G.I. Jane (1997)

Waste of time

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

OK. I'm European/ME background so not the greatest fan of the US military esp. not Hollywood depictions of it. I don't want Islam in Europe (they tried twice before, not a 3rd time thank you), but nor do I want the West intruding there. Libya, Syria, and Iraq we should not be there. So I don't like the Libyan bit. Yes it happened for real as a Western intervention, no I still don't like it. It was ineffective and unsuccessful. I hated the invasion of Iraq 2003. Why am I saying all this? Because for all the 'US military is the Best in the World' as this movie tries so hard to portray (best, meanest, roughest, toughest etc.) it hasn't won a single war since against Japan 1945. GW1 was a 100hr 'turkey shoot' hi-tech war against peasants. The US military is not the best in the world, just the most expensive, and the smallest by population resource base (about less than 1% of the population). I thought Blackhawk Down was a more realistic portrayal of the US SF in an Islamic environment. Now to Demi More. I thought she performed a thankless role well. Didn't do her career much good though… Personally I do not approve of or agree with women in combat roles. Not one bit. Any other part of the military-welcome, but not combat. Esp. not in the ME where it seems at least 60% of the US effort has been for the last 15 years. There is presently a huge controversy in the US about opening up the SF to women. They the SF operatives apparently do not want it. Only the politicos (very well portrayed in the movie) want it for stupid non-military or operational reasons. If a woman in uniform is captured in the ME by Jihadis, she will endure a nightmare that will scar, damage and ruin her for life.Out there attitudes to khuffar (Infidel/non-Muslim) women in uniform are many times worse even than for Muslim women who rebel against the religion. What DM went through with Master Chief would be 'a walk in the park' compared to what she would undergo in reality at Jihadi hands. So that argument about women in combat is mostly unrealistic. And the film portrayal, while maybe realistic about the training, is unrealistic about what an enemy would do to a Woman in uniform... Not merely 'a bit of roughness' but utter screaming barbarity... The point of GI Jane was to portray women going into SF training then into combat. It failed to show the outcome of that reality in the fully conflictual (Iraqi/Syria) ME. Possibly it only wanted to portray her readiness to operate in a unit while not showing 'cultural context'. This was cheating IMHO. Imagine GI Jane in Blackhawk down. That would much more realistic. Imagine her as a chopper pilot, like the guy who got dragged off. This movie failed to portray the argument of women in SF except in the most 'entertaining' light. So it was entertaining, for that I gave it 5. But for lack of realism in its representational purpose I wouldn't give it more. A 'Blackhawk Down' scenario with a female operative would have been much more realistic

Senator DeHaven (Anne Bancroft) pressures the Navy to be gender blind. They accept as long as a woman test case can measure up to the men's standards. They figure on the U.S. Navy Combined Reconnaissance Team which has a 60% wash out rate. DeHaven picks Lieutenant Jordan O'Neil (Demi Moore) out of the approved candidates for her looks. Command Master Chief John James Urgayle (Viggo Mortensen) is their trainer. She has to overcome expectations, sexism, politics and the pressure of the program to succeed.There is nothing surprising or original in this movie. It's got all the training and director Ridley Scott is an expert at jazzing up those 'action' scenes. The most compelling originality comes from Demi Moore shaving her hair. I do have to say that she looks fierce with the bald head. She looks fierce generally and Scott has her exercising up a storm. The movie probably needs some of the other characters to step up but nobody can ever be on the same level as Demi.

