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Tag Archive: Atomic Blonde


First look–Will action-thriller Hotel Artemis be the next surprise summer hit?

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April 17, 2018

An all-star cast from the past and present heads up the new action-thriller Hotel Artemis.  The first trailer is out and it looks like a new take on John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13, maybe colliding with Atomic Blonde.  It stars Academy Award winner Jodie Foster as The Nurse–the head of a members-only, exclusive, secret hospital for criminals, built on two concepts: Trust and Rules.  And it all goes spy vs. spy as the bad guys must face even badder bad guys.  Foster looks and sounds great as a tried and true, battle-worn healthcare worker who has clearly encountered any and all kinds of patients and circumstances over the years.  Hotel Artemis–oddly enough–seems to fit right into her catalog of films like Flightplan, Panic Room, Inside Man, and Elysium.

You couldn’t ask for a more exciting cast of Hollywood’s current big names.  Joining Foster, Black Panther and Marshall actor Sterling K. Brown stars as Waikiki, a thief whose team gets wounded in a robbery.  That team includes his brother Honolulu, played by Brian Tyree Henry (Atlanta, Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse).  The real badass of the film is one of our favorites, Atomic Blonde co-star Sofia Boutella as a jet-fueled, Bruce Lee-skilled assassin.  Boutella has conquered the genre with roles in Kingsman: The Secret Service, Star Trek Beyond, and The Mummy.  Who else would you want in your corner but an orderly played by Dave Bautista?  Chuck, DC and Marvel, Blade Runner, and James Bond–Bautista has played some great parts in cool worlds.  And it doesn’t stop there.  These characters must confront another bad guy group, led by a cocky villain played by Jeff Goldblum.  Hotel Artemis also hosts Jenny Slate (Venom, Zootopia, Parks and Recreation, The LEGO Batman Movie), Zachary Quinto (Star Trek, Heroes), and Charlie Day (Pacific Rim, Pacific Rim: Uprising, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia). 

Hotel Artemis is coming from the mind of writer/director Drew Pearce, known for writing big films like Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and Iron Man 3, plus he’s also writing the next Ghostbusters and Sherlock Holmes movie.  Get ready for a trailer done just right:

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The borg.com Best of 2017–The Year’s Best Movies

Filed under: Fantasy Realms, Movies, Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café — Leave a comment
December 27, 2017

When we created last year’s preview of 2017 movies we were pretty sure we were going to have some great movies this year, but we were surprised by what ended up being the best.  All year we tried to keep up with what Hollywood had to offer and honed in on the genre content we thought was worth examining. We went back and looked at it all and pulled together our picks for our borg.com annual Best Movies of 2017.

As always, we’re after the best genre content of 2017–with our top categories from the Best in Movies.  There are thousands of other places that cover plain vanilla dramas and the rest, but here we’re looking for movies we want to watch.  What do all of this year’s selections have in common?  In addition to those elements that define each genre, each has a good story.  Special effects without a good story is not good entertainment, and we saw plenty of films this year that missed that crucial element.

Come back later this week for our TV and print media picks, and our annual borg.com Hall of Fame inductees.  Wait no further, here are our picks for 2017:

Best Sci-Fi Fix, Best Sci-fi Movie, Best Costume Design – Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.  The Valerian and Laureline comic books turned 50 and brought a big-screen adaptation to theaters.  Director Luc Besson handled the material as a labor of love, and that could be marveled at in every scene, and each nook and cranny of the gigantic visual spectacle he created.  More new wonders, more futuristic ideas that had never been seen on film before, bold otherworldly costumes, and incredible special effects made this film a masterpiece science fiction fans will stumble upon in the future and wonder how it was so overlooked by audiences this summer.  Epic space battles, aliens, and loads of sci-fi technology, while all the other science fiction of the year kept to their familiar territories.  A gripping story about a team just doing their job, but that job is saving an entire race of a doomed planet.  Besson was going for something like Avatar, but he far surpassed it.  Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets was everything a sci-fi fan could want.

