Luc Besson, master of the spy movie and the female assassin, created perhaps his best work in the genre with his 2019 action thriller Anna. Poor distribution and studio problems caused the film to get only a minor theatrical release, but it’s at last widely available, streaming to anyone free on iMDB TV. If you’re like most movie fans and missed it, you’re in for a surprise that rivals many similar action thrillers by one of the greatest writer-directors of our time, including his 1990 film Le Femme Nikita with Anne Parillaud (and its English remake, Point of No Return with Bridget Fonda), and the 1994 movie The Professional (Natalie Portman, Jean Reno). Besson also wrote the screenplays for The Transporter starring Jason Statham (2002), Taken starring Liam Neeson (2008), and Colombiana starring Zoe Saldana (2011). So he knows action, and that’s several assassins, spies, and action sequences in Besson’s personal dossier in additional to his greatest feats, the epic science fiction films The Fifth Element and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. It’s that last film he tapped for the star of Anna, a spy movie that’s not a retread on the director’s past work but a superb achievement, with a badass lead and story even better than another spy favorite, Atomic Blonde.
It’s time for borg′s annual look at the Best Kick-Ass Genre Heroines in film and television. This year we selected 25 characters that rose to the top. 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. Over the years we have expanded the list to include any tough, savvy, gritty character played by a woman, so villains are welcome here, too. Some may be frazzled, put-upon, war-weary, or human, but all have fought, some against difficult circumstances, others against personal demons (literally, figuratively, or both), and some against gun and laser fire. And they all showed what a tough, kick-ass character is about.
In 2018 these characters broke new ground, and unlike last year’s great list, this year’s selections would not have worked as well had the characters been swapped for males. We had a former MI-5 agent, bounty hunters, assassins, doctors, defenders, advanced superhumans, superheroines, warriors, witches, and even a few cyborgs–with a roster evenly split between television and movie characters.
Better yet, here’s something we haven’t said before. Several of our selections this year were played by women over 50.
These are the Best Kick-Ass Genre Heroines of 2018:
Enfys Nest(Solo: A Star Wars Story). For the first half of Solo: A Star Wars Story, Enfys Nest was the leader of a band of pirates, a character as cool and ruthless as anyone Han Solo ever faced. But once she took off her mask, it became clear how important she was, how significant her mission was–even more so than Han Solo’s own pursuit of mere wealth. She foreshadowed what Han would later find with Leia, an early glimpse at a rogue and scoundrel who actually had some good in him. When they joined forces, it made their characters even better. And she became one of the best warriors in the Star Wars universe since the original trilogy. (Disney/Lucasfilm)
Okoye(Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War). Is there any woman warrior as powerful and impressive in a fantasy movie this year as Danai Gurira’s Okoye? We can’t think of any. A smart commander, a brave soldier, a loyal ally. Stalwart, devoted, steadfast, strong physically, intimidating and wise, with a keen unwavering ferocity, she represented the best of Wakanda, and fought bravely to defend the world at the last stand against Thanos. (Disney/Marvel)
Higgins(Magnum PI). Few television characters are as beloved as Jonathan Higgins in the original Magnum, p.i. So it was going to be risky having any actor step into the role John Hillerman made famous. So when the show honored the original character and late actor with such a finely tuned, updated character and actor, we took notice. Perdita Weeks’s Juliet Higgins is everything Robin Masters was–the character we all thought Higgins was in secret. We don’t know whether we’ll learn the truth this time around and what that truth will be, but as an ex-British secret service agent, she’s a James Bond for Thomas Magnum to partner with–literally running alongside the show’s star and fighting and shooting her way as an equal. And the result? Every episode of the first season was full of great action and fun. (CBS) Continue reading →
No guns, no killing the other patients, and no cops. The titular Hotel Artemis in Drew Pearce‘s directorial debut film is a secret hospital for criminals, criminals who must be members to utilize its elite services, which consist of high-tech, life-saving medicine. Services are provided under the direction of a craggy, battle-hardened, and effective nurse known primarily as “the Nurse,” played by Oscar-winner Jodie Foster, in what is probably her most exciting and outside-the-box role so far. She has hard rules for guests in the same vein as the Continental Hotel in John Wick, and parallels to that movie’s plot device made obvious in the trailers may have been what kept away some of the action movie audience. Now streaming and available on disc formats, Hotel Artemisis worth giving a second chance, if only because you’re looking for something action-packed that feels like a 1980s “B” action flick.
