When the first scene of Salt featured Angelina Jolie in her underwear, being tortured by North Koreans, I felt my heart sink. I lectured myself sternly, though. After all, we've seen a few movies with terrible introductions turn out to be quite good. Have to give it a chance.

So I gave it a chance. But it's not very good. The plot is extraordinarily silly and convoluted--it reminded Mark of that episode of South Park about the plot to assassinate Hillary Clinton. For me, it seemed more Tom Clancy-esque. Like, if Tom Clancy had a really bad day. And got paid by the word. It is, as the trailers would have you expect, all about layers of international intrigue and double-crossing and double-double-crossing, etc. And it all flows fairly logically (i.e. you can follow it without much effort), but with every new plot twist you're left thinking not "Ooh! I didn't see that coming!" but "Oh, really? Come on! Don't do that!"

Though I have nothing of any interest to say about Salt as a story, the gender politics is worth discussing. The film was originally "Edwin A. Salt," a vehicle intended to star Tom Cruise (as per Variety). Watching it, this makes sense. Other than the original tortured-in-her-underwear scene, there is very little about Evelyn Salt that differentiates her from the men in the movie--on both sides. Except that she kicks all their asses. None of her ass-kicking is done in a "girly" way, none of it requires a leather bra or high heels, or even the quips we often get from female action heroes. She's just doing her job. I'm actually reminded a little bit of Sigourney Weaver's Ripley from the first Alien film--another role intended for a man. I love that Evelyn Salt was allowed to be concerned about her husband, a scientist. It had nothing to do with her being female and him male--he was a civilian and she wasn't. That makes sense to me, and I love to see that kind of unconscious (or seemingly unconscious) gender equity in a movie. It fails the Bechdel test all to hell, though--there aren't even any other major female characters. Evelyn definitely plays in the boy's sandbox. (Note that the relationship between Salt and her husband, which I found to be one of the more feminist aspects of the film, was apparently not intended that way--there is a piece on Scott Mendelson's Blog worth checking out about that.)

Many reviewers are calling Salt a feminist version of the Bourne trilogy. Honestly, I think that is giving a bit more credit than is deserved. Whatever else is wrong with them, the Bourne movies are pretty darn good action films. Salt isn't, it's dumb. And Jason Bourne's heroism makes sense in context--he may not remember what he's been trained to do, but it is ingrained. He's supposed to be the best. Salt offers no explanation, no matter how far-fetched, for why Angelina Jolie is able to not only run and shoot and drive real fast, but also jump from the tops of trucks or out of windows without getting hurt, climb walls like Spiderman, and perform Matrix-style kicks. No matter how unrealistic the general premise of a film may be, internally consistent logic goes a long way to make it believable. Salt doesn't have that.

On race, the film is racist in the same way all of these type of international intrigue movies are--the bad guys have a nationality and their national identify is part of what makes them bad guys. I was glad that, with the exception of Angelina Jolie, the actors who played Russians in the film were mostly Eastern European. Peabody, who is likely the film's most stable and professional character, is played by Black British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor. Though the fictional president in the film is a white dude, the fictional presidential cabinet was at least somewhat diverse, with an African-American Secretary of Defense and a female CIA Director.

Overall, this was simply a film I had a hard time getting excited about. The ridiculous plot made it hard to stay interested, and the over-the-top action heroism of Jolie's character ended up victim to it. I like Angelina Jolie as an action hero--I've crowed about her here before. This film doesn't allow her to work up to her potential, even if it is one of the best action roles for women we've seen in a while (certainly the best starring one this year). It doesn't impress me much that some of the best action roles for women in 2010 are the same ones from 1979--the ones intended for men.

Posted by Grace in 2 Stars: So Close
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What can I say about Predators? Probably nothing terribly coherent, but here goes.

The scariest thing about it is probably the poster. I've never seen any other Predator movies so I don't know if these things were more intimidating in their previous incarnations, but they lose a lot of their mystery once they ditch their cloaking devices. While I had a good time watching the film, due to the lots of shooting, there was never much dramatic tension for me. Watching a group of elite human warriors battle unstoppable humanoid killing machines who have abducted them to use for game hunting practice should at least get your heart beating a little bit faster. Sadly, no.

