If Robert Redford's career is likely to receive a boost from the positive reaction to Captain America 2, then that counts even more for the film's female lead, Redford's Horse Whisperer star Scarlett Johansson. Of course, this is the third time Johansson has played Russian superspy Natasha Romanoff, but with each film she has been given a little more of a character. Now that she has been given second billing to Captain America himself, there is a sense that her character might have much more a role to play in the well reviewed new movie. This could not have come at a better time for Johansson, who is finally fulfilling the promise of her teenage career. Before she became a successful A-lister, Johansson appeared in a number of interesting, quality films with directors like the Coens (The Man Who Wasn't There), Terry Zwigoff (Ghost World), and Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation). Since then though, she has been content to coast on her existent stardom in roles designed around nothing more than her sex appeal. Even her oft discussed period as Woody Allen's muse only yielded one decent movie: Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Recently, however, Johansson has been playing much more complex, interesting characters through subverting or playing around with her sex symbol status. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's porn themed anti-rom-com Don Jon saw her as a woman whose perfect body couldn't match her love interest's porn-fixated ideals, while he failed to live up to the romantic movie man she wanted. In Her she was a warm, likeable, flirty love interest, but one that existed only as a computer operating system. If there were awards for voice performances in live action movies, Johansson would assuredly have won one. Finally, if Her allowed Johansson to show off the full range and character of her vocal performance, this month's Under the Skin featured a mostly silent and low key performance as a predatory but confused alien in the body of a seductive woman, struggling to get to grips with humanity in a bleak, wintery Scotland. Between them, these movies show Johansson finally delivering the kind of movie performances that audiences hoped that they would see after Lost in Translation.
