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.

Lady Macbeth

First Hit:  Very little about this film was uplifting – it was dark and brooding all the way through.

From the get go, this film presses downward on the spirit of the film's characters. Katherine (Florence Pugh) was bought and forced to marry Alexander (Paul Hilton). His father Boris (Christopher Fairbank), who lives with them, chastises Katherine for not sexually satisfying his son and demands that she stay inside the house and never “take the air.” Alexander also treats Katherine with disdain, makes her disrobe, face the wall and then masturbates while looking at her back. Given this treatment, Katherine is both physically and sexually drawn towards Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis), one of the caretakers who works on the estate.

This attraction leads to sex whenever they have the opportunity. When both Alexander and Boris leave on separate trips, she invites Sebastian into the home, despite the disapproval of her handmaiden servant Anna (Naomi Ackie) who also has had intimate relations with Sebastian.

Alexander suddenly re-appears and this wrecks the love birds’ life together, so they fix it by eliminating him. With this issue resolved another bump in the road appears when Agnes (Golda Rosheuvel) moves into the home with a child. They have papers stating that the father is Alexander therefore it is rightfully the boy's home as well. This pushes Sebastian out of the home, again and the devious way they resolve this issue is horrible.

When the law is called, and is questioning the death of the boy, Sebastian burst into the room and spills the sordid story. But because he's a black servant, he and Anna are not believed and are taken away.

Pugh is strong as Katherine, a young woman trapped, and will do anything to get what she wants. Hilton is appropriately mean and twisted. Fairbank is strong as the mean father-in-law. Jarvis is good as the object of Katherine’s desire. Ackie is excellent as the handmaiden. Rosheuvel is very strong in her role. Nikolai Leskov and Alice Birch wrote this very dark brooding script that had little hope or light in it. William Oldroyd did a good job of directing this film. The sets in the rooms were perfect for the film’s feeling.

Overall:  Although the acting and direction was good, I really disliked the subject.

Girls Trip

First Hit:  Some very funny scenes, a few overly gross scenes, all in a satisfying but too long film.

I don’t mind grossness in a film. However, when more than one person pisses on a crowd from a zip line and the amount of piss and the way it sprays around is totally un-real, it is a turnoff, adds no value and is not funny. This and other stupid scenes when juxtaposed against some very fine and really, out-loud, funny scenes, could keep this film from being a classic hit, years from now.

Strong friendships between four black women is the basis for this strong film as they reconnect and re-find their deep love and respect for each other. Many of us have friendships that have lasted through the years. I’ve got two friends, whom I’ve known for over 50 years. Although we may not speak with each other very often, but when we do we find the place where trust and having each other’s backs rises to the top.

This film explores all this and more because, Ryan (Regina Hall) is in a farce of a marriage, promotes her life as having it all, and subjugates herself for money, her husband’s infidelity and fame. Then there is Sasha (Queen Latifah), who is financially struggling because, her once strong communication skills are being wasted on her TMZ type website that has no viewers. She found herself in this position because Ryan quit their business partnership. Lisa (Jada Pinkett Smith) has become a protective stay at home divorced mom. The fun, strong, smart girl has been both emotionally and sexually suppressed. Dina (Tiffany Haddish) is the wild girl, the fun girl and the bold girl. She’s the one in the group that pushes the edge of experience for all of them through her boldness.

They get together in New Orleans because Ryan gets an all-expenses paid trip to promote herself and husband Stewart (Mike Colter) to a possible television production company while at a conference. Although the unraveling of their back stories’ is predictable, the humor used is, at times, sparkling and strong. One example was the demonstration of using a grapefruit in sex, very funny. All of these women were perfect and well chosen for the character they represented and it showed that they became friends during the filming.

Hall was perfectly reserved, suppressed, and wanting to live her truth of having it all. She showed the rediscovery of her true self well. Latifah was wonderful and didn’t dominate the film as she has in other films. She fit effortlessly and was perfect as the woman who had Ryan’s back no matter what. Smith’s character evolved the most during the film. The opening scenes where she acts repressed were on the edge of being pressed, but her clothing made it all work. Then as she evolves you can see how she fit into the group years ago. Haddish was like having a wild animal loose in a positive way. She brought spark, edginess and bold fun to this role. She was the spark plug. Colter was strong as Ryan’s philandering husband. His voice is so soft and smooth which he uses as an asset for convincing Ryan to buy into the hype. Erica Rivinoja and Kenya Barris wrote a wonderful story that embodied some real insights to friendship. Malcolm D. Lee did a good job of directing this film. My criticisms are that he needed to remove 30 minutes of film, it was way too long, and that the overdoing of some scenes took it from being a strong film and moved it toward being silly.

