Sometime in 2012, at a wrap party to celebrate the end of filming Mad Max: Fury Road, Charlize Theron found a brief moment to herself amid the festivities to indulge in a small, secret smile. Deep inside herself, she knew that this was only the beginning. Did she know that she would, a few years later, go on to star in this movie about a bisexual superspy who kills, just in the space of the trailer, about a dozen men with her hands before making out with a hot French lady spy? Maybe not for sure, but I think she knew she could, and was just waiting for the right opportunity. Now, seven million shares of that one screenshot from Fury Road later, we have this trailer for Atomic Blonde. Here it is! I think we can all take credit for it, in a way.
You, like me, may have questions! Does the comparatively low billing of Sofia Boutella, the hot French lady spy, mean that James McAvoy as spy contact David Percival will be the ultimate love interest instead? Do the filmmakers realize that by casting James McAvoy instead of Tom Hardy, they’ve ruined the opportunity to create infinite intersecting Mad Max spinoff universes, like Tarantino’s without the racism and foot fetish preoccupation? Will the film be able to avoid the minefield of the duplicitous bisexual trope in a spy movie with two queer women in it? How many spy coats does Charlize Theron wear? I look forward to a spirited and rewarding discussion of these issues and others up to and through summer of 2017, when most of us will see this movie come hell or high water.
