The Good, the Bad & the Badass: Angelina Jolie

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Last week, we took a look at the career of the iconic, beloved Ian McKellen. This week's subject is just as beloved, both for her iconic work on-screen, and her humanitarian work off-screen. Oh, and let's not forget, she's insanely hot….

The first time I saw Angelina Jolie, my heart just about stopped. It was in 1995, when the movie HACKERS came out. I was thirteen years old, and her insanely appealing, exotic looks blew my mind. While she was a sex symbol right out of the gate, over the years that followed she's turned in to much more. She's proven herself as a serious actress, an action heroine, a light comedienne (although I'd wager comedy is still not her strong suit), and off-screen, a humanitarian and role-model, and one half of the most glamorous couple in Hollywood.

MALEFICENT marks Jolie's return to the big-screen, after a four-year absence. Recently, Jolie underwent a preventative double mastectomy after genetic testing revealed the presence of the BRCA mutation, which left her at an abnormally high risk for breast cancer (a disease which affected her late mother). Despite this, Jolie's plunged right back into work, embarking on a press tour to promote BRCA testing, as well as directing her second film, UNBROKEN, which boasts a screenplay by the Coen Bros, and is already generating tremendous Oscar buzz.

To me, Jolie has never been better than she was in GIA. Despite being an HBO movie, this was the thing that really put her on the map, and made people realize that she was more than just another pretty face. Granted, the movie is something of a DVD favourite thanks to her numerous hot nude scenes, but there's a lot more it to that, and Gia Carangi – a real life supermodel who spiraled into drug addiction and died at age twenty-six of AIDS – is one hell of a role for her. Other than GIRL, INTERRUPTED, I don't think Jolie's ever really gotten the chance to be as edgy as she is here on the big screen, which is a shame.

Outside of MR & MRS. SMITH and WANTED I've never been a fan of Jolie's action movies. Directors get too caught up making her into a fetish fantasy figure, and both of her TOMB RAIDER films are terrible, even though Jolie is fine in both of them. SALT was a fairly successful film, and for the first half hour, I thought it was a pretty efficient spy thriller. But once she dons the (hot) black wig and turns into this ultra-sexy killer spy it becomes absolutely ridiculous, although audiences didn't seem to mind as it was relatively well-received.

I find it sad that her film with Clint Eastwood, CHANGELING, was utterly rejected by critics and audiences alike, as it was a perfectly fine (if a touch slow) drama. She's wonderful as a mother whose son disappears, and almost goes insane when the authorities try to pass an impostor off as her lost child. It's really one of Jolie's best performances, and ripe for rediscovery.

I'm actually not a huge fan of Doug Liman's MR & MRS. SMITH. It's a decent action comedy, but it's undermined by an ending that resolves nothing, and seems to promise a sequel which nobody's ever gotten around to making. That said, Jolie's chemistry with soon-to-be-partner Brad Pitt is white-hot. Their big fight is like WAR OF THE ROSES on steroids, and one of the only really great parts of an otherwise so-so movie.

5. WANTED
4. CHANGELING
3. A MIGHTY HEART
2. GIRL, INTERRUPTED
1. GIA

This week sees the long-awaited release of MALEFICENT, while this X-mas she moves behind the camera for UNBROKEN. Given her stature, Jolie's been linked with tons of roles, including (potentially) SALT 2, but nothing is set yet.