Despite some strong performances and two excellent action sequences, Dark Phoenix never really feel like it had a chance. It’s still rife with problems, but it doesn’t deserve to be forgotten.
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However, while parts of the movie don’t really work, Shyamalan’s ultimate goal is to make the audience doubt the truth of the characters’ abilities. In a climactic scene outside the facility, Shyamalan uses extreme wide shots, fish-eye close-ups, and clumsy staging to strip a fight between Dunn and The Horde of the thrilling, Marvel-style grandeur we might expect from the subject matter.
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A finely engineered watch figures prominently in the plot of Atomic Blonde. It’s loaded with some secret information that everyone in the movie wants to get their hands on. It’s tracked by operatives of MI6, the CIA, the KGB and the French DGSE. Whoever has the watch controls the fates of dozens, if not hundreds of spies in Cold War Europe. As the people of East and West Berlin take the final crucial steps towards reunification, a shadowy battle plays out over a single deadly timepiece.
Like the watch, the film is a collection of beautiful components. The craftsmanship behind every part is on full display: bold, fluorescent cinematography, calibrated performances, and a vicious one-take action scene for the ages. There’s an important flaw, though: Atomic Blonde puts all of this powerful material on display, but can’t seem to put it together correctly. It’s as though the pieces are grinding against each other, resetting the clock when the film should be ticking forward and building tension.
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