"G.I. Jane" is the story of Lieutenant Jordan O'Neill, a Naval Intelligence officer who gets chosen by a senator to be the test dummy for woman's acceptance into Military Combat. She gets put into training for the Navy SEALS, the most elite and toughest training. Now, O'Neill must prove she has what it takes to be among the best of the boys. Directed by Ridley Scott and co-written by the creator of the "Chronicles of Riddick" series, I wasn't sure what to expect. Ridley Scott is an amazing director but I didn't like "Pitch Black" that much, so I didn't know if I ended up liking this movie. But you know what? I highly enjoyed it.Demi Moore plays Lieutenant O'Neill, a tough, no-nonsense girl who just wants to get in on the action. Out of all the roles I've seen Demi Moore in, this is my favourite one yet. She's strong-willed, determined, and as the film goes on, she becomes a giant badass. If there was ever a woman's version of "The Expendables", Demi Moore would definitely be in it. She's a great character and you really want to see her succeed and kick all the guy's asses. She also gets into the best shape of her life. Even when she shaves her head, forms abs and gets totally ripped, she is still incredibly hot.Viggo Mortensen plays John, the Master Chief. No, not the one from Halo. The moment he steps on screen, you know this guy is hardcore. He's brutal, mean, and is really a dick towards O'Neill. Of course towards the end they become allies but the stuff he does to O'Neill is just terrible. You do not like this guy at all, but that just shows that Viggo Mortensen did a good job as Master Chief. Only way he could be any more badass is with an energy sword.The atmosphere in this movie is awesome. You're watching all these guys and O'Neill go through boot camp and you're just sitting there going "Yeah, I couldn't do that. That's just gross". Like there's one part where they have five minutes to eat dinner and do they get fresh food? No. They get the scraps from their lunch. So their eating like half eaten corn and weird goop that been sitting there for half a day. I have to be honest, I wouldn't survive 1 day at that place.The last 20 minutes are my least favourite part of the film. It's kind of like "Full Metal Jacket" in the way that once they leave bootcamp, the movie goes downhill. But unlike "Full Metal Jacket", the movie only goes downhill a bit. It was kind of just an excuse to make stuff blow up and have a gunfight but I'm not complaining. Got to say, Demi Moore grenading Iraqis and Aragorn sniping people is pretty cool.Overall, I highly enjoyed "G.I. Jane". I thought it was a great entertainment and Demi Moore was excellent. It's a badass military film that shows that girls really can kick ass, and I would watch this any day. Definitely a buy on Blu-Ray.

The first thing that I heard about this movie was that the US Navy was opposed to making it and was very resistant to allowing Scott to use any of their facilities. I don't know what happened in the end but they seemed to be using some pretty hi-tech weaponry. One just doesn't walk down to a corner store and buy an Apache, though I thought the Apache was being used very ineffectively in the situation. Basically the Navy Seals were being pursued by a Lybian border patrol and they were on foot, so the Apache was firing missiles. I would have used the chain gun because it is much more effective against infantry than missiles, missiles are for tanks and other vehicles.G.I. Jane is a protest movie and it is about women in the military in front line jobs. The Navy Seals are said to be the best of the front line troops and thus we focus on this. The movie is much more political and deals a lot with the political ramifications of what is going on. The biggest protest here is that nobody wants to bring women home in body bags. What the women say is that they can do anything that a man can do, so if a man can be a front line soldier, then a woman should be as well. Starship Troopers actually has women as front line soldiers. We see the main character wanting to be treated like all the other men, but at first she is given help because they feel that she needs it. What she doesn't want is to be treated any differently. The is opposition to what she is doing but it doesn't come out as strong as it did in the previews. In the previews we are led to believe that everywhere she goes she faces opposition, but this is not true. People do try to persuade her from doing it, but she is stubborn and continues.It is the political side of the movie that draws the criticism. The politicians say that they don't want women coming home in body bags. The whole idea is about change and people don't want to do it. Feminisim is a very strong force in today's society and now we are moving further into what originally were male only jobs. Today we see women weightlifters and labourers, but we still don't see women soldiers. In Australia we have women on the naval ships but not in infantry. Now, in this movie, we see the beginnings of a protest against this.The movie itself was a little confusing at times because the characters seem to mumble and it was hard to concentrate with Louisa and Melissa doing their usual girly things behind me, but that was not Ridley Scott's fault. His dark, wet style is very evident here, though it is quite different to Burton's style. Scott focuses more on this protest, and his darkness is much more realistic. Scott seems to keep the movie dark as a symbol of this world where women are not free to do what they like. Scott also seems to like rain because it is raining a lot in this movie. This seems to symbolise the struggle that the soldiers are going through in the training.The training is very hard, and Scott reminds us of this constantly. They eat from bins and go through training to handle torture and capture. They are beaten up, drowned, and pushed to the limit. They say that there is a 60% dropout rate, and most of them want Jane to do it, but she doesn't. She makes it through a large part of the course only to become a political embarrassment.