Vaughn, who was born missing an arm, writes: “I am turning 30 years old next week. No argument I can make here about Furiosa’s subversive appeal would be more convincing than a recent post by Laura Vaughn on her Tumblr. But it’s impossible to come out of Mad Max: Fury Road not believing that you’ve not only just witnessed the birth of an iconic character but the birth of an iconic type of character. While Tom Hardy does a very good job playing Mad Max, he hasn’t inspired a fraction of this kind of reaction, maybe because he spends half the movie with a muzzle over his face. For proof, check out the bursting galleries of fan art the already flourishing cosplay or read the moving testimonials posted by smitten fans. Imperator Furiosa, Charlize Theron’s character in, and the real star of, Mad Max: Fury Road, is the most iconic new action hero we’ve seen in at least a decade. She has little to do with the type of action hero we’ve been watching for the last 20 years - and everything to do with the type we’re going to want to watch for the next 20. He shaved her head, cut off her arm, and named her Furiosa. The Rock completely seems like he should - except that in the meantime, some half-mad, 70-year-old Australian was busy concocting an entirely new type of action hero. Action fans, spoiled by the bounty of the 1980s and enduring the great Action Hero drought ever since, have been busy measuring every Nicolas Cage, Vin Diesel, Jason Statham, Matt Damon, Chris Pine, and so on to see who might inherit the soiled muscle-shirts left behind by Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Willis, and Mel Gibson. The first sign of this shift was probably the fact that action heroes either aged into middle-aged dads or started reassembling like some hair-metal supergroup embarking on the state-fair circuit. The Rock’s problem is that this kind of action hero no longer seems very interesting. He’s one of the few humans alive who can look convincing firing one of these. He’s got Schwarzenegger’s muscles, Willis’s gift for zingers, and Stallone’s (well, early Stallone’s) not-inconsiderable acting chops. None of which is great news for Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson - and I don’t want to pick on him we’ll sing his praises in a minute - given that he conforms so completely to a classic conception of the action hero that now seems outdated and possibly obsolete. Review: You Don’t Just Watch Mad Max: Fury Road, You Rock Out to It They are kin to the characters that Manohla Dargis recently identified as “the new heroines” in her review for Ex Machina: “totally hot, bracingly cold, powerfully sovereign - and posthuman.” Related Stories (Well, them, and John Wick.) They are tough, taciturn, and adept - you know, classic action-hero types - but they escape overt sexualization and even nod toward androgyny (often with shaved heads). Whether your preference runs toward Mad Max: Fury Road, or Lucy, or Edge of Tomorrow, or Hanna, or Haywire, all the most interesting, satisfying action heroes right now are played by women. There have long been female leads in action films - some exhilarating, some embarrassing - but what we’re witnessing now is the birth of a new ideal of the action hero. Or maybe Carrie-Anne Moss, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Summer Glau in Serenity, or Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, or, what the hell, let’s kick it all the way back to the original queen mother of ass-kicking, Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley. One of these people is poised to become America’s next big action star, but it’s not the one you might think.īlame Charlize Theron. Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson is a six-foot-five former professional wrestler who boasts the unlikely combination of matinee-idol looks, a handy way with one-liners, and the physique of a contender for Mr. Emily Blunt is a five-foot-seven English actress best known, perhaps, for her expert comic turn as the harried assistant to a barely veiled and tyrannical version of Anna Wintour in The Devil Wears Prada.
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