»At least one BIG, beefy, good
looking HERO . . .
(male or female) They can be a one-man force of destruction, or
lead a group of other big, beefy types. No girly men or wimpy
chicks!
. . .
Who's on the Right Side
Whatever side they're on is the right side. Even when they're
'bad' they're not really bad, or there are worse people the Hero
is fighting. Action Movies that deliver the most satisfying
experience do so when there are lessons to be taught.
. . . With Skills
Whatever the movie's about, it usually comes down to mano a mano,
but the more things our Hero's proficient at, the better.
We want to be impressed that
they know how to use every weapon with accuracy, and how to
operate any vehicle. Examples: Ripley operating the
powerloader in
Aliens, and the total BAD ASS
Johnny Strong in
Sinners & Saints, which shows how important it is to be
able to shoot with accuracy in an epic gun battle in the street.
. . . Who Makes a BIG DOG
EntranceOne of my favorite
aspects of the Hero is the BIG DOG Entrance. It can seem naturally
dramatic like Indiana Jones' face moving from shade to sunlight
in the intro of Raiders, or staged to great effect like
Morpheus' introduction with lightning and thunder in
The Matrix. It can also be understated yet breathtaking
like the very female shot of the edge of Ripley's sleeping face
becoming the planet's surface in
Aliens. You know it when you see it, and there's no
doubt who's in charge. Best of the best: Dutch smoking a cigar in
a red shirt, getting off the helicopter last in Predator.
»Explosions
and Chases With vehicle chases, a
mayhem factor is a plus. The more public property
destroyed, the more pedestrians nearly run over, landmarks
knocked down, buildings driven through, and the more vehicles
totaled along the way, the more we like it. "[We] feel the
need for speed." High-speed chases are their own Action
Movie Subgenre, but fast cars aren't the only things we want to
see in a
Chase Movie.
Examples:
One of the best
Bond Movie chases is Pierce Brosnan
smashing a tank through St. Petersburg
in GoldenEye. The
A Good Day to Die Hard chase scene is insane, but we're
not invested . . . Another is the Terminator 3 chase
scene, with multiple levels of holy crapness and real fear of
being caught up to by that thing! Plus they're both crazy
indestructible, so ramp up the damage!
Explosions are
required. Blow shit up! I would say that's why we love
Rambo movies so much—50%
Stallone, 50% explosions.
•
GadgetsWe don't mind if our Hero has a little help when it
has a cool factor. Who didn't love the sessions Bond had with
"Q"?! From a homing pill to
Little Nellie
to the fully-loaded Aston Martin DB5, nothing is
what it seems:
pens, watch, shoes, sunglasses. It's the closest thing to magic,
the most fun use of technology, and even more ways to kill! (List
of Bond Movie Gadgets) Examples:
Exploding chewing gum from Mission: Impossible. And
how cool was the hallway illusion in Ghost Protocol!?
•
WeaponsAnother thing we love about Action Movies is the use of the
latest and greatest weapons: the stuff that doesn't belong on
the streets; the shit they make up just for the movie (more
reasons to love Predator); no-limit firepower to
decimate the bad guys likeThe
Expendables'AA12. And we'll take
quantity over quality so our Hero never runs out of weapons like
the fully loaded walking arsenals Neo and Trinity are in
The Matrix
(Who needs to reload?), or the hilariously over-prepared
Tackleberry or Rosewood (Police Academy and Beverly
Hills Cop). By the way, if you've never heard this scene
from The Matrix in Surround Sound, you'll want to buy Surround
Sound after you do . . .
•
Vehicles
Anything with the Wow-I-wish-I-had-that factor.
Examples:
The GTO from XXX orany
James Bond car. Blurring the line between reality and
fantasy, tricked-out machines help our Hero do more. Start with
a car, but we want to see yachts, planes, tanks, spaceships,
submarines, helicopters, semis, motorcycles, you name it. (Like
"Shock and Awe" from The Expendables 2—There's a
Land Rover Defender under there somewhere.)
If it
moves, mount weapons on it, and let's go!
»A
Close Quarters Fight
Hailed as the best Bond close-quarters fight (until
Spectre?), the battle between
Sean Connery and
Robert Shaw inFrom
Russia With Loveis typical of this Action Movie staple. Captain
America 'threw down' and decimated a pack of henchmen in an elevator in Captain
America: The Winter Soldier, much like elevator scene in the the
woefully underrated Quantum of
Solace. From the colorful and creative hallway fight with Jason
Statham against two men wielding axes (beautifully shot from every angle
but most cleverly from above) in The Transporter, to The Raid:
Redemption's car fight scene or to the nearly impossibly tight
fight scene in the prison bathroom stall—it doesn't matter where
you are, when the shit hits the fan, it's on!