Best Fantasy Fix, Best Fantasy Movie, Best Comedy Movie – Thor: Ragnarok.  As much as Thor: Ragnarok was a natural progression for Chris Hemsworth’s Thor and Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, it was amazing how much the film busted genres, becoming more of a Flash Gordon space fantasy like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies than the rest of the Avengers series.   Just like watching classic Flash Gordon and Conan movies, we saw superheroes on a legendary hero’s journey rise and encounter obstacles and make sacrifices, across a landscape of fabulous worlds and colorful characters, and scenes that looked like they were ripped out of your favorite Jack Kirby comic pages.  Another film about family, it incorporated that always fun plot device of having good guy and bad guy join forces, as Tom Hiddleston’s Loki redeemed himself with his brother and their people, if only temporarily.  We met one of the fiercest warriors in Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie and they all faced off against a trio of well-developed villains.  A great superhero story, too, this was the ultimate fantasy fix.

Best Superhero Fix, Best Superhero Movie, Best Easter Eggs – The LEGO Batman Movie.  Even as a spoof of superhero movies and the DC Universe, The LEGO Batman Movie created a genuine story full of heart that any fan of comic books could love.  Will Arnett became our second favorite Batman actor this year behind Michael Keaton, and his Batman reminded us why we can’t wait for the DC Universe to get fun and exciting again.  Hilarious, laugh-out-loud funny with a smart script, full of derring-do and super-powered heroics, and better than this year’s and the last decade of live-action DC at the movies, the animated The LEGO Batman Movie proved more good DC movies are out there just waiting to be made.  Honorable mention: Spider-man: Homecoming.

Best Retro Fix – Classic Genre Films Return to Theaters.  With all the new releases in 2017 we were lucky enough to witness the 90th anniversary of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, while Disney’s The Jungle Book, The Dirty Dozen, and the original Casino Royale turned 50.  Along with Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind turned 40.  E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Blade Runner, Tron, and The Dark Crystal turned 35.  Predator, The Princess Bride, and Robocop turned 30.  Many of these made it back into theaters this year, giving us the best Retro Fix we could hope for all year long.  But E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (we even interviewed the best Star Trek director of them all here this year), Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Princess Bride, and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, on the big screen over only a few weeks?  We can only hope for more in 2018!

Check out the rest of the year’s Best Film and the rest of our picks for the year’s best movies, after the cut…

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The borg.com Best of 2017–Kick-Ass Genre Heroines

Filed under: Fantasy Realms, Movies, Sci-Fi Café, Superheroes, TV — Leave a comment
December 26, 2017

It’s time for borg.com‘s annual look at the year’s Best Kick-Ass Genre Heroines in film and television.  Again the studios gave us more to cheer about than ever.  We’re highlighting the very best from a slate of fantastic heroines, with characteristics to learn from and cheer on.  Determined, decisive, loyal, brave, smart, fierce, strong (and, okay, sometimes evil), you’ll find no one here timid or weepy, but all rely on their individual skills to beat the odds and overcome any obstacle that comes their way.  Some may be frazzled, put-upon, war-weary, or human, but all have fought, some against difficult circumstances, others against personal demons, and some against gun and laser fire.  And they all showed what a tough, kick-ass character is about.

In 2017 these characters broke new ground, and unlike last year’s great list, this year’s selections would not have worked had the characters been swapped for males.  We had a pregnant gunfighter, a mutant mental patient, a double agent, a space pilot, an alien security officer, a pregnant former psychopathic killing machine, a cyborg assassin, a mythic warrior, a maverick mercenary, a warrior, a commander of armies, an alien slave turned teacher, an angry young mutant, and a teenage high school reporter.

These are the Best Kick-Ass Genre Heroines of 2017:

Wynonna Earp (Wynonna Earp).  Melanie Scrofano not only played Wynonna Earp as pregnant in this year’s second season, she actually was.  And that didn’t slow her down, defeating all the evil Revenants in the town of Purgatory, and incorporating the discomfort of pregnancy made for great comic release all season long.  Who had the tougher task, Earp or Scrofano?  Either way, the series showed it’s a keeper and Earp the sharp-tongued, swaggering, tough-as-nails gunfighter we continue to love.

