Botox goes to boot camp

Rating: Null/10 (5 July 2011)

Though not as evil as his later war film, "Black Hawk Down", Ridley Scott's "G.I Jane" is an equally dumb war movie which finds actress Demi Moore enrolling into a Navy Seals training camp. Her mission? To prove she has what it takes to be "one of the guys".
In the late 70s Scott got it into his head that he was a feminist. Like most directors (Tarantino, Cameron, Snyder, even Scorsese with "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" etc), though, Scott has a wholly misguided view of feminism; the notion that female empowerment means women beating up men, shunting aside femininity in favour for hyper-masculinity, guns, violence, murder and abuse, and engaging or partaking in the same actions which typically subjugate women. The end result is "G.I. Jane", a film about women standing up for equality by travelling to Libya and killing Libyans because a US spy satellite crashed in a foreign, third world country. What the hell?
The further irony is this: the film is about people accepting women, but is acted by a woman who doesn't accept herself, Moore desperately flaunting her plastic surgery, her bald head, her toned body, her silicone-gel breasts and subjecting herself to all manners of abuse, all in the name of proving that she is a "serious actress" and has what it takes to be "loved by us".
Aesthetically the film is surprisingly ugly for a Ridley Scott production, with kitschy production design and dated, tacky music-video lighting.
4/10 – Worth one viewing.