For what these people were supposed to be - executioners, cold blooded mercenaries, serial killers - they're pretty useless in a crisis. Except Adrien Brody's (smoking hot!) character, who is the White Man Who Will Save Us All. I think you could write a script in which that archetype takes leadership of a group and still show any of the other characters making a useful suggestion maybe once? Or twice? But I guess it was just easier to have Brody's character do all the thinking.

For a few minutes near the beginning, the film seemed like it was going to let Alice Braga's character be the de facto second in command and actually come up with some strategy, but no. She carries a big gun, but she's just there to follow Brody around, get teary eyed, and care about people. Just because you give the woman the heaviest gun doesn't mean anything else has to change, and hey look who was the first one to fall in a hole and need rescuing? This is not the "women of color in action role" revolution you were looking for, please move along.

What really got me, though, was how badly the men of color in our happy band of adventurers were treated. My favorite stereotypical character was Japanese-Taiwanese actor Louis Ozawa Changchien's character, who is a member of the Japanese Yakuza. OF COURSE. Because the Japan of Hollywood movies has no military or police or assassins. All the badasses are Yakuza or Ninjas. And Yakuza are really Ninjas too, you can tell, because this guy rocks out with a sword!

And as could have been predicted, the order of death of characters with speaking parts went like this:

1. Hispanic man from Mexico (Danny Trejo)
2. Black man from Sierra Leone (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali)
3. Black man who sounds American (Laurence Fishburne)
4. White man from Chechnya we didn't really care about, while saving white man from the United States
5. Asian man, while saving white men and pretty lady
6. White man from the United States

Even where you're from seems to matter in marking you for death!

I would have labeled those lists with a spoiler warning, but COME ON! Like you didn't see all of that coming. It was like Resident Evil: Extinction crossed with The Mutant Chronicles. So yeah, nothing much to report on the HC front. Another day, another movie full of men of color being redshirted.

Despite these flaws, I did have fun watching the movie. The pacing was quite good. I was not glued to the edge of my seat, but I was entertained. I ended up enjoying Topher Grace's performance most of all. I recognized his voice but I could not place it until I got home. I've seen quite a bit of That 70's Show, so I was impressed that he didn't give himself away.

So we end up with 1 star, since it was oh so typical, but I would recommend it for a fun summer movie.

Posted by Skye in 1 Star: Typical
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This was going to be June Links Part the Second, but then it took me weeks to write my Girl with the Dragon Tattoo review and I fell down exhausted after that. In the comments to that post, -J- says my "initial take did seem very harsh" and I almost cried because that was approximately my 2,537th take and I still don't know if I agree with myself completely. But there are some good comments on that post by several folks, so if you have seen the film or read the book(s), hop on over and let us know what you think.

Now onto some links. I'm going to pass on linking to anything about The Last Airbender because the internet is now exploding with good writing about how that film is not only chock full of racist casting, but also quite bad, and I imagine you can find some of that writing for yourself if you are interested.

We didn't get out to see Splice because, well, we didn't know there was going to be any ass-kicking. Luckily for us, though, some other folks got out to see it and had many very interesting things to say. Trigger warning on any discussions of Splice, by the way, for references to sexual violence.

From feministthemes.com, Splice and Women in Science (Fiction) by Mz. Wizzle:

Splice is a sci-fi horrorish film that is in many ways a modern retelling of the story of Frankenstein. What Splice does differently from most sci-fi horrorish films is to incorporate complex, intelligent female characters and examine (both directly and indirectly) female emotional and sexual development in an extreme situation. Until it blows it at the end.

From Kills Me Dead, Splice: "What To Expect When You're Expecting" probably does not have a chapter on this by Elizabeth:

What kind of staggered me about this movie was that at the end of it I wasn't left with questions about the morality of human genetic engineering but with issues surrounding mental illness, performative gender roles, and rape culture. Surprise!

Via the Bitch Blogs, A Woman of Science by Tammy R. Oler:

Vincenzo Natali's Splice is just about everything I was hoping for: a smart, scary, visceral, well-acted, and good-looking two hours of scifi/horror. That alone would qualify it for accolades, as it's been kind of a depressing year for both scifi and horror so far. But what really makes me excited about the film is its odd equal opportunity nature. With Splice, we finally get a female mad scientist worth the screen time.

