Hero HQ

Admit it, Iron, you started this debate just so you could brag how much you benched.

Haha, nice story, but like you said, movies aren't real.  They're only meant to mimic real life and even the more "realistic" ones like Bourne are still very out there.  To disallow a woman action hero from ever throwing a punch while jumping off buildings and having explosive car chases cause it's not "realistic" is an odd line to draw.  I'd rather see James Bond get beat by Grace Jones in a fist fight than to have him surf on a giant wave created by a space magnifying glass burning up a glacier.  I guess I'm just odd like that.

I won't get into the Hoffman thing, because that's at least two very different topics about different expectations from different genders and Hollywood beautifiaction and how action stars have change through the years.  Simply point, regardless of what shape he was in, Hoffman would never be an action star cause he's not good looking.  I never said a character showing fear was bad thing or that even Natasha wouldn't have fear, I clearly said that Scarlet overplays it.  Here's a clip from Tomb Raider that shows excellent use of emotion and acting in what is frightening scenario for Lara Croft.  Watch closely at Angelina's face throughout the entire clip.

Notice that Lara doesn't turn her back to the stone guardian or look directly at, yet she keeps it in her peripherial vision. She's not turning her back to the enemy or making any aggressive movements.  Her face is a mask of repressed emotion, but it's just that, a mask.  When she gets behind the stone wall the mask falls and you see the flicker of relief mingled with "Oh, crap", Lara IS scared.  But it's a fleeting emotion as she quickly steels herself, whips out her guns, and turns to face the stone guardian with defiant, stubborn resolve.  Lara is not giving up and she's not gonna go down without a fight.  Her face twists into something angry, aggressive as she continues to put bullets in its face.  Then she runs out of bullets and as she looks at the empty chambers of her pistols, we again see a fleeting look of concern.  It's not quite the fear we saw before, but she knows, it's not good.  The Guardian switches to a new face and Lara lowers her guns, she's back to anger and annoyed her bullets did nothing.  She spots the swinging pillar that was important earlier in the temple scene and there's a brief hesitation, a brief doubt before she dropkicks the pillar into the guardians gut.  Lara smiles in truimpht before spotting a lone smaller stone guardian that survived the previous fight and gives "Oh, come on" annoyed face before saying screw it and making a run for the exit.

That is the type of acting and direction I would've wanted from any Widow/Hulk scene,  While we see fear and a number of emotions in Lara during the scene, she never loses her confidence.  Her emotions fuel her, but they don't rule her.  She faces down the stone guardian and wins and while the stone guardian isn't as unpredictable as the Hulk, in the context of the movie its a similiarly unbalanced fight.  In the Avengers, Whedon was already using the Hawkeye storyline to humanize the stone cold Black Widow.  We see how much she cares for Clint the moment she's introduced and learns that he's been compromised, quickly cutting her current mission to end to run off to try to help him.  We see her one on one with Loki where they match their manipulation skills and opens up about why he means so much to her.  There was never a need for such an exaggerated reaction to the Hulk from Natasha's character standpoint, it was done largely for the benefit of selling Hulk as an incredible force.

Hey Hawk,

By the way can still bench 300 pounds, lol. Well I enjoyed the discussion/agrument and we view this differently. I am not saying they cannot choreograph Jolie to make the fight look good and I think she is a good actress who is in a lot of bad movies, lol. And I am not saying that we cannot suspend belief as well, for goodness sakes we are talking about a giant green rage monster and and Asgardian god, but I just like to see my action stars super fit and/or super, super skilled where I know they come from a background where they have really fought. While Bruce Lee and Jet Li are not big guys at all they both were martial arts experts who competed and fought and bring a real beliviability to their roles because of it, same goes for Chuck Norris. Dolph Lundgren was a professional fighter, bad actor, but great fighter in fact he almost killed Stallone in Rocky IV during one of the fight scenes because Stallone told Lundgren to make it look more real and so Dolph hit Stallone so hard in the chest that Stallone's heart was knocked out of rhythm, lol.

If you really want to watch a woman who is pretty attractive who could also kick your ass in real life check out Gina Carano in Haywire. She is a professional MMA fighter and they choerographed some very realistic looking fight scenes in that movie, although the movie definitely has a weird flow to it. She is absolutely fierce and in one fight with Michael Fassbender she commented that she had to tell him to hit her harder to make it look more real, love that.

Jad as far as the Mr and Mrs. Smith film goes yes again they can choreograph a woman fighting a man and make it look good but the instant Mr. Smith got his hands on Mrs. Smith it would have been game over, esepcially when the woman involved would have trouble lifting more than twenty pounds without straining those stick thin arms of hers, lol. They probably need a stunt double every time Jolie has to pick up something heavy or they make those styrofoam props for her, lol.

As far as the fear things again guys when you fight for real the adrenline rush you get can be hard to control after the fight is over especially if it is the first fight or two. The fact that she had to face the Hulk freaked her out a bit, as it would anyone, save for Thor or Cap, and her adrenline got the best of her, I thought it was a great scene because I have experienced the same thing in my first couple of fights. So I don't think she overplayed it all rather it made the movie seem way more real to me.

Finally, seriously Hawk are you really comparing a scene from Tomb Raider to a scene in the Avengers, really? That movie is just flat out awful. I rented it on DVD and got about halfway through and had to shut it off. It gets a 19% rating at RT because it is one of the worst action movies ever made and that is the comparison you are making? That is like saying a rusted out old Chevy Nova is better than a top of the line Lexus or Mercedes. It just comes down to credibility for me and SJ just looks much more fit, stronger, and is a a very good actress so I can believe her way more in an action role than I can believe Jolie in action role. And now that we have written a comparison paper on this subject it is time for me to stop, lol.

Hawk:

I had watched the clip and I just couldn't comprehend how you think that scene is even in same ballpark as the Hulk scene with BW. Handy that there was a huge rock ram swinging back and forth and all it took was for Jolie to knock it to the side was a leap and a kick and then presto the big idol is taken out, lol. So you think Jolie showed any type of fear there, I don't. But then maybe in her job gigantic stone idols come to life all the time and it is just a matter of course for her, and that cocky smile she gave at the end when she sees the small dog like idol or whatever it was was beyond cheesy. Whereas BW has faced lots of bad men and women in her life but never somthing as unstoppable as the Hulk, something she knows can kill her as easily as a person kills a fly. In the TR scene there is no sense that Jolie is in any type of danger but when BW is fleeing the Hulk you totally felt the massive threat she faced and why she would be freaking scared. But regardless of my opinion or your opinion we are not going ever agree on this issue, lol. I mean if we showed those two clips side by side there is just no comparison in regards to the intensity of the scene and how a human being without super powers would emotionally deal with such a threat and if you just want to compare those two scenes SJ completely sells the scene whereas Jolie looks like she is out for a walk in the park.

However I am going to let it drop since we are just dancing right now, although you do move well and feel good in my arms, lol.

Have a great Friday.

What'd you do, Iron! (That would be a joke)

Sheesh, Iron, you trying to ruin my reputation saying stuff like that!