Is anybody else bothered by the current Hollywood trend that you can take any actor or actress, dangle them around on wires and give them a few shots with a stunt double, and suddenly they’re supposed to be an action hero?
This is something that has annoyed me in several movies lately (ahem Charlie’s Angels ahem), but it really bothered me in Kill Bill. In a movie as great as Kill Bill almost was, having the action sequences leave you unsatisfied really throws off the movie experience when really, the movie was quite good in spite of the deficiencies.
One specific example from Kill Bill:
When Uma Thurman’s character is battling her way through Lucy Lieu’s henchmen, and she runs up a railing to the 2nd story. A few seconds later she’s standing on the second story balcony railing, when she jumps off, bounces off the wall, and lands back on the railing.
I don’t know if that action was performed by Uma herself or a stunt double, but it looked awful. A good stunt woman should be making the wires work for her, not look like she’s being dragged around by the wires like some stupid marionnette.
I was very disappointed by the final “climactic” duel of the movie. I know that not every sword duel can be as fantastic as Michelle Yeoh and Ziyi Zhang going at it in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but at least make an effort! I kept waiting for the action to heat up but instead it was just a lot of posing, followed by a brief sequence of a maximum of three moves, followed by more posing, followed by a maximum of three moves, etc. etc. If your actress can’t handle a fight sequence where more than 3 simple moves are choreographed per shot, then IMHO, she’s not cut out to be an action heroine.
C’mon, Hollywood – if you’re going to give us an action movie, cast some action stars who can deliver the goods!