»The
Gnarly Kill
Beyond painful, it makes every an Action Movie Freak squirm just
a little. We like lots of ordinary kills, but there's got to be
at least one that makes the audience exclaim in appreciation.
Example:
Rambo III's exploding 'piñata'.
And that's why you gotta have the "R"
rating!
»Trash
Talking
True Action Movies have to have it! Even with all of the above,
the Hero's got to rub it in somebody's face. Confidence is good
but Cockiness is better. He's good, he knows it, and you're
gonna hear about it.
Example:
Any
Steven Seagal
movie. Even more fun is when they talk trash to build up
the Hero's Bad-Ass Reputation. The more other characters
talk about and fear the Hero, the more fun it is when he finally
throws down.
Example: R. Lee Ermey's speech before Seagal
marches in and blows the place to hell in On Deadly Ground.
If the movie's great but nobody's face got rubbed in it, we
leave the theater feeling slightly unsatisfied.
»
Cheesy
One-Liners The most essential Action Movie ingredient has to be
the Cheesy One-Liners. I don't even have to pick one. You've
already said your favorite out loud. It's the one thing that
bothers the non-Action-Movie-Freaks the most. They complain that
it's a cliché. No, it's an Essential! What good is being a total
Bad Ass if you have to keep quiet about it. Save that for
War movies and Westerns. Here are
my favorite
Action Movie Quotes. Without doubt, the most famous of
all is (say it with me) "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!"
»
Camaraderie
and Dominance
Appreciation and respect from other guys while being the Big
Dog, the Alpha Male, the Captain of the Team. Let's be real,
guys have a dog mentality and love being in a pack. They need
that bonding. If there's a group of big guys, and we're not sure
which one is the real star or the Hero of the movie, that's a
problem. The movie won't be nearly as good. Example:
Even with a cast as great as the one in
The Expendables,
you know who's the star, and with women, there can be
only one 'Baddest Bitch'. (Here's the best
Dominance scene I've seen.
Statham throws down!!)
»A
Whiner
Part of the camaraderie and dominance is the contrast of the
Hero with
The Whiner. Heroism highlighted by cowardice.
Example:
There is no better, or more-loved portrayal of a whiner than
Bill Paxton as Private Hudson in
Aliens. "Game
over, man. Game over."
»The
RUSH!! A really GOOD Action Movie must make you leave the
theater feeling PUMPED UP! That's what we go for.
And that's why we don't want the downer ending like
Elysium. Life is a game. We came to win!
With all that in mind,
here are a few of The BEST
Action Movies . . .
GOOD
Action Movies
This is a partial listing of just
the major movies that are the most popular.
Tom Cruise has cemented the top good Action Movies position
for me with the Mission: Impossible series. This series
has always been a little ahead of its time. I remember having
that realization after M:I 3, and they have continued to Wow!
me, and I frequently re-watch them all. The first movie is just perfect! I love every second
of it. The second is John Woo! John Woo! And Ethan is such a bad
ass in it.
The Mission: Impossible movies deliver everything the
Bond movies do (incredible cars, exotic locations.
beautiful people in elegant clothes, high-stakes danger, etc.,
plus more humor), and the M:I theme song in its many
mutations is ever cooler than the Bond theme. (Love the
Tiësto remix.)
As a "Secret Agent", Ethan Hunt brings everything we loved James
Bond for—more, since they gave up gadgets—along with the
elements that make the Jason Bourne movies so popular, and he's
not the ladies man Bond used to be. Not only is Ethan Hunt
the coolest, but Tom has brought some kick-ass female characters
to major roles in these films as well. Ilsa Faust, most
recently, was impressive as hell! Love him for that.
For Action with a capital "A" who can compare
to Tom? There really is no one like him. There are the
big, more muscular Action Figures but Tom keeps maintains the
leading-man sophistication with everything he does. Plus, he
just makes some really cool choices. Few people know what
Action Movie Freaks like Tom does. The thing I think I enjoy the
most is the 'impossible' element that gets described and then
they add that's it's even worse than that.
And there are so many more indelible images
stuck in our minds (the helicopter blade near his neck in
Mission:Impossible (1996), the mind-blowing motorcycle stunt
work in John Woo's Mission: Impossible II (2000), him
running flat out in Mission: Impossible III
(2006)—something that's become a staple, the car crashing and
flipping over him in the sandstorm in Mission:Impossible -
Ghost Protocol (2011), and I am sure you have your favorites
[like him hanging onto the side of an airplane in
Mission:Impossible - Rogue Nation 2015)]. Click the
photo below to find out how the stunt was done.
