If we're going to settle the debate about violence in movies, we'd best get our definitions straight. When a leather-clad Keanu Reeves flies through the air and kicks somebody in the face, it's called violence. When a leather-clad Cameron Diaz flies through the air and kicks somebody in the face, it's called empowerment.
Empowerment has a healthy, positive ring to it.
Certainly it sounds nicer than violence, the word so many angry U.S. senators used last month when they criticized Hollywood for selling it to children. Sheepish studio execs promised never, ever to market violence to children again, cross our hearts and hope to die. Or, more accurately, bad, clean fun. This clumsy, spotty screen adaptation is certainly effervescent, but it isn't very well put together. As opposed to its stars, who are effervescent and put together very well indeed.