One of the biggest problems for female lead action movies is that men cannot relate to the movie. The action movie genre audience is predominantly male. It is harder for a man to relate to problems of a woman in these roles and hence many lose interest.
The next problem is that some of the action sequences in these films are totally unbelievable. For instance watch the first 45 seconds in the following youtube video
I just can't fathom how any of that is possible. Let's just get scientific here because that is how I can view this rationally. I believe that is the Hoover Dam which has a height of roughly 726 feet. If a person free falls at roughly 250 feet per second then they have roughly 3 seconds to navigate mid air to the helicopter, get the blade running, control it and take it from a nose dive to horizontal and flying away, RIGHT................ Sure one can argue it's just a movie but when it comes to action people like to see stuff that is possible under the right circumstances.
Finally, men are conditioned in society to see women in movies as sex objects and not those that could beat up someone in a fight. We see this everywhere. The problem is that all of these characters in all the lead action roles today are shown in clothing that is also unrealistic for the role they are playing. Who needs to show that much skin when on a covert ops mission? A real outfit would be tactical gear. However, since we are conditioned to see women as sex objects we don't seem to notice. In the end the movies are only somewhat successful because of the sex appeal and not because of the actual movie itself. Look at all the lead action roles in the last decade for women. There aren't many that don't sexualize their lead roles. A good example is Halle Berry's "Catwoman". Horribly shot movie, but she looks good in the outfit right? IS this the future of women's roles in movies? Who cares about the plot as long as they look good?