Valkyrie (Thor: Ragnarok).  As cool and powerful as Cate Blanchett’s Hela was in this year’s pinnacle of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the real scene stealer in Thor: Ragnarok was Tessa Thompson’s surprising new tough heroine, Valkyrie.  Cocky?  Yep.  And she backed up that confidence with mad fighting skills and brains–enough of a combination to help Thor & Co. save the people of Asgard and get some revenge for the Valkyries who lost the original battle against Hela.  As much as any other character, we’re looking forward to more of Valkyrie in next year’s ultimate team-up Avengers: Infinity War.

Luv (Blade Runner 2049).  If Blade Runner 2049 is remembered for anything, it should be Sylvia Hoeks’ badass Replicant oddly (ironically?) named Luv.  First unassuming, polished, and pristine in her mannerisms, she later reveals she can be the next best thing since Sarah Connor and the Terminators.  Luv is a fierce, brutal borg whose villainy became the high point of the film.

After the cut, the rest of the list…

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Back to the source: Atomic Blonde’s graphic novel origin, The Coldest City

Filed under: Comics & Books, Movies, Retro Fix, Superheroes — Leave a comment
December 2, 2017

   

In many ways the spy protagonist Lorraine Broughton, played by Charlize Theron in this year’s action blockbuster Atomic Blonde, will be barely recognizable to fans of writer Antony Johnston and artist Sam Hart’s Lorraine Broughton, the heroine of the 2012 graphic novel The Coldest City.  The most obvious change is certainly that Broughton is not drawn blonde in the pages of the comic, but the modifications go much further.  Yet, if you can separate the source material from the film, both can be appreciated for the great stories and the visuals that both offer.

We reviewed the film Atomic Blonde here at borg.com back in August.  The original Oni Press graphic novel is now available in a movie tie-in edition.  Atomic Blonde is no doubt a catchy and excellent title, and matches the violent and dynamic tone of the film.  But The Coldest City is also a great title, carrying its own clever double meaning.  In the book’s pages Sam Hart draws a black and white spy story that echoes the bleakness of the Cold War territory Antony Johnston’s tale revisits.  Top spy Broughton is serious about her job, she’s street savvy, and has years of experience when she’s brought in for a debriefing at the beginning of the story.  Hart’s art style is striking, and like Jean-Marc Rochette’s artistry in his graphic novel Snowpiercer (reviewed here), the panels aren’t cluttered with detail, and he instead relies on simple, dark lines with shadows to emphasize the mood.  From every angle The Coldest City is an engaging “end of the Cold War” story.

As different as Atomic Blonde appears to be from the graphic novel, the film is substantially faithful to its source.  You might find the differences in the book and movie analogous to a comparison of the film version of Casino Royale starring Daniel Craig to Ian Fleming’s original novel (we reviewed that one here).  The imagery is different but the author’s intent comes through, albeit in an updated package.

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First look–Charlize Theron is the new spy to watch in action thriller Atomic Blonde

Filed under: Fantasy Realms, Movies — Leave a comment
April 12, 2017

In The Italian Job Charlize Theron played a tough and edgy thief.  In Aeon Flux she was a decisive assassin.  In Snow White and The Huntsman and The Huntsman: Winter’s War she was a ruthless, evil queen.  In Mad Max: Fury Road she was a rebel road warrior.  This year she adds another badass to her repertoire, an anti-hero named Lorraine Broughton, in the 1980s Cold War movie Atomic Blonde.  Theron gets to play Jason Statham in any number of action films.  Or the latest James Bond type.  A bit Jack Reacher or John Wick.  Or Van Damme in his heyday.

Bruce Willis and Chuck Norris, Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood wish they had moves like Theron’s portrayal of a cold-blooded spy in this new action spy thriller from stunt man-turned-director David Leitch (John Wick, Dead Pool 2).  The latest trailer reveals a stylish, gritty, crazy-fun flick that any fan of Theron will be after.

The latest movie to be based on a graphic novel, Atomic Blonde is from Antony Johnston’s 2012 book.  A great supporting cast boasts John Goodman, James McAvoy, Eddie Marsan, Toby Jones, and another great actress taking Hollywood by storm:  Star Trek Beyond and The Mummy’s Sofia Boutella.

Check out this trailer for Atomic Blonde:

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