Mission: Impossible - Fallout hits theatres
July, 27th 2018. It's sure to
be over the top. These movies stand the test of time and
for pure Action entertainment, you can't top Mission: Impossible
movies. And don't disagree with me, Kittridge, because . .
. you've never seen me very upset! Seriously, the
world is his oyster—Tom Cruise I mean (Ethan Hunt or not).
Now that there are 2 of them, and the 2nd one is arguably better
than the first. I like the first one so much, it's hard to
choose John Wick: Chapter 2 over John Wick, but
there is so much to love about the second one that takes it to
another level. Really, did you imagine the Action could be that
good? It's 87eleven and all but the American muscle opening car
chase is a such high bar to rise to, you wonder how good the
rest of the movie could be but the Action sequences keep on
coming.
Kudos to
Keanu Reeves for all the target practice he put in. Sure
makes those head shots look real. Aaaah, so much to love. The
pencil!! We finally get to see him use a pencil for more than
one
Gnarly Kill. He's commented that John Wick:
Chapter 3 will be 'Escape from New York'. Got to wonder
how literal that comment is in terms of plot and Action.
For decades, our once-yearly Action injection. The
British bad ass with every resource the U.K. had to offer. The
ordinary man as super hero. With training, you too could don an
impeccably tailored suit, jump into a pimped-out foreign sports
car, and leave a trail of dead bodies and broken hearts in your
pursuit of evil bent on world domination. The highest
possible stakes always hooked us. Save the world, James!
Licensed to kill. There's a concept.
The ultimate weapon, the various incarnations of the character
reflected the times. The latest, Daniel Craig, used free
running in the intro to Casino Royale. Finally, a Bond
who seemed physically lethal. LOVED loved loved that the
guy was the 'bikini babe' for once, emerging from the ocean like
Ursula Andress did in Dr. No.
There are so many great Bond movies—each of
them enjoyable for different reasons. Here are my favorites:
• Skyfall • Casino
Royale • Quantum
of Solace • Live
and Let Die • GoldenEye • Goldfinger .
. .
It's hard to stop listing them. As popular a
franchise as Action may ever have. The formula for these movies
encompasses all the aspects of the GOOD Action movie, and we
waited each year with great anticipation for the new car, the
latest gadgets, and the cheesy one liners (I know you know this
one below . . . ). Bond
Movies are an Action Movie Subgenre all their own!
Skyfall was fantastic (even with what they
make fun of here,
it satisfied with extreme Bond-iness)! And "Spectre" (6
Nov 2015) and "Bond
25" are coming up and the stories are supposed to be
linked. Daniel Craig has signed on for both but we'll probably
get a new Bond after that. Any guesses on who? Tell
me on Facebook . . .
You didn't think it could be as good as it was. It
was SO MUCH FUN! Chris Pratt gets a lot of the
credit for being such a down-to-earth-yet-bad-ass hero. How refreshing
it was to leave the theater having enjoyed the movie so completely.
Nothing to nit pick. Just sheer Saturday matinee Summer fun.
Writer/Director
James
Gunn returns for Vol. 2, but Nicole Perlman was not listed on the script this time around.
(She was
listed as doing a treatment for a Black Widow movie!)
• Guardians
of the Galaxy
• Guardians
of the Galaxy Vol. 2
What a hit! As anti-female as I found it, and anti-love, I
still enjoyed the hell out of it and paid to see it twice. They treated
Gina Carano as badly as they did in Fast & Furious 6.
What am I talking about? The nip slip. The fact that his girlfriend
is a hooker. The teenage girl jokes. But who cares. The Action was
fan-fucking-tastic. It was raunchy, and after a long phase of
Action Movies that should have been rated "R" and weren't, it was
refreshing to be back in the muck.
Ryan Reynolds has signed on for the next 2 movies. That's
great because he so owned the role it's hard to imagine anyone else
would have been that good. Since 2016
was a dry year for Action Movies, this movie was even more of a
stand out.
I'd BE Rambo if I could be. Okay I'm too afraid to be
Rambo, but if I was Rambo, I wouldn't be afraid of anything.
He's not just a
Super
Soldier, he's an army. 3 words: wall of mud. He's
so capable and skilled that weapons seem like toys or
accessories. It's more than a little sad that he's a Vietnam vet
having a hard time in a reality that doesn't involve killing . .
.
"When you're pushed, killing's as easy as breathing."
We Action Movie Freaks are a blood thirsty lot. We want someone
to push him just so we can watch all hell break loose.
STALLONE!
(Seriously—That's a sentence.)
All the movies are great but
Rambo III
holds a special place in my heart.
