Hollywood Still Doesn’t Know How to Write Action Movies for Women

G20 is streaming on Prime Video. It’s a throwback to ’90s action blockbusters like Air Force One, Under Siege, and Executive Decision. In that sense, it’s fine and holds no surprises. If you think you’ll enjoy watching Viola Davis be a badass in an evening gown while Antony Starr (The Boys) chews scenery as The Terrorist, I’ll recommend G20 on those points alone. It also clocks in at a tight 1:48, which feels like a miracle when the most recent Jurassic Park movie runs two and a half hours.

But it got me thinking about the state of action movies in the 21st century. What was once solely the domain of middle-aged white guys punching and shooting their way through a brigade of villains hellbent on destroying the world/the ol’ U.S. of A/the city/the family has had to diversify. It took way too long, if we’re being honest.

While we still have Jason Statham Stathaming his way through multiple releases a year, most of the reliable action heroes we loved have aged out of the world-saving game. And those still clinging to their glory days are pushing out a lot of slop. I’m looking at you, Arnold and Sylvester. Harrison Ford always had his charm to fall back on, and we’re all going to let Bruce Willis peacefully retire without saying anything more about the terrible string of movies he was in before his illness got the best of him.

Now we have The Rock, Keanu, and Chris Pratt filling the void for the most part. But they’re caught up in franchise films, working on Netflix/Prime Video projects that all look alike—or teaming with the same directors over and over to make films that are indistinguishable from each other in their mediocrity. When a movie like G20 comes out, we should be celebrating. It’s directed by a Latinx woman, it stars a Black woman, and two of the three writers are women. But there’s not much to celebrate when a team like that is regurgitating the same old storylines Hollywood was writing for white men 30 years ago.

Like I said, as far as action movies go, G20 is fine. But The Woman King is better. It tells an original story based on historical figures with cultural relevance. And if your only interest in action movies is the action, it’s got plenty of that too.

Helen Mirren was recently asked how she felt about the possibility of rebooting James Bond as a female character. Her response, in part, was “…If you hear about what women did in the French Resistance, they’re amazingly, unbelievably courageous. So I would tell real stories about extraordinary women who’ve worked in that world.”

If the action movie genre is going to thrive, studios need to do better than shoehorning talented women into male-coded roles (see also Gunpowder Milkshake and The 355). They need to find the stories that allow women to shine as action heroes in their own right, not by trying to wear some man’s hand-me-down shoes.