Sometimes, action movies just aren’t our thing. This isn’t to say that all girls are averse to gore and comedic, senseless violence (especially when it’s empowering, like Kill Bill, or even when it’s at our expense, like Shoot ‘Em Up), but I know quite a few who are. Obviously there are merits, as well as drawbacks, to the action genre, but the following films are of the sort that accomplished a successful marriage between either engaging storyline, characters, or a combination of the two to make the movie-going experience pleasurable for both the ladies and the fellas.

The Professional (or Léon, as it’s known everywhere else) is a deeply emotive film written and directed by Luc Besson and starring Gary Oldman, Jean Reno, and an incredibly young Natalie Portman (both pictured above). The storyline follows an emotionally naïve hitman, Léon, (Reno), who, out of inherent kindness takes in a young girl, Mathilda (Portman), whose family has been murdered by a corrupt, drug-dealing cop, Stansfield (Oldman) and his band of decidedly unlovable cronies. Mathilda, who is strangely and eccentrically precocious, decides that she wants to follow in Léon’s footsteps and become a hitman herself, mostly with the intention of taking revenge for her slaughtered brother. A good portion of the film follows her ‘training’, their bonding and a pseudo love plotline that has a tendency to make the more taboo-sensitive shift in their seats (although it is most evident that the love, although misconstrued by Mathilda to be romantic, is very pure and signifies the one’s completion of the other and vice versa.) It’s particularly well-written, with astounding performances by all of the actors, especially young Portman. This was her first major film; the maturity that the role required was quite formidable, but she pulls it off completely.

What makes this movie so wonderfully appealing despite its perhaps strange premise (It’s a fantastic film and hardly your conventional action flick) is the endearing and entirely heart-warming relationship between Mathilda and Léon. It’s made evident, even in the film’s outset, that Léon is not your common, dirty, irredeemable killer. He goes to the movies and watches Gene Kelly films delightedly. He cares for a plant quite lovingly, as if it was a living thing, and tells Mathilda that it’s his best friend. He plays games with Mathilda and, immediately subsequent to the murder of her family, tries to cheer her up using an oven mitt with the face of a pig. Before he meets her, he performs his tasks consistently and without thought to the kind of life he could have beyond his job. Mathilda shows him a new, better way to exist and gives him something to protect and fight for. Adversely, he gives her a similarly new lease on life and a path to go down. This makes the action in the film secondary to their story. It isn’t about guns and shoot-outs. It’s about a mentally and emotionally stunted man finding out what he truly wants in life through the love of a little girl. 

300

300 is a recent release, obviously; after it came out, I couldn’t help but hear about it at least once a day. It was certainly the film of choice in manly circles, but (to my surprise) it seemed to also be quite well received by the female demographic. I’m sure the numerous attractive and sparsely clothed men helped out considerably, but there’s another aspect of the movie that I think contributed more. Personally, I don’t particularly like the movie, but that’s beside the point.

300 is, of course, an adaptation of the graphic novel by Frank Miller that described the events of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. It was directed by Zack Snyder and starred the irrefutably muscular Gerard Butler, the beautiful Lena Headey, and a sizeable supporting cast with such actors as Dominic West and David “be still my heart” Wenham. What the film had beside a very attractive group of protagonists, stunning visuals and (irritating) slow-mo fight scenes was one point, or person, I should say, that seemed to make the movie more poignant for many people. That person was Queen Gorgo (Headey). The Queen did a lot of ass-kicking, had sex with Gerard Butler, and looked rather stunning all throughout, which seemed to resonate with most girls that I’ve talked to about 300.

I do have a criticism that I’ll throw in; that Queen Gorgo defends her right to speak by stating that only Spartan women can produce real men, which sort of struck me as a “so still our only purpose is to make babies”, but I have to admit that The Queen is pretty badass regardless. She’s a very insightful and decisive advisor to her king, she’s strong and opinionated, and she does what she has to do to ensure the survival and stability of her country. There’s a particularly unfortunate scene that relates to that last point, and those who have seen it can agree that it’s probably the most difficult portion of the movie to watch (emotionally; the other parts were just difficult to watch because they were bad. All right, I’m done), but it just goes to show how determined The Queen is to do right by herself, her home and her husband, which is something that many women seem to be able to relate and/or aspire to.

Unleashed

Unleashed, otherwise known as Danny the Dog, was directed by Louis Leterrier, written by Luc Besson (hey, remember him?!) and starring Jet Li, Morgan Freeman, Bob “eets’a me” Hoskins and Kerry Condon. The general storyline is that Bart (Hoskins), a seedy and greedy mobster/thief/what have you, has trained his “dog”, Danny (Li), to kill for him whenever the leash around his neck is taken off. After a car crash knocks Bart and his henchmen unconscious, Danny escapes and comes into the care of a blind Piano tuner, Sam (Freeman) and his daughter Victoria (Condon). In a fashion similar to that of The Professional, Danny is taught how to live his life in a loving and caring environment, and it’s through the love of his new family that he can stand up to Bart and fight for his freedom. Even moreso than it is with Léon, it’s made evident that Danny is entirely victim to horrible circumstance or cosmic irony and that this horrendous ability to kill was forced upon him. When Sam and Victoria find him, he’s in fearful shambles; he can hardly speak correctly and has to learn everything from scratch, as if he were a child.

