Women buff up to dominate flicks

By JAMI BERNARD
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Cameron Diaz kicks butt.
So does Carrie-Anne Moss. Halle Berry, too.
Actresses are the new action heroes, going toe to pedicured toe with the guys this summer in some of the hottest movies, and audiences of both sexes are eating it up. Strength is in; simpering is out.
Female characters have been getting tougher in recent years in response to changing audience tastes and a changing cultural climate, but the tough-gal stance is hitting its sinewy stride this summer.
The current crop of action titles features actresses who can beat the stuffing out of an assailant, preferably while wearing leather and looking really hot. (Some things never change.)
What's onscreen
In "The Matrix Reloaded," Moss is right up there once again with co-star Keanu Reeves doing the complicated "wire work" that makes possible all that anti-gravitational martial-arts choreography.
In the "X-Men" sequel, Berry is back as one of a corps of mutants with earth-shattering powers. Her character, Storm, spinner of twisters, gives a makeover to the once-dainty TV "weather girl."
In next month's "Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life," Angelina Jolie returns to her take-no-prisoners video-game character to save civilization.
In "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle," arriving June 27, Barrymore and buddies Diaz and Lucy Liu return to solve murders within the witness-protection program. The No. 1 suspect is played by Demi Moore, who did one-armed push-ups in 1997's "G.I. Jane."
Getting buff
Moore's terrific triceps are largely to thank for such casting. Upper-body strength is the area of musculature most difficult to develop in women, making it all the more impressive and valuable in action fare.
Linda Hamilton in the second "Terminator" movie in 1991 did pull-ups with astonishing ease, marking her as one of the first major buff action babes.
Hamilton does not return in this summer's "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," but a new character, a "terminatrix" played by Kristanna Loken, joins the cast. Her formidable presence prompts star Arnold Schwarzenegger to rework his famous catch phrase to "She'll be back!"
Even when they are just window dressing, like the lone female driver in "2 Fast 2 Furious," nouveau screen goddesses are still forces to be reckoned with.
Cyclical favor
Strong women aren't new to movies, but the taste for them appears to be cyclical. The taste for tough women in action movies can be traced to the sleep pod of 1979's "Alien," where Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley awoke in tank top and panties. She took on everything outer space had to throw at her -- in her underwear.
Tough dames were a staple of film noir, particularly in the '40s, when a hard-boiled cynicism crept into the movies. Like Barbara Stanwyck in "Double Indemnity" (1944), they were psychologically deadly, and their mere presence made men weak.
Now the mood is sunnier, but the threat is just as deadly. Charlie's Angels are sweet and silly when they're not doing aerial stunts or performing choke holds on men who dared underestimate them.
It's been a gradual but steady evolution, coinciding with the rise of health-club culture, in which bodies are sculpted by gym rats with Michelangelo artistry and sweat equity.
As cultural critic Daniel Harris points out in "Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism," we love protagonists whose bodies are deadly weapons, who bust doors off their hinges and brutalize baddies, precisely because we personally feel so out of touch with our physical side.
Logically, then, the more helpless we feel in a world full of terrorists, uncertainty and financial volatility, the more we require physical strength on screen. The soft feminine curves of yesteryear are a sign of vulnerability.
If Marilyn Monroe were in her prime today, she'd probably be making like Jolie in the Lara Croft movie. She'd sheathe her voluptuousness in a skintight cat suit and show the boys of summer a thing or two.