The year is 2028 with more riots in Los Angeles, heating up worse than ever as police and citizens face off on the downtown streets. And the battle is approaching the door of the Hotel Artemis. Enter two brothers played by this year’s rising star Sterling K. Brown(Black Panther, Marshall, The Predator) and Brian Tyree Henry (Atlanta, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse), both just shot while robbing a bank. Everyone takes on city name aliases in the hotel, theirs Waikiki and Honolulu. They join other guests Acapulco, played by Pacific Rim: Uprising’sCharlie Day, and Nice, played by the decade’s number one female action star, Sofia Boutella(Kingsman: The Secret Service, Atomic Blonde, Star Trek Beyond). The humor is all tongue-in-cheek, the kind that makes James Bond movies work so well. Along with directing, Pearce also wrote the script, and the combination of the best of today’s actors and his banter bouncing between them turns a freshman effort into something better.
The cast gets better, too: Dave Bautista plays the Nurse’s loyal orderly Everest in a role different from how we’ve seen him in Guardians of the Galaxy,Blade Runner 2049, or Spectre, except for that tardemark tough-guy physicality. Jeff Goldblum plays both a criminal and the owner of the hotel, which presents a bit of a conflict for the Nurse along the way, Zachary Quinto plays his whiny wannabe son, and rounding out the cast is The Predator’sJenny Slate, a wounded cop who shares a past with someone inside the hospital
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:
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…
When I was a kid Star Wars blew me away and when I think back it was the “wretched hive of scum and villainy”–specifically the creature cantina at Mos Eisley spaceport–that first introduced me to the idea of a wide, wide universe of alien beings. Countless characters–makeups and costumes designed by movie artists in the real world–all milled about in one place and it was about as cool a thing as anyone could put on film. My next great appreciation for aliens came from the Star Trek films, in particular the delegation of members of the United Federation of Planets in Star Trek IV: A Voyage Home–this bizarre assemblage of leaders, all wearing the common United Federation of Planets maroon officer uniforms, but each representing some far off world with all sorts of strange and exotic denizens. Much of my excitement for aliens would come from Michael Westmore’s wonderful “aliens of the week” in the various television incarnations of Star Trek–I am a fan and self-proclaimed expert in the aliens of Star Trek more than any other corner of that great franchise. Later I would be dazzled by the unique alien designs of Doctor Who’s 21st century Renaissance, where the British series really upped the ante of how unique and complex a weekly show could illustrate the potential of who is “out there.” The updated Mos Eisley for science fiction fans would reach its zenith for me in two great ways in 2016 and 2017: In the diverse cultures of the Yorktown space station in Star Trek Beyond and in the immensely populated Big Market in Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. As much as the original Mos Eisley still stands strong on film, these two modern updates of “strange new worlds… new life and new civilizations” represent the best modern creativity in the world of cinema. Makeup artist Joel Harlow, who won an Academy Award for his makeup work for Star Trek (2009), returned to the franchise for Star Trek Beyond, and in honor of the Trek’s 50th anniversary his team created 50 new alien races for the film. A new book just released, Joe Nazzaro’s Star Trek Beyond: The Makeup Artistry of Joel Harlow documents in photographs and descriptions the development and creative ideas behind each new race for the film. As a fan of aliens and Star Trek and this fabulous film, I haven’t anticipated a new publication as much, and I couldn’t be more satisfied with the result.
Journalist Joe Nazzaro assembled Star Trek Beyond: The Makeup Artistry of Joel Harlow unlike most behind the scenes accounts that only punctuate descriptions with the odd quote from a creator, instead providing his narrative as a reporter would–interviewing and sharing Harlow and his creators’ complete, firsthand accounts of developing, designing, casting and even applying many of the makeups. We hear about Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Beyond from Harlow and creators behind the scenes including concept artists Neville Page, Allen Williams, and Carlos Huante, sculptor/makeup artist Richie Alonzo, and designer/sculptors Don Lanning, Joey Orosco, Lennie MacDonald, Norman Cabrera, and Mike Rotella. This is the kind of access to the minds of movie creators that fanboys and fangirls dream about.
