MovieChat Forums > Ava (2020) Discussion > As soon as I saw her running

As soon as I saw her running


I knew I would no longer believe anything about Chastain’s character being some special ops assassin as soon as I saw her in the running scene. Stocky legs, duck footed gait and like she had her left hip replaced. no athleticism whatsoever. Why can’t they find athletic women who look normal running? It was like Brie Larson running in Captain Marvel. As soon as you see it, all suspension of disbelief is gone.

reply

I felt the same when I saw the cast for the latest Charlie's Angel's reboot all so thin and emaciated. I didn't buy them as the actions heroes as I was supposed to see them as.

reply

Need some Gina Carano in there

reply

Definitely one of the few women who has both the physique and physical abilities to be convincing on screen as an action heroine.

Daughter of the Wolf was pretty good for a direct-to-video action movie. If you like Gina, and haven't seen it, that's one of her better efforts.

reply

Thanks for the recommendation for Daughter of the wolf - just finished watching it and enjoyed it! Beautiful cinematography

reply

Cool man, glad you checked it out and enjoyed it. It's probably her most legitimate straight-to-video movie. It even has Richard Dreyfuss! (Which I thought was weird.)

The cinematography was great, the wolves were cool, the use of practical action over CGI was very much appreciated, and Gina's performance was one of her better ones.

reply

Only problem with her is that she can't act for shit. From what I gathered in seeing her in Mandolorian she hasn't gotten any better over the years. A shame she never bothered to take some classes and try to learn. She has the right look though.

reply

You're so right. She can't act worth a shit, and has gotten no better. Those around her need to do an Intervention and drag her to a acting school. Physically, she would've been perfect for Wonder Woman. Just physically...….

reply

But as far as star wars women go, she's a significantly better actor than Ridley at least.

Maybe they do need to provide better acting classes for some of these gals.

reply

The problem is they current way studios operate, they just assume if you throw in enough CGI and explosion, that it doesn't matter if the actors have any talent as long as they look right. A shame they don't have some studios that operate the way they did in the golden age of Hollywood where they would get someone that had the right looks for movie, get them under contract and then give them acting lessons and small bit parts until they were ready to be the headliners in movies. It was the reason that in the old movies you can complain about the script being shit but the acting over all was much better. The studios took the time to develop the actor and it showed.

reply

Now that you mention it, Brie Larson's gait was weird!! Yeah, you'd think it would be a required skill requirement for those cast in action roles.

reply

Completely agreed. Ava was not believable to kick ass as her physique was way to fragile. For this kind of movies is it difficult to find a tough nice looking lady? This movie had so much potential.

reply

Geena Davis was believable in The Long Kiss Goodnight. She is tall, athletic looking and the character used more swiftness and skill in her fights that brute strength.

reply

And remember her in A League of Their Own? It’s been a long time since I saw it but I recall no bad reactions to her athleticism. Or how about Hillary Swank in the boxing movie? Pretty damned impressive.

reply

Davis looked like she had been playing baseball all her life in that movie.

reply

I caught that too. That looked out of shape. Then you see her fighting off an entire battalion of elite guards. Yeah that didn’t add up.

reply

While the whole fighting off hordes is ridiculous, you have to remember that it is just as implausible when you watch an action movie with a guy fighting off hordes as well. Could a guy more easily take on another guy? Sure, but if you threw a guy into a scenario where he had to fight 10 or more bad guys in quick succession, the reality is he couldn't do it. Even the best fighter is going to be having fatigue set in and at some point would really just get his ass handed to him. So for some of this you just have to suspend belief because lets face it when you watched Rambo killing hordes of bad guys it was even more implausible as any woman in an action movie.

reply

Then get a body double to do the running scene.

reply

The only guy who was believable fighting off hordes of opponents was Bruce Lee, and he was lucky they always came at him one at a time.

Oh, and Chuck Norris of course.

I had to laugh when Tom Cruise played Jack Reacher and was supposed to be able to beat up 6 guys at once.

reply

Yes, if even the best fighter were jumped at the same time by a lot of men or women for that matter the fighter is going to lose because it is just not possible for an individual to beat back an onslaught of attackers. It was one of the things that always makes me cringe in martial arts movies, the good guy gets surrounded and then the group of a dozen bad guys surround him and wait patiently their turn to attack him one at a time... as if BAD guys would have some sense of fair play and not want a lopsided victory. I'm sure Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris might have gotten some good hits on an onslaught of attackers but both of them would have ended up down for the count in the end.

I know the Jack Reacher fights are ridiculous but at least when they eliminate all 6 pretty much at the same time it gets past the bullshit fight sequence faster.

reply

You're nitpicking....but you're so right. I noticed that, and kinda thought she looked out of place. All of a sudden, she looked unbelievable in the role.

reply

As I watched this, I was thinking of all the 'deadly female assassin' movies I've seen.

Except maybe for Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde, I don't think I've ever seen a believable action female killer movie that featured hand-to-hand combat.

reply

She was believable as an assassin. Her specialty was luring men into thinking she wanted them, then killing them when they let their guard down. Plus you don't need to be a great athlete to shoot someone.

The scene they should have left out is where she takes down a squad of armed soldiers with her mad special ops skills. She's not Black Canary.

reply