•
First
Blood
(comments at the end regarding Rambo 5)
•
Rambo: First Blood Part II
•
Rambo III,
•
Rambo, and woo-hoo! . . .
•
Rambo:Last Blood Yes, No?! Please? but not that name.
I doooo love the Action/Sci-fi combo. It's so
Saturday-afternoon-matinee good! The first, first lines I ever
learned: "Did you hear that? They've shut
down the main reactor. We'll be destroyed for sure. This is
madness!"
•
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope Nobody's cooler
than Darth Vader. Maybe some day something will come along—won't
that be exciting!
•
Star Wars: Episode V - The
Empire Strikes Back The Death Star and Imperial
Walkers have to be on everyone's list of favorites. They
were/are just breathtaking.
•
Star Wars: Episode VI -
Return of the Jedi Ewoks—not so much.
•
Star Wars: Episode I - The
Phantom Menace Everyone hated Jar Jar Binks.
•
Star Wars: Episode II
-
Attack of the Clones
Loved Watto! and
Yoda the mother-fing bad ass with a light saber!
At the midnight showing (the night before release) that I went
to, the moment he whipped out his light saber and started
fighting got the biggest crowd reaction of anything in the
movie.
•
Star Wars: Episode III -
Revenge of the Sith The movie that brought the story
full circle. It was great to see what came before but I think
the performance of Hayden Christensen hurt the movie. I didn't
care for Natalie Portman in her role either. They're
amazingly beautiful but both came off as not experienced enough
for their roles and had no chemistry. Hate on me for
that if you must.
•
Star
Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens. . . Of course we'd
love to see solo movies about Han Solo
and Boba Fett! You know everyone will go see them.
I was most psyched for
Oscar Isaac. What a talent!! He blew me away in
Sucker Punch and everything after. But, surprise,
surprise, Daisy Ridley was large and in charge. It was AMAZING
to see a girl in the driver's seat, and Han Solo's Millennium
Falcon at that. I would not have thought it would end that way.
I really loved that they made us excited to see the next
installment (as they should).
•
You know you want to go to
Disney's
Star Wars theme park. How cool is that?! How long before we have a Jabba the Hutt movie, or a Greedo
movie, or, a Chirrut Îmwe
(Donnie Yen) movie.
INDIANA JONES
Quadrilogy The
Bible of Adventure, Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4.
I think they should have left it alone but we'll see if Stephen
Spielberg sees it through. He's gotten our hopes up before on
things and then passed them off to someone else or just let go.
•
Raiders of the Lost Ark
•
Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom
•
Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
and
•
Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
•Indiana
Jones 5
Harrison Ford
and Steven Spielberg(!) are on board
Aaaah, the Action-Adventure / Sci-Fi / Horror Combo
Meal! Intergalactic Size! Tasty. As good as
Alien was, Aliens proved a sequel can be
better.
However, Alien³
disappointed us all (weren't you secretly hoping somehow the
Colonial Marines in Aliens would come back to life—that it was all just a
nightmare?).
Alien Resurrection
grew on me. Hated it at first but love it now, and it deserves
special attention. How cool is it that
Sigourney Weaveractually made that basketball shot?! I
made that
my first-ever blog post.
I think the popularity of
the series can be attributed in large part to our incredible
fear of the creature. It spawned a ridiculous amount of
spin-offs as if we would never tire of it. Finally
Ridley Scott said no more, and went in a different creature
direction with Prometheus. After seeing it, I am still
undecided about it being an "Alien"
movie without the
Alien. I suspect our biggest fear, deep down, is something
human-like . . . The good news is Prometheus sure opened the
door for lots more to come. Whether it will be any good remains
to be seen. I was not happy with Prometheus, but then, it wasn't
an Action Movie.
What a great series! The first is the best (but the fourth is a
close second) and features probably
the most-popular action movie quote:
"Come out to the coast, we'll get
together, have a few laughs . . . "
LOL okay, not that one, I know. This one:
"Yippee-ki-yay Mother Fucker!"
John McClane's cowboy cop antics
personify the American Hero spirit. He's determined,
resourceful, and recklessly fearless. At times you wonder
whether he just believes in himself that completely, or whether
he's just going for it, living in the moment and making it up as
he goes along. The main reason we like this character so much is
that he's the average man, and that makes us all feel like we
would be heroes if we were in his shoes (or bare feet).
He's everyone's favorite
SUPER COP(one of my
Action Movie subgenres).
THE EXPENDABLES Trilogy + . . .
To have so many of our Action Figures in one movie just blew our
minds.
Stallone KNOWS Action. In the documentary on the
making of
The Expendables
Mr. Stallone gives us all we need to know on Action
Movies and what makes them great. These movies are so enjoyable
because he knows what we want and gives us to us in spades. I
hope there are more than 3 . . .