From FlickFilosopher.com, Jonah Hex (review) by MaryAnn Johanson:

Why did director Jimmy Hayward [...] torture poor Megan Fox [...], transforming her via a squeezed-tight corset into something disturbingly freakish when she barely has cause to be here at all, except as a pawn that can be used against Hex? [...] Why not give us even a little bit more of Hex's story with the Indians, instead of leaving it all to look like the flick is simply obnoxiously appropriating a bit of Native culture for effect, for a dash of spiritual whatsit?

From Tiger Beatdown, SEXIST BEATDOWN: The Persecuted Tan of Megan Fox Edition:

Back when Megan Fox was mouthing off about Bay, everyone was like, "she's only doing this because it helps her career." And it's just, like... How often does a woman speaking her not-entirely-complimentary mind about a much more powerful man HELP her career? We wanted to punish her then, and I'm getting a vibe of distinct celebration because we can SEE her getting punished now. By, um, being dropped from "Transformers." Surely the worst of all fates!

Also from Tiger Beatdown, Pilgrim's (Lack of) Progress: The De-Gaying of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World by GarlandGrey:

I did a little research: her name is Roxy Richter, she is a lesbian, she was Ramona's college girlfriend, and she's half-ninja. But at 01:15 Scott's sister refers to them collectively as "evil ex-boyfriends," just as Michael Cera does earlier in the trailer. AND when the Los Angeles Times reported on the new trailer, they used the phrase "seven evil ex-boyfriends" in their story.

(It's funny, watching the trailers that have come out so far, Ramona herself says "evil exes" and everyone else says "evil ex boyfriends.")

From Hyphen Magazine, 'Scott Pilgrim' Movie is the Sex Bob-omb:

Funny how the cultural diversity that manifests itself so naturally and without contention in comics and animation can lead to casting controversies and meltdowns in live-action film adaptations of the same (recent example being Avatar). Perhaps the Scott Pilgrim characters should beat some sense into those feeble-minded film execs, classic 8-bit video-game style. KA-POW!

From Change.org's Race in America blog, Red Dawn: A Contemporary Remake of Yellow Peril Hysteria? by Jenn Fang, also of Reappropriate:

As with The Last Airbender and Prince of Persia, most of Red Dawn's heroes will be played by young white actors. In contrast, the villains of the film are almost universally Asian. Yes, two American characters - Mayor Jenkins and his son Danny (who is part of the Wolverines) - are played by African-American actors. Yet in the 1984 film, both characters are revealed as traitors who side (willingly or otherwise) with the invading Russian forces.

Of course the studio that is making Red Dawn has run out of money, so it may not get released anyway, or at least for a very long time. So there!

Posted by Skye in Linky Goodness
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TRIGGER WARNING for this film. Really. This film contains explicit scenes of graphic sexual violence. I almost walked out, so please be careful. I am going to mention that it happened in this review, though not discuss any specific details.

A while back, Heroine Content reader -J- shared a trailer link in the comments and wondered what we would think of the main character Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Män som hatar kvinnor in Swedish, which means Men Who Hate Women). Since I am easily suggestible and it was playing up north at the art house theater, I set off one fine Sunday afternoon to relax with a little Swedish film entertainment. I had tried to avoid reading any reviews in much detail so as not to spoil the plot. What I knew: goth looking hacker girl investigates crime. So far, so good.

About halfway through the movie, I leaned over to my husband and whispered "I'm so sorry, I didn't know." We both managed to stay in our seats, though it was touch and go. By the time we left, we both felt like we'd been kicked in the stomach repeatedly.

Remember back in my review of Kick-Ass when I was all "I don't know if I can really get behind this character even though I thought I would want to?" Hit Girl, meet Lisbeth Salander. You two have a truckload in common.

Salander is one of two central characters in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Played by Noomi Rapace, Salander is a tattooed, pierced, bisexual hacker prodigy who is currently under the legal guardianship of the Swedish human services system. (I'm seeing comments online that in the book from which the film was adapted, she has Asperger syndrome, though this isn't clear in the film. In the film it's presented more as having a possible history of mental illness or possibly just being labeled as such due to a specific childhood incident. I don't know enough about Asperger syndrome to speculate based on her behaviors on the movie.)

To give you a quick plot summary, Salander becomes involved in an investigation by a disgraced former reporter, Mikael Blomkvist. Salander was originally hired to investigate Blomkvist himself when he was on trial for libel. As she learns more about him, though, she can't resist spying on his latest project and starts to offer him clues. They work together to solve the disappearance of a young girl 40 years ago. As they get closer to truth, someone is trying to stop them from revealing the dark secret, yada yada yada.

