April Showers: Angelina's Power Cleanse
Friday, April 22, 2011 at 11:00PM Kurt here again. How do you like your Angelina Jolie? Hacking the Gibson under the name of Acid Burn? Wailing about her lost son in a cloche hat? Wooing the Hollywood Foreign Press opposite Johnny Depp in Venice? Please. You like her kicking ass, and with respect to fans of Wanted, she's really never done it better than in Tomb Raider, the underrated video game adap that houses what we can probably call her signature performance.
All of 24 when she shot the movie, Angie wasn't yet Salt skeletal, and still had some of those Gia curves to flaunt. She gets her chance when director Simon West shoots her in a post-training shower scene, where she washes off the sweat worked up from emptying clips into a killer robot.
I love this scene because it's so freaking gratuitous. West might argue that he included it to help humanize Lara Croft (tomb raiders need showers, too!), but we all know it has the same objective as a Maxim cover shoot. And who's arguing, anyway?
I'm still of the mind that Angie is the most perfectly put together female on the globe, and this scene might just mark the peak of that perfectly-put-togetherness.
More More More after the jump.
The highlight of the fleshy excess is when Angie does a wicked hair flip that no sane person, tomb raider or otherwise, would do without a camera watching. But, again, we have no complaints.
After her shoot shower, Miss Lara scoffs at a frilly sun dress offered to her by her butler and keeps a-strutting toward the bedroom. She tosses off her towel, leading to a half-boob shot that I imagine plenty of horny folks replayed a lot more times than I did to get this screen grab.
"I'm only trying to turn you into a lady," the butler says, still holding the dress. "And a lady should be modest."
So much for that.
previous April Showers: Pierce Brosnan, Bill Murray, Marlon Brando, Jeremy Renner, Will Smith, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Milla Jovovich and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Reader Comments (10)
Oh this made me LOL. my favorite bit
it's so true. But one of the things i love about her signature roles (i'd add girl interrupted as its non-genre counterpart) is how in-your-face performative they are. It's like she knows you're the voyeur and she'll gladly do her extrovert exhibitionist duty.I can't remember the last film she did where she was truly compelling -- she kind of fell off after what...Original Sin? Or maybe the first Tomb Raider. In those early roles she was like a rabid animal, chewing up everything in sight, demanding everyone to watch her. But at a certain point, it all went away. She lost that ambition to act, I believe.
Her rise was very meteoric though, no? She got the meaty roles and big awards very fast in her career. Gwyneth may have reigned as the new Grace Kelly, but Angelina had the respect early on.
Bia -- an apt description of her absurd watchability early on. I assume that her drive just went elsewhere given her philanthropy. But it would be nice to see her just seize a movie again.
Nat -- That's a really interesting point - the philanthropy being the turning point of her professional hunger. It'd be fun to go back through her filmography and study the evolution.
Her roles have kind of mirrored her in real life, haven't they? Wild, troubled young women in the 90s and lately more mature characters.
She's gorgeous, but the bath scene in Wanted was epic.
She was never more beautiful than in Mr. and Mrs Smith though. In fact, I didn't find her mindblowingly stunning until 2004-2005ish. And though she was always hot- it seemed to be around that same time that she started to be redundantly touted the most beautiful woman on earth (a title well deserved). Mr. and Mrs Smith may be complete fluff- but Angie- my god what a face and body.
She makes the film immensely watchable for me. After that role, I'm thinking no one will be able to match her confident sexuality as Lara Croft. And I say that as a gay man!
Thanks for the useful insight reviews.
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Wow...have you guys not seen Angelina in Salt? The woman burns in this film...love how she seduces a character thru bulletproof glass...then kills him with the chain of her handcuffs... all in a matter of a few short scenes...animal ferocity...yowza!