girls on film
Wednesday, 2 November 2011 11:23![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usuallyhats
I have been working my way through various female led action/superhero films! Here are some of the things that I have watched:
- Resident Evil: bizarrely, this was the second film in as many days to contain Unexpected James Purefoy (the other was Bedrooms and Hallways), well done there, film. I enjoyed it a lot, although it is rather gorier than my usual fare: it turns out I am fine with zombies but very freaked out by people getting all sliced and diced. D: Alice was really great, especially all her "hello, I appear to be incredibly badass, I had forgotten about that" moments, and the whole film was nicely tense and exciting.
- Next up was Elektra, which is not a good film, but overall I feel very positive about it as it contained one element that I really loved: i.e. the relationship between Elektra and Abby. I would like all the sequels where Elektra trains Abby in The Fighty Arts and together they fight (or possibly commit) crime. Goran Visnjic can stand around in the background looking soulful if he likes. (sidenote: I am not going to talk about his accent because I like him and therefore spent a great deal of the film feeling terribly sorry for him.) Apparently I really love all-female mentor/mentee type relationships! I suspect I didn't realise this before because there don't seem to be that many of them; all I can come up with off the top of my head are: Barbara Gordon and the Batgirls, Kira and Ziyal, and probably Janeway and Seven, though it is a long time since I've watched any of those bits of Voyager.
- Also I watched Aeon Flux, which was... odd. The world, although it looked nice and scifi-tastic, didn't seem very coherently imagined to me: I'm thinking particularly of the way the rebels could have mental meet-up type things, but that was just sort of thrown in without the film going any deeper into the implications of that power. Does everyone have it? What else can they do with it? etc. And a lot of the dialogue was on the portentous side, making the whole thing come off as rather stilted, which was a shame as the cast seemed pretty good. I also got the impression from time to time that someone had gone "hey wouldn't it be cool if..." but not quite managed to integrate whatever it was into the script.
On a more positive note: do I need to turn down my femslash goggles, or was it basically canon that Aeon and Sithandra were exes?
- After that was Supergirl; I've been trying to get into the Supergirl comics recently (because of how she and Batgirl fought vampires that time), but they are SO CONFUSING, so I was a little dismayed to see a whole other backstory for her that wasn't the one I knew. But that issue aside, I liked it a lot - not necessarily a good film, but an entertaining one. Overall I would characterise it as "deeply cheesy, but nevertheless rather charming". I am thinking particularly of the scene where she’s learning to fly on Earth: so cheesy! And yet so lovely! I also really liked the way they dealt with Superman: acknowledging that he would be important to Kara, but also getting him out of the way so he wouldn't dominate her story. The "undercover at a girls’ school" was v. silly but I liked it. Lucy Lane! ♥
- And finally, Milla Jovovich again in Ultraviolet! I was expecting to enjoy it based on the fact that she had a sword on the DVD cover, but I was rather put off by the fact that everyone looked oddly smooth and glowy for some reason. Step away from the effects box, people! I was also unimpressed by the almost complete lack of female characters who weren't Violet, grrr. On the plus side, it did pick up a fair bit when the swords eventually came out, and I enjoyed the final fight scene a lot: Violet dealing with whole "my opponent can see in the dark but I can't" issue by BREAKING OUT A FLAMING SWORD was awesome.
I feel like I should have some concluding thoughts here, but I don't. Well, nothing beyond "make more superheroine films! And make them better!", but I had that one before I started. Actually, thinking about it, I would like superheroine TV serieses even better, since I prefer TV to film as a medium. GET ON THAT, PEOPLE WHO ARE IN CHARGE OF THESE THINGS.
(I typed most of this out in Google Docs, which has helpfully corrected a selection of my straight quotes to curly quotes. Why do you hate me at the moment, Google?)
- Resident Evil: bizarrely, this was the second film in as many days to contain Unexpected James Purefoy (the other was Bedrooms and Hallways), well done there, film. I enjoyed it a lot, although it is rather gorier than my usual fare: it turns out I am fine with zombies but very freaked out by people getting all sliced and diced. D: Alice was really great, especially all her "hello, I appear to be incredibly badass, I had forgotten about that" moments, and the whole film was nicely tense and exciting.
- Next up was Elektra, which is not a good film, but overall I feel very positive about it as it contained one element that I really loved: i.e. the relationship between Elektra and Abby. I would like all the sequels where Elektra trains Abby in The Fighty Arts and together they fight (or possibly commit) crime. Goran Visnjic can stand around in the background looking soulful if he likes. (sidenote: I am not going to talk about his accent because I like him and therefore spent a great deal of the film feeling terribly sorry for him.) Apparently I really love all-female mentor/mentee type relationships! I suspect I didn't realise this before because there don't seem to be that many of them; all I can come up with off the top of my head are: Barbara Gordon and the Batgirls, Kira and Ziyal, and probably Janeway and Seven, though it is a long time since I've watched any of those bits of Voyager.
- Also I watched Aeon Flux, which was... odd. The world, although it looked nice and scifi-tastic, didn't seem very coherently imagined to me: I'm thinking particularly of the way the rebels could have mental meet-up type things, but that was just sort of thrown in without the film going any deeper into the implications of that power. Does everyone have it? What else can they do with it? etc. And a lot of the dialogue was on the portentous side, making the whole thing come off as rather stilted, which was a shame as the cast seemed pretty good. I also got the impression from time to time that someone had gone "hey wouldn't it be cool if..." but not quite managed to integrate whatever it was into the script.