•
The Expendables
•
The Expendables 2 •
The Expendables 3
•
The
Expendables 4
The first one was a masterpiece and should stand alone. A
perfect movie.
The second and third, while welcome and really good,
never surpassed the first.
•
The Matrix
•
The Matrix Reloaded
•
The Matrix Revolutions
It should never be re-made.
I was re-watching old Star Trek episodes and the idea forThe Matrix
was apparent in the pilot episode: "The Cage", and
in "The Enemy
Within".
It doesn't get much more Bad Ass than this: After the semi
chasing the motorcycle crashes in the aqueduct, the T-2 emerges
through the flames. As one audience member in my showing
shouted out in amazement and appreciation . . . "Unscathed!"
These movies have it all. An
Action/Horror/SciFi
trinity, they opened a can of our worst fears: Killer
robots, a nuclear apocalypse, the end of civilization,
domination
by machines, and various unstoppable terminators masquerading as
human. The guns and machines alone are cool, but add Arnold and
it's Action Movie history. And surprise, surprise, the sequels
just kept getting better and better. Twenty minutes in to T3 and
I felt like I already had double-the-ticket-price worth of
entertainment. Terminator
Salvation
didn't quite measure up, but it had tremendous shoes to fill.
I still really enjoyed it, bought it and watched it several
times after.
What we're waiting for is "the war" when the
robots take over. What are they waiting for?! Give it to us
already.
• The Terminator
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day
• Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
•
Terminator Salvation
• Terminator: Genisys
Danny Nucci, and more! This movie is WAY underrated. It has
it all . . . and, Nicholas Cage's delivery is as entertaining as
it gets. Like so many really good Action Movies, it's filmed in
San Francisco (even better: on Alcatraz Island).
Bruckheimer's best blockbuster! Although some might
argue for Bad Boys 2.
Tom Cruise knows Action Movies. Covering all the
Action Movie Essentials, Tom's Action Movie Bad Ass
status is as bona fide as it can get with these movies.
Not only is Tom an Action Movie Bad Ass but, he brings Bad Ass
female characters to life as well. Here's Cobie Smulders
as Army Major Susan Turner in an all-out fight. [This character,
and the character of Ilsa Faust in Mission: Impossible - Ghost
Protocol are just two of the reasons
Tom Cruise is nominated as an Action Rebel by the
Artemis Women in Action Film Festival.]
From IMDb: "Jack Reacher is a fictional protagonist of
a
series of novels, novellas, and short stories, by
British author Lee Child. A former Major in the United
States Army Military Police Corps, Reacher roams the
United States taking odd jobs and investigating suspicious
and frequently dangerous situations. Most of the novels are
set in the United States, in locales ranging from major
metropolitan areas like New York City and Los Angeles to
small towns in the Midwestern and Southern United States. To
date, Reacher's travels outside the US have taken him to
rural England (The Hard Way), London (Personal), and Paris,
France.
Paramount Pictures hired Academy-Award-nominated
screenwriter Josh Olson to adapt One Shot, under the
title Jack Reacher. Christopher McQuarrie,
Oscar-winning screenwriter for The Usual Suspects was
then brought in to re-write Olson's draft. It was announced
in July 2011 that Tom Cruise - a 5' 7" tall actor - would
play Reacher, who is 6' 5" tall in the books. Lee Child was
quoted as saying, 'Reacher's size in the books is a metaphor
for an unstoppable force, which Cruise portrays in his own
way.' "
That is too true! Plus, it's not as cool if a giant guy
beats up on people, now is it? These movies fall under the
subgenre
Super Soldier. The character of Jack Reacher is
just a really, 'good' guy. It's the hero thing in spades. Doing
the right thing is really satisfying to watch. Doesn't hurt that
the Action, especially the Fight Scenes, are all-out, creative,
and look painful as hell LOL.
Wise cracking was never so good as when Martin and Will Smith
get together to get on each other's nerves. I love these
movies (partly because they are filmed in Miami). The Action is
top notch . . . MICHAEL BAY! If you love Bad Boys, but never saw
Hot Fuzz, drop everything and watch it. The credits list Don
Abbatiello, Hank Amos, Jennifer Badger, Charlie Brewer, Janine
Mitchell, Michale Trisler, and
Jeff Brockton as "stunt driver (uncredited)". WOW! No
credit. That was the best thing about this movie and they get no
credit. Hollywood! They need to put the outtakes in the
credits and show which stuntmen did which stunt. We want to see
that!
Jackie Chan's career is proof of that.