Let’s start with Jaylah. By my count, in the vast world of great Star Trek female characters Jaylah (portrayed by Sofia Boutella) is the most developed, most intriguing, best badass heroine of them all. Harlow, Neville Page, and Richie Alonzo really flesh out for readers the idea to application method of the unique makeup for this lead character from the film. Although it may not be the most complex makeup design at first look, it required elaborate and surgical artistry to replicate it each day, and balanced many requirements to allow the actor to move freely through action sequences and stand out as the driving force behind the plot of the film. Equally important to the film was the villain Krall (portrayed by Idris Elba) a character made up of all the alien races he had absorbed (which included callbacks to Star Trek’s Jem’Hadar) requiring additional complexity in design and style via its character’s backstory. Creators Harlow and Joey Orosco delve into the creation of the four phases of Krall’s design made for the movie.
The most brilliant makeup is no doubt the alien Natalia (who appears on the book cover), the fabulous, spectacular nautilus-headed design by Allen Williams and Don Lanning and sculpted by Joey Orosco with contributions from Werner Pretorius, Lennie MacDonald, Steve Buscaino, Cristina Patterson, and Toby Lindala. The head, bust, and arms for Natalia must reflect one of the best creature designs to ever emerge from Hollywood, and yet, like many of the 50 new aliens designed for the film (technically 56 according to Harlow) the character did not get much screentime. In fact many of the aliens were for background shots and astonishingly a few did not make it into the final cut of the film. The artists in the book also confirm the H.R. Giger influence on some of their designs for Star Trek Beyond–his designs also influenced alien creations of earlier Trek incarnations. One of my favorite footnotes to the Star Trek franchise, and certainly one of the most obscure references in classic Star Trek is an intercom on the Enterprise-D in Star Trek: The Next Generation paging Dr. Selar to the Null-G ward–which we never actually get to see–but the Abe Sapien-meets They Live alien called Satine (designed by Allen Williams and sculpted by Matt Rose) is exactly the type of alien I envisioned you’d find there.
If you try to get a modern generation of moviegoers to explore the entertainment of the past, you may learn quickly it often just doesn’t work out. One of the entertainment realms of the past that successfully spanned multiple generations is the Universal Studios monster film series. The “Universal Monsters” began in the 1920s and stretched into the 1950s, beginning with The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera and continuing on into the “modern” technology of 3D in 1954 with The Creature from the Black Lagoon (reviewed here previously at borg.com). Kids who grew up in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s continued to watch and re-watch the film series years later. As the horror genre is concerned, it doesn’t get more “classic” than the Universal Monsters. Now that we’ve entered the month of Halloween, it’s time to start binge-watching the best of the horror genre, and for audiences of all ages the Universal Monsters is a good place to start. But for the younger crowd not willing to go for the classics, especially black and white classics, you may want to give the new Universal Studios reboot a try–the new “Dark Universe.” The introductory chapter to the Dark Universe, this summer’s The Mummy starring Tom Cruise and Sofia Boutella, is now streaming on multiple platforms and available on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD.
The Mummy won’t be for everyone. Purists loyal to the classic films are the first group that may not go for it–it doesn’t adhere very much by way look or feel to Boris Karloff’s 1932 original version, although the core concept is similar: resurrecting an ancient Egyptian royal entombed without being mummified, followed by a pursuit to resurrect The Entombed’s lover after The Entombed is brought back to life by an archaeologist. The other group that may pass on the new film are fans of Universal’s more recent decade-long film series that originally starred Brandon Fraser and Rachel Weisz (and later Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson), which spanned seven films in all and an animated television series between 1999 and 2008. Ultimately the best audience for this year’s version of The Mummy will be audiences looking for a new film to rent or stream during this holiday season with a horror flavor. The Mummy isn’t a romp like the recent film series or memorable like the original, but it is light as horror goes, full of action and plenty of monsters (actually zombies) without much actual gore, and overall it’s a fun way to step into the Halloween zone for general audiences. And who doesn’t like a zombie movie?
