Frankly, Scarlett – Jeff Roedel’s take on Scarlett Johansson’s recent turn to action-oriented films

In theaters Friday: At Any Price, Mud, Pain & Gain

New on Blu-ray: Gangster Squad, The Impossible, Promised Land

From the opening scene of Lost in Translation I thought, “Yeah, in 10 years this girl’s going to be kicking a lot of people in the throat.”

No, not really. And yet, Scarlett Johansson’s career has taken a curiously action-oriented turn lately. After her David Sitek-abetted dalliance with music—one I think was not without a few choice tunes—the 28-year-old is all about the action.

Of course, she’s playing the red-haired Rooskie Avenger Black Widow in four Marvel Comics movies, and this fall she’ll be seen in as an ultra violent alien body snatcher in sci-fi actioner Under the Skin, roaming the Scottish highlands in search of male prey. Now, today it was announced that she’s in talks to play the no-nonsense heroine in French director Luc Besson’s new drug-running action flick Lucy.

I just watched Johansson in Hitchcock, where she was on the wrong end of a knife fight as Psycho shower victim Janet Leigh. That movie was well done—even if it did feel a little like a film made for filmmakers—and though Johansson playing Leigh was more earnest mimicry than stirring, emotive exploration, still it was one of the actresses most impressive roles of late. So, why such an emphasis on action parts?

Financial considerations aside, her appearances as Black Widow in Iron Man and Avengers movies have been thinner than her black leather catsuits. Her screen presence screams the type of more interesting indie and art house fair she was making years ago—with Woody Allen and Sofia Coppola—as well as the type of mumble-core parts Greta Gerwig is creating now with director Noah Baumbach (see: Frances Ha). Is Johansson missing out?

To her credit, she did have a killer audition for the role of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but director David Fincher did not cast her because he says, backhanded comment alert, that she was too sexy for the part.

Under the Skin, from director Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast, Radiohead music videos), will be an interesting test to see if Johansson can weld a character with depth to a pulpy thriller, but so far her workout as an action figure feels like an unimpressive waste. Still, if four mindless Marvel movies is what it takes for a visionary like Besson to create something memorable with Lucy, then maybe all of Johansson’s kicking and screaming will pay off.