Girl power

'The Brave One' and 'Resident Evil' inspire us to celebrate our favorite butt-kickin' ladies

By Brett Buckalew

Special to Metromix
September 17, 2007

It's never been easy for women to break into the action-movie boys' club. Hollywood tradition dictates the fairer sex share their hearts and beds with swaggering male protagonists, while never getting in on the testosterone-drenched pleasures of the action itself. Unless, that is, they're bound-and-gagged hostages of sneering, moustache-twirling villains.

And yet, as with any male-dominated business in this modern world, progress continues to be made. In the last couple decades, women have seized opportunities to kick mucho ass onscreen.

This month alone sees the release of two big-budget genre films that allow female stars to engage in the kind of bloody combat that used to be deemed safe only for the toughest male marquee names. Oscar winner Jodie Foster goes on a Charles Bronson-style vigilante spree in "The Brave One," while Milla Jovovich makes a serious dent in a post-apocalyptic zombie population in the sequel "Resident Evil: Extinction."

Foster and Jovovich have covered this brawny terrain before, and they both make our list of badass action-movie heroines to truly be reckoned with.

See who else made the cut.