The Mummy stars Tom Cruise as adventurer/soldier Nick Morton (along the lines of Matt Damon in The Great Wall) who, along with another soldier played by Jake Johnson (New Girl), tries to find buried treasure after Nick romances and steals a treasure map from an archaeologist named Dr. Jennifer Halsey, played by Annabelle Wallis (X-Men: First Class, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword). Not among Cruise’s top films (see last week’s review here of American Made for that) fans of Cruise movies will still find this in the realm of his Mission: Impossible roles. The mummy of the title is a woman in this incarnation of the horror tale, Princess Ahmanet, played by Sofia Boutella, in a performance that becomes the best aspect of the film. As with her several recent performances (Atomic Blonde, Star Trek Beyond, Kingsman: The Secret Service), it’s always exciting to see Boutella immerse herself into a role. The actress who gained early fame as a dancer in Madonna and Michael Jackson music videos seems to easily take on the physical coordination required for this first monster of the Dark Universe. One of Ahmanet’s powers is raising the dead into zombie defenders, and in several key action sequences the film becomes a full-scale zombie horror flick. The zombie factor, plus big-budget production value and stars Cruise and Boutella may be enough to satisfy a broader audience’s desire for something new this Halloween.
Luckily for fans of Star Trek, the 50th anniversary of the franchise coincided with last year’s release of Star Trek Beyond, one of the most exciting films in the movie series. That was thanks in part to makeup artist Joel Harlow taking the new alien creatures where no one had gone before. Nominated for an Academy Award for his work on Star Trek Beyond, Harlow took on the daunting challenge of creating more than 50 new alien races for the film–one in honor of each year since the first episode aired on television back in 1966. Those designs will be featured in a giant chronicle published this week by Titan Books. Star Trek Beyond: The Makeup Artistry of Joel Harlow by Joe Nazzaro is surprisingly the first book to focus exclusively on the makeup artistry for Star Trek.
The closest prior work on creating makeup for aliens from beyond the Final Frontier, Star Trek: Aliens & Artifacts by Michael Westmore and Alan Sims (still available at Amazon here) was a shorter, trade paperback overview of Star Trek makeup and props, and Westmore’s recent book, Makeup Man by Michael Westmore (reviewed here at borg.com) focuses more on the pre-Star Trek work of Westmore. Star Trek Beyond: The Makeup Artistry of Joel Harlow author Joe Nazzaro also co-wrote a magazine-length overview of Westmore’s makeup work for Starlog, still available from time to time here.
Sofia Boutella shown with Joel Harlow’s makeup for Star Trek Beyond’s new heroine Jaylah.
Together with a staff of artists, Harlow embarked on the unprecedented scope of the project, while documenting the entire creative process for each of the 50 new alien types in exhaustive detail, from preliminary sketches to final make-up application. Below is a preview of Star Trek Beyond: The Makeup Artistry of Joel Harlow courtesy of the publisher. The new hardcover book is available for pre-order here at Amazon for only two more days at more than $15 off the cover price (price listed as of October 1).
At the beginning of Daniel Craig’s first foray as James Bond in 2006’s Casino Royale, Craig redefined Bond as viewers were taken back to his first kill, the event that earned Bond his 00 status. The scene instantly set the standard for the modern fight-or-die scene. This is the exact level of hand-to-hand combat viewers will be treated to in the new summer release, Atomic Blonde. Charlize Theron terrifically portrays what everyone always wanted to see: a woman in the role of James Bond. Sure, she has a different name, but Theron is believable just the same as a spy being interrogated by heads of MI6 at the end of a mission. As she tells her story, in every way she convinces us that she could go head-to-head with, and maybe even knock out Craig’s tough and bloody version of the Brit master spy. Only don’t think this is a typical Bond movie. It isn’t. It’s layered, more like The Usual Suspects or Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, only better–less cerebral and more fun. And Theron chalks up another badass cinematic heroine, resulting in a film that is easily worth the admission price.
