Parents' Guide to Jolt

The dramatic impact of Jolt is mightily diminished by the fact that the plot details are utterly incidental to a seen-it-before, predictable, repetitive, and at times boring narrative. The movie's real goal appears to be the maximum display of a small, attractive woman's ability to gleefully do harm to larger, physically strong men who mistakenly expect to demolish her in their violent encounters. She likes to occasionally blurt, "I want to crush your skull with my bare hands," and she means it. Over and over, she walks away triumphant from her bloody dirty work, smugly proud that once again she has used her super-human speed, agility, strength, and smarts to reduce strong men into whimpering bits. Rather than exemplifying women's empowerment, it actually demeans it by suggesting that women can play characters who are as absurd and off-putting as some usually played by men, not exactly a step toward progress for women in Hollywood.

The action is weighed down by heavy-handed contrivances. In one scene, Lindy is running through a hospital from the police but suddenly, when she finds herself in a newborn ward, inexplicably stops. The only reason can be to stage the ensuing scene in which she heartlessly flings innocent newborns to a police officer who is more concerned with saving babies flying dangerously through the air than shooting and capturing Lindy. While this may look like a representation of female empowerment at first glance, Lindy's fearlessness and superior strength come at the expense of an inability to experience love, companionship, and other human joys, suggesting that only women who are both a danger to society and permanently incapable of a self assured serenity can achieve self actualization in a world stacked them. All of this leads to a highly unsurprising "big reveal" featuring Susan Sarandon that does little to shock us but a lot to set up the sequel for a money-making franchise.