A few good fierce women are coming our way this season

Fall Preview

Charlize Theron dons black - hair included - for ’Aeon Flux.’ Anyone still absurd enough to hang on to the idea that women are the weaker sex would do well to look at the crop of movies that’ll be redefining the notion of "chick flick" this fall.

The first strike against machismo comes with "Serenity" (Sept. 30), from writer-director Joss Whedon ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer"). The sci-fi/Western hybrid about a raggedy starship team features Gina Torres as a grizzled war vet turned space pilot and Jewel Staite as a sharp interstellar mechanic.

"Domino" (Oct. 14) stars Keira Knightley as Domino Harvey, the real-life Ford model who turned her back on her glitzy life to become a bounty hunter. Harvey, who died at age 35 in June, was the daughter of Laurence Harvey, the Lithuanian-born British actor whose films included "The Manchurian Candidate." He is played by Jesse Pate, while Jacqueline Bisset is Paulene Stone, Domino’s mother, who had also modeled.

In "The Legend of Zorro" (Oct. 28), Catherine Zeta-Jones’ sword-fighting senorita duels alongside her masked man (Antonio Banderas) in the promising followup to 1998’s "The Mask of Zorro."

And in "Aeon Flux" (Dec. 2), Charlize Theron is Aeon, an acrobatic assassin and shadowy revolutionary out to protect the citizens of a future city from evil government forces. The character originally starred in an MTV animated series before leaping to the big screen - where she now has to duke it out with the other lionhearted ladies of fall.