Often (so often) imitated, but never equaled. The
wise-ass, big-gun, no-bullshit movie hero we all wish we could
be, but don't have Clint's attitude to pull off. I never
get tired of watching him
chew on that hot dog while walking and shooting.
Can't a guy even grab a quick lunch? "Nobody, I mean
nobody, puts ketchup on a hot dog." (And, forgive me,
Mr. Schwarzenegger, but it was a hot dog, not a hamburger.)
•
Dirty Harry
•
Magnum Force
•
Sudden Impact
•
The Enforcer
•
Welcome to the Jungle
(Yes, that's Jim Carrey doing Clint Eastwood . . . )
About as inconsistently good or bad as the Batman movies. Loved
the 2nd movie, and the 4th, but
none of the others until 2009's tribute to the original
TV Series that delivered everything you loved the original show
for.
X-MEN Movies
The Mutant idea is so cool . . . someday we may mutate into
superheroes. It's so easy to identify with being on the outside
of society—when you're a teenager, you sometimes feel like a
mutant. The whole series owes a great deal of its appeal to the
comic books, of course, but Hugh Jackman's intensity and
the special effects are the bulk of it for me. I'd had enough
after The Wolverine and didn't see X-Men: Days of Future Past,
however, I enjoyed The Wolverine. I think Hugh Jackman was
borderline on age. I didn't think he should do another one but
then along came the trailer for Logan, and wow!
•
X-Men: X2
•
X-Men: The Last Stand
•
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
•
X-Men First Class
•
The
Wolverine
•
X-Men: Days of Future Past . . . I stopped watching after
this one. REALLY didn't want to see Jennifer Lawrence.
•
Logan
That's right: "Richard B. Riddick, convicted felon,
murderer."
The bad guy as good guy.
"You made 3 mistakes . . ."
One of the most quotable series ever.
And an airborne, spinning, double-bladed decapitation!
What a fight scene!! If you're not overly impressed, then give
Vin Diesel
the credit for making it look possible. I'd love to know
the fight choreographer who came up with that! That whole
prisoners, guards, and "them" fight scene is as good as it gets.
•
Pitch Black
•
The Chronicles of Riddick
• Animated:
The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury
• Riddick
did not go to the Underverse, so what was the point?!
They're really big men with really big guns, and they're
scared—what chance do you have?
"RUN!! GO! Get to the chopper!"
"Get to da chappaaaa!"
"Bill-lee get me a way outta dis hohl"
Pred-da-ta has got to be one of the best-ever Arnold-accent
movies! So quotable, so cool. It doesn't get any better than
this! The MUSIC!!! The creature—Stan Winston's genius
(RIP) "If it bleeds, we can kill it."
Apparently, only Arnold can. Love the military speak:
"We move. Five-meter spread. No sound."
•
Predator (Predator 2 sucked!)
• Alien vs. Predator
•
Predators took us back to the jungle!
•
The
Predator—being
billed as a sequel—is being directed by Shane Black
"Hawkins".
Iron
Man
Movies
The culmination of so many years of wanting to see our comic
book heroes onscreen. In The Avengers, when they all
formed a circle in the street to work together as a team it was
like the joy of reading comics just jumped off the pages and
came to life! The Avengers movie really delivered in every
way.
The Hulk was the star of the show, but the movie came off as
'Iron Man 3' because
Robert Downey, Jr. really held his own among all the
super heroes.
•
Iron Man
•
Iron Man 2
•
Iron Man 3
The Avengers
Movies
The culmination of so many years of wanting to see our comic
book heroes onscreen. In The Avengers, when they all formed a
circle ("assemble") in the street to work together as a team it
was like the joy of reading comics just jumped off the pages and
came to life! The Avengers movie really delivered in every
way.
The Hulk was the star of the show, but the movie came off as
'Iron Man 3' because
Robert Downey, Jr. really held his own among all the
super heroes.
•
Thor
•
Captain America: The First Avenger
•
The Avengers
•
Thor: The Dark World
•
Avengers: Age of Ultron
A beautifully stylized look at ancient warfare and a moving
portrayal of a mythical battle, 300 was a love
affair with the male form and athleticism. A slo-mo show of
graceful strength and a pageant of death, this movie celebrated
the stuff the legend was made of: A last-stand fight of raw
power, and dying with honor despite being impossibly
outnumbered (plus
holy shitness on the killing and violence level!).
STARSHIP
TROOPERS
The oh-so-pretty Casper Van Dien, and my
favorite female character "'Dizzy' Flores". A great movie
followed by an addicting
CGI TV series with a
killer intro: Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles. (Sadly, Starship Troopers 2 should
have just been a play, not an Action/Adventure/Horror movie, and
Starship Troopers 3: Marauder was released straight to
DVD.) The first movie is a classic though, and regardless
of the sequels, it's often imitated and deserves a special place here.