Figuring out how I feel about the film, separating that from how I feel about Salander as a character, and also how I feel about the choices she makes, has been really difficult. She is far more complex than 99% of the "heroines" I've reviewed on this blog. Of course, with my usual diet of shoot-em-up whizzbang action movies, that's no surprise. This is a real movie, not a Hollywood action movie, though Salander rides a motorcycle and hits people over the head with the best of them. I really enjoyed watching her work. She's obviously brilliant, magnetic, and she looks really cool. The film might be trying to place her as Blomkvist's sidekick, but it totally does not work. He's following her around as her mind puts pieces of the case together. Loved it.

But Salander is brutally raped in TWO extremely graphic and drawn-out scenes. She then recreates a similar scene to punish the rapist. I was appalled by all three scenes. I couldn't figure out why the people who made the film felt like I needed to watch it. Or in my case, listen to it, as I was covering my face. (The soundtrack was bad enough, I don't want to know what was actually shown on screen.) Was I really not going to understand how bad her situation was just from the beginning of an assault and the aftermath?

Other people's mileage varies significantly. (And none of these have trigger warnings, by the way. ) The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: Why, oh why, is everything filled with rape? by Elizabeth of Kills Me Dead was really helpful to me in sorting out my thoughts for this review, but for other takes on the rape issue in this film:

• A Rose By Any Other Name... Looks Less Thorny To American Eyes at Thus Spake Zuska
• Elizabeth reminded me of this one which had slipped by me: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo at Women & Hollywood

These assaults do give some context for one of Salander's later decisions in the film, where she condemns a murderer to death. In both situations (and in a third which I will not reveal to avoid spoilers), she chooses to have grave bodily harm visited on the Men Who Hate Women of the film's title. If that works for you, then so be it.

But showing in explicit detail all the bad things that Men Who Hate Women do to those women, before having a woman punish them for it, does not end up feeling female-friendly to me. A lot of screen time that could have been spent showing Salander's coolness was instead used to show men beating the crap out of her. Whether or not I agree with Salander's actions as an avenging vigilante, I can't get past my disagreement with the filmmakers on whether it was necessary to go to these lengths to establish that violence against women is wrong. I'm pretty sure we can establish in a film that murder is wrong without showing a 5 minute scene of him bludgeoning someone to death with a baseball bat.

The other two films in the trilogy apparently will be released in the U.S. this summer. I have no idea whether I'm going to see them. But this one gets no stars from me.

Posted by Skye in No Stars: Setting Us Back 20 Years
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I knew nothing about the comic before I went to see the Jonah Hex movie. I hope I still don't. Because if the comic is anything like the film, it goes something like this.

Once upon a time there was a man name Jonah Hex. He fought for the Confederacy because he was a libertarian, not because he supported slavery. He even has a black friend, so we know he's all right. After he married a woman from the Crow Nation and had a child with her, the Crow put him under their protection forever and ever. You never have to see them, but they use their powerful magic to save his life sometimes. That comes in handy when the man is called upon to assist the U.S. Government, which is obviously known for its good relationship with the indigenous people of the North American continent.

After Jonah Hex's wife and child were murdered, he took up with a prostitute named Lilah, except that her name is actually Tallulah, a detail thrown into the film for no apparent reason. (By the way, it is vitally important to the historical accuracy of a story about a man who can talk to dead people just by touching their bodies that Lilah wears a corset to make her waist about the same circumference as her neck.) The man likes her because she is the only other woman left in the world after his wife died. Also, her world revolves around him.

Jonah Hex finds out that the guy who murdered his wife and child is still alive and wants to blow up the United States. He rides around the country trying to stop this nonsense. And he gets a dog, but then he abandons it somewhere I think.

The End.

p.s. It was really BAD, too. Don't go.

Posted by Skye in No Stars: Setting Us Back 20 Years
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I'm off to see Jonah Hex this weekend, which may or may not be a good idea. I will let you know.

In the meantime, I give you a collection of links to more about Prince of Persia. If you missed Patrick's review, do go and catch up now!