Overall:  It needed some tightening up, but otherwise it was a very funny and strong film.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Overall:  Visually entertaining, poignant message and fun to watch.

The “setup” I thought was a bit weak when there’s an explanation as to how and why this very large spaceship/planet/thingy named Alpha become home to species from a thousand planets. However, getting past this we are introduced to Major Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Sergeant Laureline (Cara Delevingne) who work for the government of Alpha. Therefore, the best interests of the government, not any particular species is their focus.

The film also documents, at the beginning, the destruction of planet Mul, which was occupied by highly evolved and functioning humanoids that focused on giving back what it receives.

The Defense Minister (Herbie Handcock) instructs Valerian and Laureline to guard Commander Arun Filitt (Clive Owen) because the Commander warns that the ship has an expanding radioactive bubble in the middle of the ship and they cannot figure out what it is or why it's there . Unfortunately for the film, Filitt acts in such a way that he gives it away that he’s implicated in this radioactive bubble. This could be because of the way the character was written or because Owen often plays this type of double crossing character.

Valerian and Laureline are also sent to find the “converter” which replicates items it ingests. It is a survivor from the planet Mul and really belongs to the remaining humanoids as part of their way of life. They also find a pearl which was used by the Mul members to feed the converter and then the planet itself.

Filitt is then abducted and Valerian must search the ship to find him discovers that the “radioactive” menace in the core of the ship is not what they think it is. As they figure out what really happened to Mul and why Filitt is implicated, Laureline convinces Valerian to give the converter and pearl to the rightful owners, allowing them to restart their nirvanic race. It is hard for the major to break his dutiful role and use love as the answer.

DeHann was good and embodied the youthful character required to make this film work. Delevingne was, to me, the star of the film. Her wide-eyed soulful intelligence worked and made the film complete. Owen was, and is always, good as a self-righteous villain. Rihanna was very strong as Bubble. Ethan Hawke was wonderful as Jolly the Pimp. Hancock was OK in a pivotal but distant role. Luc Beeson wrote the screenplay as well as directed this film. It was a visual extravaganza and this made it worth watching.

Overall:  The film’s visuals,  Delevingne and DeHann are what kept me watching this film with interest.

Dunkirk

First Hit: An amazing film that focuses on the event not the actors or their characters.

Easily the best overall film of this year mainly because the vision is true and clear. Not many films make the story the highlight and focus. Mostly films have a character or two that engage the audience into the story. Here the characters are a subset of the story. This doesn’t take away from the actors or acting, but it lays the responsibility of how good this film is on the writer, editor, sound team, music, cinematography, and director.

Christopher Nolen did an amazing job of creating and giving his vision life on the big screen. This is the true story of how 800 boats, most of them small personal pleasure and fishing boats from England, crossed the English Channel to save over 338,000 allied soldiers consisting of British, French, Canadian and Belgium men who were trapped by German soldiers.

Nearly 400,000 soldiers were backed-up to the English Channel, trapped into a corner at Dunkirk, France. German planes bombed the English ships, including hospital ships taking the wounded away from the shoreline. Boats were also torpedoed and sunk. The British Government determined that sending in more large ships and planes to assist these trapped troops would only result in more losses of people and hardware.

The call went out to boat owners in England to sail to Dunkirk and save as many men as possible. Their low water draft meant they could also get closer to shore.

The film follows a couple of the English pilots in their Spitfires as they sacrificed themselves to knock German plains from the sky. It follows a couple of soldiers as they try to find their way to a boat to take them to freedom, alive. It gives the viewer glimpses of British command thinking through Commander Bolton. And it follows a man and his sons in their small boat attempting to save as many as possible. The line shown in the previews and used in the film, “there’s no turning away from this…” was poignantly perfect.

Everyone who played a character in this film is to be lauded. Fionn Whitehead, Damien Bonnard, Aneurin Barnard, Lee Armstrong, James Bloor, Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance, Tom Glynn-Carney, Tom Hardy, and Kenneth Branagh, just to name a few, were fantastic in each of their respective roles. The music by Hans Zimmer was astounding. The sound effects and its use was spot on perfect. Hoyte Van Hoytema created a sublime view as director of photography. As I previously noted Christopher Nolen’s script and direction was clearly top-notch. This film is his crowning achievement thus far.

Overall:  As of July 2017, clearly best film of the year.