I can't help but be dumbfounded when I think the director of such excellent thought provoking films as Alien, Blade Runner & Thelma & Louise directed this trite piece of PC girl power. Whether or not women belong in front line combat or special forces is an extremely important issue and deserves a far more serious consideration than what is presented in this movie. G.I. Jane spoonfeeds simplistic answers to complicated questions. I wonder if the moviemakers even agree with the moral message of thier own movie.



The film lives and dies on Demi Moore's performance and she is completely wrong for the role. Demi Moore is just simply not believable as a Navy SEAL trainee who lasts longer than a few days. She is 5'5 and a slender bodytype. I don't care how tough or buff a person is, a person that small, male or female would not be able to handle the hardest training of any military in the world. Ask yourself. Do you really want someone as small as Moore protecting you and yours? In the special forces doing the dirtiest of the dirty work? Me neither. A bigger woman would at least have been more credible as strong enough. Lucy Lawless & Sigourney Weaver come to mind.



The movie seems to be a compendium of modern military movie stereotypes and lazy scriptwriting. The politicians are slimy and the soldiers are hateful, stupid and cruel. How not original. Moore's characterization of Lt. O'Neill lacks any subtlty or nuance. She has no inner monologue besides a constant "be tough" mantra. We are oblidged to root for Moore's character not out of sympathy or understanding but from a filmgoer's obligation to root for the hero-protagonist vs. the bad guys.



Important questions are raised but real discussion is avoided in favor of Moore amping up her tuff-guy-with-[...] response to everything. The ending, as many other reviewers have noted, is contrived and silly. I have a hard time seeing the military putting a whole team of untested trainees in a real special OPs situation. In the end, Ridley Scott seems oddly content to make an ordinary PC era Hollywood patriotic music and bullets movie.