(Also, if anyone can explain to me the appeal of Jake Gyllenhall, I would appreciate it. I have seen so many posts and reviews talking about his hotness. I don't get it. Anyone? Or is this one of those if you don't get it, you don't get it things?)

Even Our Friends Across The Pond Are Getting In On The Whitewashing Convo, And I'm Just Going To Call Jake Gyllenhall A Racist at Slant Eye for the Round Eye:

Say it till you're blue in the face that you're not a racist, that you have no prejudice - but when you take a role meant for someone that's Asian - you just told everyone else that they can only sit in the back of the bus and that you - White Male - are going to take your rightful place in the front of the bus.

Posted by Skye in Linky Goodness
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Netflix sometimes offers me extremely strange suggestions. My favorite one so far was "since you liked Eddie Izzard: Glorious (liberal standup by a transvestite Brit) and Throne of Blood (1957 Japanese masterpiece based on Macbeth), you will like The Motorcycle Diairies (Ewan McGregor riding a BMX bike around the world.)" Because, you know, they're all foreigners. I have mocked Netflix on my personal blog and in conversation for its wacky ways.

Starting today, though, I swear never to complain or even make humorous observations about the Netflix recommendation engine, because without it, I might never have seen Kamikaze Girls.

Kamikaze Girls is not an action film, but rather an over the top comedy drama quasi-fantasy Japanese flick. About teenage girls and fashion.

STAY WITH ME HERE, PEOPLE!

Posted by Skye in 4 Stars: Greatest Hits
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One of the best things about doing this blog over the years is all the fabulous people who have showed up in the comments section. One of those fabulous people, Patrick, has been kind enough to offer us a number of guest posts for the next few months - starting with his review of Prince of Persia. Patrick is so cool that he writes reviews in 2 languages, so if you took more German than we did in high school, you can also head over to his blog when you're done with this. Alternately, you can look for him as "The Other Patrick" in the comments at The Hathor Legacy. Enjoy!

Persia, long ago: King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup) and his brother Nizam (Ben Kingsley) are out at the market one day, when Sharaman notices the young but courageous boy Dastan and decides to adopt him as his third son. Dastan grows up to be Jake Gyllenhaal, and together with his brothers Tus (Richard Coyle) and Garsiv (Toby Kebbell) Dastan one day finds himself conquering the city of Alamud. However, the weapons that are supposed to be in Alamud turn out not to be there, merely an excuse to get at Alamud's true treasure: a dagger containing the Sands of Time, with which anyone can travel into the past and change it. Things happen, and Dastan finds himself on the run with the Dagger on his belt and the Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) at his side and a conspiracy declaring him a traitor and murderer...

Okay, so far for the plot summary. If you read on, beware of spoilers.

I can't talk about Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (hereafter Prince of Persia) without mentioning the racefail at its core.

Posted by A Very Special Guest in 2 Stars: So Close
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We'd love to have some guest posters to help us fill out the rest of 2010 and early 2011, so here's the list of what we're looking for someone(s) to cover:

• Prince of Persia (taken)
• The Princess Blade (Shura Yukihime)
• The Incredibles (taken)
• Princess Mononoke
• Ghosts of Mars (taken)
• Monsters v. Aliens (taken)
• Sin City (preferably someone familiar with the comic)
• The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (taken)

Leave a comment if you're interested, and we'll get in touch! Or, you know, feel free to make a suggestion that's not on this list, we might just take you up on it.

Posted by Skye in Odds and Ends
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If you had watched Halle Berry in Catwoman, you too might have turned to 1992's Batman Returns to undo some of the damage. Lucky for me, Michelle Pfeiffer's portrayal of the edgy Selina Kyle turned deadly feline superhero was just the thing.

Berry's pre-Catwoman Patience Phillips was a fairly typical woman with good friends, a well-paying professional job (albeit with a mean boss), and an upcoming date with a cute cop. Pfeiffer's pre-Catwoman Selina Kyle is not any of those things. Her mother calls and leaves guilt-tripping messages on her answering machine, her possible boyfriend just broke up with her via same answering machine, and her only other social contact seems to be her cat. She's a seemingly incompetent secretary to a condescending jerk, and she's more than a little bitter about her relationship history. She's dowdy and flighty - and judging from how quickly she takes to using a taser when presented with the opportunity, a disaster waiting to happen.

She also doesn't seem terribly bright.

Posted by Skye in 3 Stars: Strong Contenders
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