G.I. Jane

After dragging literature (The Scarlet Letter) and the adult-entertainment industry (Striptease) down to her own level, Demi Moore takes on the military-industrial complex. Directed by Ridley Scott as a kind of Thelma & Louise crazed by steroids, G.I. Jane is actually good fun, sometimes intentionally so. Made the first female candidate for admission in the insanely gung-ho Navy SEALS by plotting politicos, Lieutenant Jordan O'Neil (Moore) embarrasses her supposed supporters by proving tougher, smarter, and sweatier than the men (her "Suck my dick!" scene enters the pantheon of mind-boggling movie moments). As it goes through its boot-camp-to-killing-zone motions with rabid absurdity -- the scenes of exhausted recruits rolling huge cylinders up sand dunes in a thunderstorm has a certain Dantesque surreality -- the film's macho, feminist, and fascist convictions (the climactic combat is an illegal incursion into Libya) can be overlooked. Unlike Moore's narcissism, which injects unintentional mirth into the film's hoariest clichés and pretensions to relevance. Opens Friday at the Holiday, Lincoln Mall, Tri-Boro, Warwick Mall, and Woonsocket cinemas.

-- Peter Keough