Men series of films. I’d be surprised to see her in another, unless she needs the money.

Isaac created a good enough demonic Apocalypse character, and the makeup helped a lot. Fassbender was OK as the aloof, isolated Magneto. McAvoy was strong as Professor Xavier. Peters was fantastic and the best part of the film. His tongue-in-cheek and cavalier representation of the character was appropriately in-line with my view of what Marvel Comics were originally about. The rest of it has become too serious and seems only there to extract more money out of the public. Lawrence seemed done with the whole thing and her performance and character lacked inspiration. Simon Kinberg wrote the sometimes witty and sometimes labored screen play. Bryan Singer brought some interesting visual scenes to the screen but the attempt to make this story real falls on deaf eyes (yes I mean deaf eyes).

Overall:  Although fun enough, this franchise has to make more and more unrealistic set-ups to attempt to make the stories continue to work into the future.

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them

First Hit:  Slow, sullen, and it seemed like pieces were missing to have the film be engaging.

This film is one of three, I think. There is a “Them” meaning that there is also a “He” and a “She”. Will we ever see them? Probably not, because this one, “Them”, just didn’t have the goods to make the story interesting enough to see more.

Not that there weren't moments in this film that the dialogue wasn’t interesting, it is that the spaces between the interesting moments were few and far between. The audience finally figures out that Conor (James McAvoy) and Eleanor (Jessica Chastain) are married, had and lost a small child, and Eleanor tries to kill herself (the opening scene).

Dialogue between Professor Friedman (Viola Davis) and Eleanor were highlight moments as were a few moments of dialogue between Conor and his father Spencer (Ciaran Hinds), especially at his father's restaurant. However, most of the film was watching Eleanor’s angst without having much context as to how or why her child died or why she was so lost.

Chastain was interesting and aloof in this role. Her look was great but one cannot carry a film without giving the audience something to chew on and think about. McAvoy was better because his role did have more dialogue; however it was hampered by the overall story. Davis was great. She used the most of her small but pivotal role to get the audience engaged. Hinds was equally good in his very small role. William Hurt (as Julian Rigby) was strong as the quite inward father who tries not to preach to his daughter. His story about almost losing Eleanor in the ocean was extremely powerful. Isabelle Huppert (as Mary Rigby) was also very good and I felt she was a great choice to be Eleanor’s mother. Ned Benson both wrote and directed this film and unfortunately it seemed really long.

Overall:  This film had a point but seemed to spend its time dancing everywhere else but with an engaging story.

The Conspirator

First Hit: A very well acted, historically accurate, drama.

As the credits rolled on this film it struck me how much our government has not changed over the years and not in a good way.

This story is about the US Government railroading the prosecution and killing of a non-guilty person because certain high government officials needed to “show the public" that they are setting things right. A number of years ago, September 11th brought out actions by the US Government which killed thousands of innocent people because we needed to have a strong and definitive response.

If Osama Bin Laden was the perpetrator of the NYC tragedy then why have we killed thousands of Iraqis and Afghans instead of the guilty party? Why have we lost thousands of our own soldiers in this misaligned endeavor; because we ignored our own beliefs (being fair and democratic) and rules of our democratic society (the Constitution). 

We dropped thousands of bombs to make a point to our public that we're taking care of business. And to prove this we killed lots of people (innocent or not) and we've taken away some of your private rights (US Patriot Act). In the Conspirator, the Secretary of War, Edward Stanton (played by Kevin Kline) makes the point over and over again that we have to throw out the constitutional rights of citizens for the sake of getting the revenge he believes the public wants and entitled to.

The story is about a trial of Mary Surratt (played by Robin Wright) whose son, John Surratt (played by Johnny Simmons) conspired with a group of men, including John Wilkes Booth, to kill President Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. The group was successful in killing Lincoln but only injuring the other two.

Mary Surratt was put on trial because her son held meetings with these conspirators in her boarding home. She did not know what they were conspiring to and she wouldn’t tell anyone where her son was hiding out and because of this, she was hanged as a conspirator. The trial was a military tribunal and was not a civil trial of her peers.

The trial was unconstitutional. Her initial lawyer Senator Reverdy Johnson (played by Tom Wilkinson), gave the case to Frederick Aiken (played by James McAvoy) who didn’t want to defend Mary because he believed she was guilty. But as a lawyer of people’s rights he changed his tune and saw the injustice that was being done to a fellow citizen.

After Mary’s conviction, he got a Writ of habeas corpus to have her tried in a civilian court as was her right but President Johnson denied the writ and she was hanged. Subsequently laws were passed to never allow this sort of behavior to happen again.

Wright was strong as a mother protecting her son and showed a wonderful clear grace in her faith as she was put to death. Great to see her on film again. McAvoy was excellent as a young northern Army Captain seeing clearly through his prejudiced beliefs as a union officer and being a fair lawyer. Kline was excellent as a government bully wanting to make believe might makes right. Wilkinson was good as a southern senator who was a Lincoln pallbearer and also supported the defending attorney. James D. Solomon wrote a very strong screenplay from his own story. Robert Redford directed this story with clarity of the story and not over dramatizing it for the sake of filmmaking. I appreciated the detail and clarity of this film and the point it was making.

Overall: I really liked the clarity and point of this story as Redford filmed it.

Wanted

First Hit: Some good acting but a dumb premise.

The story is about Wesley (played by James McAvoy) who is tired of his life. He is stuck in a job he hates working for a woman who is abusive while his live-in girlfriend is having sex with his best friend and work mate. He is also susceptible to instantaneous anxiety attacks.

To show us how invisible he is, we watch him Google his name and nothing comes up, there are no entries for his name. While purchasing his long standing prescription for anti-anxiety drugs; Fox (played by Angelina Jolie) walks up to him, tells him she knew his father, that his father died the night before, and that the man pointing a gun at him at that moment is going to kill him.

From this moment on Wesley’s life is going to change. He is scurried off to meet a group of characters led by Sloan (played by Morgan Freeman). The group is called the “Fraternity” and they are assassins. The Fraternity’s roots go back hundreds of years and they get their assignments from a cloth weaving loom (Yes, a bit far-fetched). Wesley decides to become part of the group because he wants to avenge his father’s death by a rogue assassin.

Wesley goes through some arduous training and become a great assassin because it is in his genes to be able to slow time and action down.

McAvoy is a strong actor and shows his abilities by being able to shift from being intimidated, to extremely anxious, to anger, and then to smooth clarity in just seconds. Jolie is very adept at being a strong beautiful woman who lives on the edge. Freeman plays the smart heavy as only he and his voice can. The acting is good but the story way too far fetched by making a loom decide who lives and dies. Lastly, although it might be a neat trick and cinematically cool to let people curve a bullet’s path, I can just imagine people trying to curve bullet shots like they do in the film. It isn’t going to happen and I think some innocent real people are going to get hurt.

Overall: Some of the visuals were fun to watch. The acting was, at times, very good, but overall the premise wasn’t believable and therefore the film fell short of being good.