•
Starship Troopers
•
Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation Not good. •
Starship Troopers 3: Marauders
(haven't seen it yet)
" . . . but they will face an enemy more devastating than any
ever imagined" with the worst, weakest weapons possible. lol
LOVE this movie!
The TRANSPORTER Triology
Luc Besson is so awesome. He not only wrote this series, he also
wrote:
(1990) La Femme Nikita (also the Director)
(1993) Point of No Return (kick-ass remake of La Femme
Nikita)
(1994) Leon: The Professional (also the Director)
(1997) The Fifth Element (also the Director)
(1998) Taxi
(2000) Taxi 2 [and the "scenario" for Taxi 3 (2003)
and Taxi 4 (2007)]
(2002) The Transporter (writing credit shared with Robert
Mark Kamen)
(2004) District B13
(2008) Taken, Taken
(2012) (2011) Colombiana (directed by Transporter 3's
Director Olivier Megaton)
(2012) Lockout (Cool idea—should have been good—but yikes!
was it bad)
(2014) 3 Days to Kill (super-underrated: Kevin Costner
killed!)
(2015) Lucy (Scarlett Johansson gave solid performance and
raked it in at the box office doing better than
The Rock in Hercules. How's that for grrrl power!?)
And that's just the good stuff I've seen. He really got the French
to the top of the Action Movie game, and hit it out of the park with this
everyman's Bond, James Bond. "Rule Number 2: No Names."
Yeah, he's too cool for that shit. (All real stunt, too,
in the first one! Impressive!!) Directors Louis Leterrier
and Corey Yuen have lots of fun with this. Love Besson's mix
of Comedy with Action. Out of everyone I know, he seems to 'get' the
Action fan best. He knows what we want and delivers, never
leaving out the cheese. Gotta have the cheese! Rub their face in it.
He also wrote
Lockout (2012), which looked like it would be exactly
the kind of movie Action Movie Freaks were hungry for, but it
disappointed. I think if it had an Actor with more muscles and more
attitude, and there was a bit more to getting the girl out, it might
have satisfied.
The Transporter series never disappoint and I've watched them over
and over and still do.
The Transporter Refueled introduced us to a father-son duo
(much like the dynamic between Inspector Tarconi and Frank Martin)
that was really enjoyable. It seemed like a hommage to the first
movie, and was nonetheless enjoyable even though Ed Skrein is no
Jason Statham. He did a good job, but the shoes were awfully
big to fill. Maybe the second one will give us some distance for him
to make it his own. My audience clapped after. If you're a
Transporter lover, it satisfied.
NINJA ASSASSIN
A virtuoso performance by Jong Ji-hoon aka
"Rain"
as "Raizo".One of the most intense opening scenes ever, the
blood-splatter title set the tone on this freight train to
injury. Raizo takes a beating and then some. Seems as much about
what he can take as what he can dish out, but you have to dish
more to win, and does he! A full sampling of fighting skills and
weapons are on display. I just kept thinking "One wrong move and
something or someone's getting sliced for real. The ending/fight
scene features fire as a character in breathtaking shot after
breathtaking shot.
Rain,
Yuen Woo Ping, and
87eleven set the bar really high with this one.
•
Ninja Assassin
EXCALIBUR
Like beauty seen only in dreams! The scenery, the armor, the
actors/characters, the colors of the sky, the sense of mystery
and the mystical. Of course, a truly great story to begin with,
but what a vision of it. The
knights on horses thundering through the alee of cherry blossoms
to "O Fortuna" was pure magic . . . as in the charm of
making "Anál nathrach, orth' bháis's bethad, do chél dénmha"
uh-huh. Well, that clears it up. Sounds like ah nal nahd
drrrach ooothbas bethood dockiel tienveh to me. This movie is
the stuff childhood fantasies are made of. It enchants
every time I watch it.
Nicol Williamson
as Merlin steals the show. Love narrated movies. They have a
more personal, I'm-telling-you-a-story feeling. And: gory battle
scenes! (nothing was as good for me until
Braveheart).
Nice legs! It seemed like people thought of
Robocop as a 'cute little movie' but it has become a cult classic.
People LOVE it. As recently as Cop Out, Tracy Morgan used a
line from it as part of his hilarious homage ("hommidge") scenes.
Part of it must be our fascination with
robots and machines, and maybe the popularity of the robot dance
(kidding) because the way he moves is a big part of the appeal.
The rest must be his total UNSTOPPABILITY! He's the kind
of cop cops need to be. Shoot at him, it won't do you any good.