Based on Antony Johnston and Sam Hart’s 2012 graphic novel The Coldest City from Oni Press, Atomic Blonde follows the original, focusing on several nations’ spies trying to recover a secret list of agents being smuggled out of East Germany just before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Theron plays Lorraine Broughton, a no-nonsense top-level spy, with attitude and style, battered and bruised from some recent epic encounter when we meet her at the beginning of the movie. She’s being interrogated and debriefed by both British and American agency heads, with John Goodman (Argo, 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Big Lebowski, Monsters, Inc.) as the American and Toby Jones (Captain America: The First Avenger, Snow White and the Huntsman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Doctor Who) as the Brit. What unfolds is a smartly constructed Cold War thriller, more complicated than Ian Fleming but not as complicated as John le Carré, but enough so that it may lose viewers a few times along the way. Ultimately Broughton finds herself trying to smuggle out of the country a German officer who memorized the secret spy list, played by Eddie Marsan (Sherlock Holmes, The Illusionist, V for Vendetta, The World’s End). The rewards and payoffs come not only at the resolution but in several scenes along the way, as Theron punches, kicks, hammers, fires, splatters, mows down, stabs, punctures… everything but bites her way through dozens of bad guys trying to kill her. The violence is extreme, but it all works–it’s great fun much like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s or Chuck Norris’s blockbuster rampages in the 1980s–and it’s not gratuitous like a Quentin Tarantino bloodbath (blown-off heads aside).
The Atomic Blonde of the title comes from Broughton’s short, 1980s style hair, and that length allows us to see that much of the time Theron is actually doing her own punching, and taking plenty of punches, from all these men. She’s quicker, and she prepares herself for many of her punches and bruises by soaking in a tub of water filled with ice cubes–a concept that helps her more than once throughout the film. The story and action really kicks in as Broughton begins to smuggle Marsan’s character out of the country and as the steps are laid out in a subplot involving her mission to assassinate Satchel, a double agent known for selling secrets to the Soviets. It’s exciting like the real-life story told in Ben Affleck’s hit film Argo, where a spy smuggled a group of would-be hostages out of Iran in 1980. Atomic Blonde has less subtlety and nuance than Argo, but Atomic Blonde similarly displays an early, retro style of storytelling compelling enough to keep viewers interested. Does it feel like a comic book adaptation? Sure. Like History of Violence and Road to Perdition. In fact Broughton could be Hit Girl from Kick-Ass all grown up.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle, the sequel to the 2014 spy movie Kingsman: The Secret Service, is coming to the theaters in a few weeks. If you didn’t see the original, it was probably because of its rather uninspired title. But don’t wait any longer. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a blast. And it’s streaming right now. Kingsman: The Secret Service stars Colin Firth as a secret agent in a new brand of 007 series, as he attempts to recruit the next member of the Kingsman organization, the son of a former agent, played by Taron Egerton. It’s stylish. It’s wall-to-wall action. It’s part dark comedy. And its over-the-top violence is operatic and epic. The last time we had this much fun was watching Roddy Piper and Keith David in They Live.
For those hoping Firth would ever be tapped as Bond, this is every bit that, only Firth’s master spy has moves like no Bond ever had. One scene provides so much hand-to-hand combat you’d think you were watching Kill Bill, and the Quentin Tarantino influence doesn’t stop there. You’d almost think the retired director was the ghost director behind the mayhem in the film’s climactic battle. It’s just as well, as actual director Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass, Kick-Ass 2, X-Men: First Class, Layer Cake) proves again he knows the action genre.
Every great British spy story needs a Bond girl, and Sofia Boutella’s Gazelle is up there with the best. Her missing lower legs (no, we never learn why) were replaced with steel blades, blades that can kill–and very much do. Think of Bond girls played by Famke Janssen and Grace Jones, and Boutella fits right in. Every bit the combat equal to Firth and Egerton’s spies, Gazelle is practically a character missing from Tarantino’s Kill Bill movies. Continue reading →
