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Atomic Blonde (Cert 15, 115 mins)

In 1989 Berlin, KGB agent Yuri Bakhtin (Johannes Johannesson) shoots dead MI6 agent James Gascoigne (Sam Hargrave) on the snow-laden streets and steals a microfilm containing the names and locations of active field agents.

MI6 chief Eric Gray (Toby Jones) and his gruff CIA counterpart Emmett Kurzfeld (John Goodman) pressgang elite British spy Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) to locate Bakhtin and retrieve the micro- film. She must also smuggle Soviet defector Spyglass (Eddie Marsan) out of the divided city. Her contact in Berlin is renegade station chief David Percival (James McAvoy).

From the moment Lorraine saunters through the airport arrivals lounge, she is under KGB surveillance and has to fight her way out of tight corners. Lorraine finds an unlikely ally in inexperienced French operative Delphine Lasalle (Sofia Boutella), who believes she knows the identity of a traitor in the MI6 ranks.

Based on the graphic novel The Coldest City by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart, Atomic Blonde is an action-packed spy caper hard-wired with Eighties nostalgia. Director John Leitch plays to his strengths as a stunt co-ordinator, pushing the cast to physical limits with each exhilarating flurry of punches, kicks, tooth-shattering face plants and acrobatic tumbles.

Theron slinks and somersaults through each frame with gung-ho intent and her steamy bedroom scene with Boutella threatens to melt celluloid.

In a pleasing reversal of action movie gender stereotypes, McAvoy trades blows with his words rather than his fists.

A kick-ass blast from the post-glasnost past.