Atomic Blonde

[spb_text_block pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] ATOMIC BLONDE Script Analysis: Guns are No Fun by Jacob Krueger This week we are going to be talking about Atomic Blonde by Kurt Johnstad. I would like to start this script analysis by talking about the way that I saw Atomic Blonde, because this was actually my first experience with 4DX. I went to a 9:15 screening and I am wondering, “Why am I spending $28 on this screening?” But it was the only screening that I could make. I show up, and I have no idea what to expect, and it’s not until I sit down that I realize the seats are on a platform that moves.   There are fans and lightning effects, and when it rains in the movie, it sprays water on you. There are little air bursts that hit you every time a gun goes off, and the seat will shake you or kick you in the back when a fight scene is happening. And basically, this is the worst and most distracting way that I have ever seen a film.       Rather than sucking you into the film, it actually shakes you out of the film. It reminds you that you are seeing a movie-- that you aren’t experiencing something real. And I am not telling you this to complain about 4DX, even though I think 4DX is a total nightmare… I am telling you this because oftentimes, as screenwriters, we make the mistake of inadvertently doing 4DX in our own screenplays. Rather than simply telling the story that we want to tell, simply pulling our audiences into our story in an organic way, we get so obsessed with all the bells and whistles that we end up distracting our audience from what makes our screenplay powerful. We get so obsessed with all the things that that are supposed to make it a “commercial” experience that instead of pulling our audience into the movie, instead of augmenting their experience, all those bells and whistles end up distracting from their experience, taking them out of the movie, shaking them out of the reality of the film.   If you’ve taken my screenwriting classes you have heard me talk at length about the idea of screenplay formatting as a way of hypnotizing the reader.   Ultimately what we are trying to do is to use formatting to capture the visual eye of the reader-- whether they are creative or not-- to allow our movies to play in the little movie screen of their mind. And bad screenplay formatting happens when we fail to do that-- when we either require the reader to supply their own creativity to make our screenplay cool or when we start shaking them with improper rhythm or with overly technical scene headings or with things that they can’t see or with dense action or with images that aren’t specific, that don’t play out exactly the way that we see them in the movie screen in our mind. Sometimes our action, the way we put it on the screen, the way we write our dialogue can be like those annoying jets of water and those annoying sprays of air and the shaking of the seats: they can shake us out of this world that we want to experience.     So we have spoken at length about the idea of how sometimes our formatting can become our 4DX, can become that thing that is supposed to augment but instead shakes us out of the experience of the movie. What we haven't talked about as much is the way that sometimes our ambition -- our impulse to complicate what could be a beautiful and simple experience-- can shake our audience out of what should be a really great story. And for me this is very much the experience of Atomic Blonde.   Atomic Blonde wants to be a Quentin Tarantino movie. And there is no doubt that to the extent Atomic Blonde succeeds, it succeeds because of its extraordinary fight sequences.   Whatever the flaws of the film-- and there are many-- those fight sequences are really impressive on a number of different levels. The first is that this writer is deeply aware that guns are no fun. Often what happens in action movies is the bad guys can’t shoot and the good guys can. Often what happens in action movies is that the good guys are total badass characters and the best fighters and have the best skills and are total superheros and the bad guys are a bunch of idiots who can’t really do anything well.     Atomic Blonde succeeds in the same way that Iron Man succeeds. Atomic Blonde and Iron Man both succeed because they realize that guns are no fun just like Iron Man suits are no fun. If Iron Man is going to work, you’ve got to get him out of the suit. And if Atomic Blonde is going to work, you’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of both the good guys and the bad guys. Because the guns are just too darn easy to use-- too darn easy to kill with-- if they’re used properly. Exciting action sequences don’t come from having the all-powerful weapon-- but from having the challenging weapon; having the knife, having the high heel, having the hand to hand combat, having the object that isn't meant to be fought with.   So if you want to write a great action sequence, just like Atomic Blonde, you’ve got to make the most of every location and every object inside that location.   Look at the location of your scene and ask yourself; what are all the objects that are available to you? What are all the objects that have never before been used in a fight sequence? And how can you use those objects in the wrong way? How can you surprise the expectations of the characters? How can you force the character to show who they are, to show their own ingenuity, to show their own badass-ness? You almost need to think of each of these challenging locations like a video game set--where each location comes with its own unique challenges, own unique pitfalls, many, many exciting ways to die-- and where everything is either an aid or an obstacle to the character getting what they want. Where every object gets used in the wrong way in order to create the most exciting action sequences possible.     So, despite its many flaws, there is a lot that we can learn from Atomic Blonde when it comes to writing action, when it comes to the specificity of our action, and when it comes to this very important concept: Don’t let your action be about good guys kicking bad guy ass, get the guns out of their hands, get them out of the all-powerful suits. Don’t make your action about good guys who can shoot and bad guys who can’t, make it about good guys and bad guys who are both really good at their jobs, who are equally matched and who are both fighting with everything they’ve got. Make it about using the wrong weapons in the wrong way, not the right weapons in the right one.   The other thing that Atomic Blonde does really well in its action sequences is that Atomic Blonde allows the fighting to hurt.   We realize this is going to happen from the first time that we see Charlize Theron’s character, Lorraine Broughton. The first time we meet her, she is literally covered from head to toe in black and blue marks. We have a beautiful image of Charlize Theron naked, bruise covered, in her bathtub. And like all the images in Atomic Blonde, this image is gorgeous; the direction by David Leitch from a visual perspective is absolutely gorgeous. (The direction from a character perspective I have some concerns about. But the direction from making every shot beautiful-- just the way you want to make every shot beautiful in your script-- is quite impressive).     So we have this first image of Charlize Theron naked in a bathtub. She is literally black and blue from head to toe. She looks like she has just been in the fight of a lifetime. And this is not the way we usually get to see our action heroes. We don’t usually get to see the aftermath. And that’s how this first image establishes a rule for how these fight sequences are going to work. It establishes a rule that the punches are going to hurt, the battles are going to hurt. This isn't going to be The A Team; this isn't going to be a battle or a fight sequence without consequence. We are going to allow the punches to land. One of the best fight sequences in Atomic Blonde happens between Charlize Theron and baddy bad looking bad guy German Stasi agent that she squares off with. There is a point during the fight where both of them are so tired from beating each other that they can barely stand-- when they are basically stumbling towards each other, trying desperately to find the will to walk much less to actually fight. And this is something we haven't seen a lot of in action movies, those fight sequences that actually hurt. Those fight sequences with consequence. So, on this level, Atomic Blonde is unusually successful.     And yet, the experience of watching Atomic Blonde is emotionally kind of soulless. The experience of watching Atomic Blonde leaves you feeling really flat.   And you can feel this isn't what the writer is trying to do. What it feels like the writer and what it feels like the director is trying to do and (if you’ve seen the trailer which is spectacular) what the trailer is trying to do, is to try to create that kind of Quentin Tarantino action movie feeling-- that kind of tongue in cheek super badass turn up the volume almost expressionistic take on action where it is a total joyride and a total romp watching the extreme violence. But that isn't the experience that we have watching this film. We don’t have the Quentin Tarantino fun. In fact, at least from my perspective, this movie wasn’t much fun at all. And part of that is because, despite the wonderful staging and the beautiful imagery of these action sequences, Atomic Blonde is taking itself very, very seriously. The film is taking itself so seriously-- it is so overly beautiful, and it is so overly complicated-- that it is hard to just enjoy the romp.