There comes a point in the film where the film gets so exhausted in its own attempts to be uber stylized that it begins to slouch, giving way to some lazy time lapses and slapdash editing. Just when you think it's run out of stylish charm; however, it does something to snap your focus.

At one juncture, it comes in the form of a fairly unnecessary girl-on-girl scene, which is a feeble attempt to advance the story and keep the men engaged. Spoiler alert: it doesn't really work. The true attention grabber comes in the form of a flawlessly executed 10-minute, long-take fight sequence with technical cuts. It winds down several flights of stairs and into rooms as characters brutalize each other, even taking it outside and into a car, where it continues with a car chase shootout. The whole sequence has a feel of Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men with regard its ambitious and technical bravado, but comes a little too late in the game.

Unfortunately, for an action film, Atomic Blonde has more scenes of talking and boring cat-and-mouse play than it does action. There are two fights that standout amongst the lot and are placed in the first and third act, causing the second to really drag, which is why I'm guessing they placed a girl-on-girl scene there.