‘Peppermint’: The blessing and curse of Jennifer Garner’s return to action

For the even more unaware, Sydney Bristow was the role Garner played for five seasons in J.J. Abrams’ “Alias,” one of the most important (truly for the impact it had on serialization in network television and beyond) and underrated television series of the early 2000s. 

Sydney Bristow is also a character who was responsible for some of the best TV fights of all time, ranked right up there with “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Banshee.” While the pinnacle of the TV fight scene is Nola/Burton from “Banshee” (and this deserves a content warning before you choose to click on the link to said fight), for the squeamish, Buffy/Faith from “Graduation Day, Part 1” (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) and Sydney/”Francie” from “The Telling” (“Alias”) are right up there on the top of the one-on-one combat mountain as well.

Because “Alias” has unfortunately been somewhat forgotten, that also means Sydney Bristow being one of television’s biggest badasses has also been forgotten…which also means that most of the memories people have of “action star Jennifer Garner” does in fact come from “Daredevil” (in all its Evanescence and playground-based “glory”) and “Elektra” (in all its...whatever that movie is). And that’s disappointing, because Sydney Bristow is one of television’s greatest badasses.

So naturally, anyone with this memory will naturally latch on to this somewhat return to form for Garner with the release of “Peppermint.” No offense to underrated gems like “Butter” or even the impending American remake of the terrific British series “Camping” — and it’s certainly not like I’m saying her career is on a downswing — but part of Garner’s charm as an actress has always been her ability to work as both a likable character and one who could definitely beat the crap out of you. And for way too long, that ability to beat the crap out of anyone has been denied. Until now, with “Peppermint.”

Upon initially seeing this trailer, one can honestly say, “thank you.” Because the moment this trailer dropped, one thing was clear: Garner is going to single-handedly save the action genre. But once you think past that for literally a minute, the return to the action genre feels like a Catch-22. 

Because this return to action doesn’t just exist as “Jennifer Garner, kicking ass and taking names once again”; it mostly exists (based on the premise and trailers) as “Jennifer Garner, star of an ‘old-man action’ flick.” 

That specific sub-genre is a popular one, though it’s not without its misses. Movies like “Taken” (the godfather of the genre) and “The Expendables” are essentially the top of the world when it comes to this sub-genre. But then you also have things like “The Equalizer,” or “The Grey,” or the one that looked like “‘Taken’ on a train” (“The Commuter”) or whatever Bruce Willis is doing these days. As you can also see, Liam Neeson is the king of old-man action. (“John Wick” might also technically fall in to this sub-genre, but it also falls in to a lot of other sub-genres. And is actually awesome.)

As the grieving and then vengeful mother Riley in “Peppermint,” Garner’s return to action essentially continues her (kind of underwhelming, to be perfectly honest) holding pattern of playing “the mom” in films, only this time with a gun. And to be fair, there’s nothing wrong with playing a mom — moms are badass even without the guns and muscles, by the way — but it also means that “Peppermint” is not so much a return to form as it is a lateral move. With this, Garner is still arguably playing a role that she’s been stuck in for years…only now she gets to be a mom who loses everything.

Also, something about “Peppermint” and its entry into the old-man action sub-genre is that it looks like it half-asses the transformation made to get to the action. Because the difference between Garner’s Riley in “Peppermint” and Neeson’s Bryan in the “Taken” franchise — at least based on what we know from Peppermint’s trailers — is that Neeson’s character was a trained CIA field agent who had “a particular set of skills” but put that life behind him; in “Peppermint,” Garner is honestly just a typical wife and mother who then goes off to Lian Yu or wherever and becomes a killing machine (after becoming a ghost) after a few years. The thing that makes it work is that aforementioned belief that Garner could kick your ass in real life — and she certainly did the work to get in shape for the role.

The other thing about this return to action and how it might not be “the” definitive return anyone was hoping for was that a large part of Garner’s appeal in “Alias” was her ability to deliver a one-liner and some zingers while also kicking ass…which is definitely not what’s going to happen with “Peppermint.” Because zingers don’t really fit when a character is seeking vengeance for the cold-blooded murder of both her husband and daughter. Maybe if this becomes a hit franchise and assuming Riley makes it through this movie alive — but probably not here.

It’s just been such a long time since Garner has kicked some ass onscreen, and “Peppermint” fills that void in a way that’s — at the very least — not as cheesy as “Daredevil” or as baffling as “Elektra.” At this point, I’ll take anything to have her back in some higher-profile and more action-packed roles than Capital One commercials. Sure, she can keep making bank by asking us what’s in our wallets, but she should at least continue to be able to kick ass every once in a while too. Preferably in a fun way, because while “Peppermint” honestly looks like it might be a return to form in a way, “fun” doesn’t look like the predominant factor.