Quick takes on 5 films

Atomic Blonde is a thrilling spy movie with a lot of action. It takes place in Germany in November 1989, in the days leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. A British spy has been killed for his copy of a list showing all undercover agents in both East and West Germany. British Intelligence brings in Lorraine (Charlize Theron) to recover the list, while also being on the lookout for a possible double agent at the center of all the turmoil. High stakes espionage meets amazing hand-to-hand fighting scenes in this one. A little too gruesome for some viewers, but I found the whole to be extremely entertaining.

I should have trusted my judgment on Megan Leavey. I’m not usually one for dog movies, but this one got such sterling reviews, that I gave it a go. It is about what I expected, which is to say, just ok but nothing spectacular. It is the true story of a girl, a bit of a screw-up at home, who joins the marines and finds her life’s mission with a bomb-sniffing dog in Iraq. The movie gets a lot better in the second hour, but the first is such a snooze-fest that by the time the action starts, I had practically all ready given up on it. There are some good moments, particularly the very real moments of Leavey’s hardships in getting used to civilian life again upon returning home, but ultimately not enough for my satisfaction.

The Mummy may be the most boring action movie of all time. In the first 20 or so minutes, I thought it was pretty decent and was starting to wonder why it got such terrible reviews, but it falls off a cliff pretty quickly from there. This one is a reboot of the classic mummy tale, this time with Tom Cruise instead of Brendan Frazier. The original was such a fun movie, this one is just flat throughout most of it. Some of the scenes are quite incredible, but you can tell they are trying to hard to build a whole franchise (a la Marvel or DC), rather than focusing on a good stand-alone movie. Listen to the reviews on this one, and stay away.

Victorian period drama Lady Macbeth is an interesting film, if you go into it blind, as I did. Katherine is a young, beautiful woman who has just married a much older, rich man, and obviously not for love. The man seems unable or unwilling to consummate their marriage, for which his dad blames the new wife. When father and son go away for a trip, Katherine begins an affair with one of the hired hands. Newcomer Florence Pugh is captivating as Katherine, and smoothly transitions from heartfelt protagonist in the beginning, to despised villain in the end, though for what reason, you’ll just have to watch. I know period dramas aren’t for everyone, but this one is a decent film for fans of the genre.

A Ghost Story is a beautiful story, albeit a sad one. It stars Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara as a married couple. They are living in an old house which is seemingly haunted. One fateful morning, Affleck is killed in a car crash, but he rises at the hospital as a ghost, apparelled in a white sheet. No one can see him as he returns to the home to watch his widow grieve. It seems humorous at first, since he looks like kid going out for Halloween, but the sorrow sets in quickly as he whiles away the years. Sometimes he’ll be watching something, turn his head for instant, and days, weeks, or years have passed. He sees his wife move on, and then move out, and a series of new families move in. It is really quite amazing how we feel the anguish he is going through, though we cannot see his face. This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a little while, and well worth it for film lovers.