On a more positive note: do I need to turn down my femslash goggles, or was it basically canon that Aeon and Sithandra were exes?
- After that was Supergirl; I've been trying to get into the Supergirl comics recently (because of how she and Batgirl fought vampires that time), but they are SO CONFUSING, so I was a little dismayed to see a whole other backstory for her that wasn't the one I knew. But that issue aside, I liked it a lot - not necessarily a good film, but an entertaining one. Overall I would characterise it as "deeply cheesy, but nevertheless rather charming". I am thinking particularly of the scene where she’s learning to fly on Earth: so cheesy! And yet so lovely! I also really liked the way they dealt with Superman: acknowledging that he would be important to Kara, but also getting him out of the way so he wouldn't dominate her story. The "undercover at a girls’ school" was v. silly but I liked it. Lucy Lane! ♥
- And finally, Milla Jovovich again in Ultraviolet! I was expecting to enjoy it based on the fact that she had a sword on the DVD cover, but I was rather put off by the fact that everyone looked oddly smooth and glowy for some reason. Step away from the effects box, people! I was also unimpressed by the almost complete lack of female characters who weren't Violet, grrr. On the plus side, it did pick up a fair bit when the swords eventually came out, and I enjoyed the final fight scene a lot: Violet dealing with whole "my opponent can see in the dark but I can't" issue by BREAKING OUT A FLAMING SWORD was awesome.
I feel like I should have some concluding thoughts here, but I don't. Well, nothing beyond "make more superheroine films! And make them better!", but I had that one before I started. Actually, thinking about it, I would like superheroine TV serieses even better, since I prefer TV to film as a medium. GET ON THAT, PEOPLE WHO ARE IN CHARGE OF THESE THINGS.
(I typed most of this out in Google Docs, which has helpfully corrected a selection of my straight quotes to curly quotes. Why do you hate me at the moment, Google?)
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no subject
Date: 2 Nov 2011 17:41 (UTC)no subject
Date: 3 Nov 2011 14:58 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2 Nov 2011 14:38 (UTC)If you dont't mind horror, both Silent Hill and The Descent stand out as having excellent kickass female leads. Oh, and the first two Alien movies. Especially Aliens.
This may seem a bit left-field, but Dreamworks' Monsters vs Aliens has a fantastic female lead who develops amazingly over the course of the film (the feminist message of the movie is pretty damn impressive). And it's just really fun, too.
As for TV heroines, have you watched Xena: Warrior Princess? You probably know it's from the exact same team as Legend of the Seeker so you can expect certain levels of delicious cheese, but it's so, so much better than you'd ever possibly imagine. I marathoned it over the summer and completely fell in love. The action is wonderfully implausible and creative, the characters are great (the Xena/Gabrielle relationship is the best thing), the special effects still hold up and the sheer variety of styles from episode to episode is fantastic - the show is extremely capable at both intense drama (some of the best drama I've ever seen in a TV show, in fact) and hilarious comedy. It's a bit slow to start like most 90s fantasy/sci-fi shows are, but it really kicks into gear in the second half of season one.
no subject
Date: 2 Nov 2011 14:43 (UTC)no subject
Date: 3 Nov 2011 14:52 (UTC)Thanks for the recs! My lovefilm list is much longer now (though I think I will save Silent Hill and The Descent for when I am feeling paritcularly brave...). :D I haven't seen much anime, just various Miyazaki films, so I'm looking forward to trying some!
Xena is something I really feel I should like, but have never been able to get into. I only tried the first couple of episodes, though, so maybe I'd like it more if I tried a later one?
no subject
Date: 3 Nov 2011 15:14 (UTC)I have to be honest, anime/Japanese TV can be pretty bad when it comes to women and shows with female leads that aren't lame romantic comedies are pretty rare, but there are definitely some exceptions and quite a few good shows to check out.
Yeah, very early Xena is quite rough and a bit tepid. Season one doesn't have anywhere near as high as a budget as the other five, so the stories are quite samey and it takes about a quarter of the season until Xena/Gabrielle start to properly click together. I'd recommend checking out Hooves and Harlots, The Greater Good and Callisto for a much better idea of what the show is capable of.
Oh yeah, have you seen the new Nikita series with Maggie Q being ridiculously kickass?
no subject
Date: 4 Nov 2011 17:40 (UTC)Ooo, thank you! I'll give those episodes a try.
I haven't seen any Nikita, but it's on my list of things I want to watch eventually. *insert lament about need for more hours in the day here*
no subject
Date: 2 Nov 2011 19:27 (UTC)Supergirl's continuity got mega confusing after crisis. The original version was sort of outdated, but charming.
no subject
Date: 3 Nov 2011 14:54 (UTC)no subject
Date: 3 Nov 2011 15:32 (UTC)no subject
Date: 4 Nov 2011 17:50 (UTC)no subject
Date: 4 Nov 2011 03:38 (UTC)no subject
Date: 4 Nov 2011 17:54 (UTC)