I saw this film in the theaters a few weeks after it first came out with my brother and two of our mutual friends (who also happened to be girls). There weren’t very many people in the theater, but we “AWW”d loud enough for about fifteen more women. The movie is extremely effective at being emotionally compelling; Jet Li’s performance is heartbreaking as he stumbles dazedly around when under Bob Hoskins’ control with nothing but an ABC book and a stuffed animal to keep him company. When he’s accepted into Victoria and Sam’s family, the AWW’s would arise from his joviality in learning new words, eating new foods and playing on Victoria’s piano. Your heart goes out wholeheartedly to Danny and you wish consistently throughout that he might keep this life, and that if his surrogate family ever found out about his past and his abilities that they would accept him regardless. Unleashed varies from degrees of uplifting happiness to absolute sadness and pity to everything in between, and you really can’t help but climb on board with the whole ordeal. Essentially, girls would appreciate the very deep emotiveness of the characters while guys could still ogle at the impressive fight scenes.

The Mummy

The Mummy is essentially my generation’s Indiana Jones, written by Stephen Sommers and starring Brendan Frasier, Arnold Vosloo and the stunning Rachel Weisz. If you’re not privy to the plot, Rick O’Connell (Frasier) serves as Evelyn Carnahan’s (Weisz) guide to the ancient city of Hamunaptra. Evie is intensely interested in archeology and they journey on an expedition with other various men looking to find various things (particularly money) in the ruins of the lost city. While there, Evie and her brother accidentally awaken the Imhotep, “The Mummy” (Vosloo), who intends to use Evie as a vessel to resurrect his love, Anck Su Namun. O’Connell and co. have to send Imhotep back to the grave before he sacrifices Evie and the whole world goes to shit.

Honestly, if we’re going to look at this from a critical, vaguely literary point of view, it isn’t a very good movie. I mean, the characters aren’t particularly developed, the romance is contrived and predictable and it was obvious that it was made to serve as a straight, unreserved adventure flick. But you know what? That’s all right. It’s really, really entertaining. It has a magical sort of setting with all of the right aspects that a good adventure movie needs: archeology, a brazen and physical male protagonist, an intelligent and beautiful female protagonist, a plucky, bumbling sidekick, a cryptic know-it-all, and a larger than life villain. Plus, it was around the time when CGI was becoming more and more prolific and refined and seeing that statue age dramatically at the beginning of the movie was like, “whoa, this shit is incredible.” And there’s just something so appealing about an adventure flick, for everyone. It’s got enough action to be ‘exciting’, but not enough for it to be categorized as a blatant action movie. It has exploration and chases in airplanes and romance and flesh-eating bugs; really, just something for the whole family. I would try to explain it more, but I’d just be repeating myself. When you think of Indiana Jones, and if you watch The Mummy; you get the same sort of feel, and I think everyone subscribes to that feeling.

Serenity

Similar to most of the other points on the list, Serenity resonates so prevalently with women, I think, because of the strong female characters and the general emphasis on character progression. Serenity is an extension of the TV series Firefly written by Joss Whedon that was cancelled prematurely before its entire storyline could be concluded. Then Universal studios decided to give it another shot with the feature length film Serenity¸ also written by Joss Whedon, as well as directed. It stars Nathan Fillion, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin, Jewel Staite, Sean Maher, Summer Glau, and Ron Glass. The premise is somewhat complex, but I’ll attempt to describe it as briefly as I can. Serenity is a mixture between sci-fi and western, and it’s set in a time far from now in which the world expanded so tremendously that the human race had to colonize other planets. Eventually, a civil war of sorts broke out between The Alliance (the government, essentially), and the resistance, or The Browncoats (our heroes). Malcolm Reynolds (Fillion) and Zoe Washburne (Torres) were both soldiers in the war on the side of the resistance, and they lost. Reynolds, our main protagonist, bought a vessel, got a crew, and thereafter did mercenary work outside of the law to keep himself and his people going, all the while retaining a bitter resentment for The Alliance. But the conflict has grown much larger and more significant in the film, and the fragmented Captain Reynolds will yet again find something worth fighting for.

As stated before, the characters in Firefly and Serenity are phenomenal. Malcolm Reynolds is callous, uncompromising, unfair, distant, loving, compassionate and virtuous all at the same time. His crew is similarly developed and complex, and this holds true particularly for the women, who are all incredibly strong and gifted in their own ways. Although the sci-fi/western backdrop is definitely interesting and unique, and the ‘verse Whedon has created is engaging and immersing, it’s really the people, these characters, that make the history and the events real and that suck you in more than anything. I’ve found that many a Firefly and Serenity fan is female, and this may very well be a reason. Because us ladies have standards in our films and a love for the characters therein. At least, that’s what I hope for.