Is changing pre-existing female characters to be more independent and badass a bad thing?

Think peach from the super Mario movie Alot of movie reviewers complained how peach ain't the damsel in distress she usually is in the games and how that's bad and woke and stuff

What are your thoughts? Is this vaild ?

I personally don't think characters that are nothing but damsels in distress to be fun or interesting so i thought it was a welcome change . Plus peach in particular has shown some badassary in the games occasionally