There's a sense of humor to the whole thing, especially when the
bigger machine gets taken out. The biggest part of why we loved
him was (of course) the machine's humanity—It's still the cop
who died under there, and he remembers who killed him. Peter
Weller has a great face for this and an awesome voice. His
voice adds as much to it as Harrison Ford's
narration does to
Blade Runner. The movie didn't take itself too seriously
and that's why it worked. They were having fun, we were having
fun. It was one of those campy cool '80s movies like Runaway
starring Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons. For
sheer action, it's still fun to watch on a Saturday afternoon.
It helps that it was directed by Paul Verhoeven (Total
Recall and Starship Troopers).
"Dead or alive, you're coming with me!"
When a glimpse of the new armor came out, there were a lot of fans
who did not like it. Not robot-y enough I suspect. Too
Batman-ish? But then . . . they showed that they are going to have
the original armor too. THAT was so important. The movie looked like
they really know ACTION and delivered on the action alone.
LOVE that robotic walk. They had a great cast with Gary Olman,
Michael Keaton, and Samuel L. Jackson, which should have
made it a notch above, but they did not play on his humanity enough
which is what makes it work . . .
The Car Chase/Race series with the best cars, and a
Skank-a-palooza.
"Muscle beats Import, every time."
These movies are just so much fun. The cast is great, and
since The Rock joined the ensemble, it's not going away.
Watching Fast Five at midnight on Thursday with a MIAMI
crowd was one of the most fun movie-going experiences
I've ever had. The crowd was so into the whole movie, but
cheered the most for Tego Calederon and Don Omar.
Nowhere else in North America is the crowd so appreciative of
the reggaeton element.
This article does a good job of explaining it.
Furious 8 NOW SHOWING!
If you ask me (which you did by reading my site :-D), these
movies were born out of the much-maligned (but awesome) Action
Movie classic Gone in 60 Seconds. They took everything
good out of that movie and franchised it.
TRANSFORMERS
Series Transformers
kicked ass! When Scorponok comes out of the sand . . . and
when
Barricade gets a running start and transforms into the police
car in mid-air
it was worth the whole movie! The Autobots vs. Decepticons
thing is great, and you know everyone was just waiting to see
the Deceptions. The bad guys are definitely the cooler machines.
After watching the original Transformers
cartoon series, I became the BIGGEST fan of the sequel "Beast
Wars"! Optimus Prime, Megatron (the best evil
sarcastic bad-ass ever),
Waspenator, Rat Trap, Scorponok, Dinobot . . . Maximals
versus Predacons. Doubt it would make as good a movie series
though.
Everyone hated the second Transformers. How
bad was it?
This bad. Like a defibrillator to the chest
Transformers: Dark of the Moon recharged 3D,
and how! Eye-popping 3D scene after eye-popping 3D
scene. All Michael Bay needs now is a script as
good as
The Rock was.
In Age of Extinction, the Decepticons were
too absent and John Goodman. That being said, O. M. G. my eyes
and ears took days to recover! It was incredible. Just when I
thought they were done, and had peaked, the pushed it beyond all
imagining. Even though they borrowed from other movies, they
were packing it in (the "kitchen sink" and the whole house
neighborhood).
Michael Bay has said
he will not direct any more Transformers movies. I think
they've run their course, but don't hate on them to me, because
SHUT UP AND EAT YOUR AWESOME! And . . . He changed his
mind because here comes:
BLADE RUNNER I know, I know, it's not "Action" but it's so good, so
influential . . . A movie so impressive, poetic, and visually
stunning, there could not be a follow-up. The absolute coolest
look and sets for its time and for a long time after. Entering
the theater to enter another world was never more satisfying
than seeing this movie on the big screen. We were totally
transported to an alien society and futuristic culture of clones
and cops. The big argument about this movie is whether
Harrison Ford's character knows he's a replicant or not. I
think it's clear when Gaff leaves Deckard
the origami unicorn, he's telling him he is, and this is
why Deckard runs away with Rachel. What this life
might be like for them and how much time they have, are
questions we kind of don't want answered (no sequel) because it
parallels our own fear of death. We are all replicants because
we don't know when our time will end, or when our memories will
be washed away "like tears in the rain".
A complete story (not an installment); a work of art that does,
and should (no remakes!), stand alone.
•
Blade Runner •
Blade Runner
2049 "Thirty years after the events of the first film, a
new blade runner, LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling), unearths a
long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left
of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to
find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former LAPD blade runner
who has been missing for 30 years."
For its time (1963), this movie had so many cool special effects
that it still holds up today. For me it was all about the
skeletons. This movie (plus Bruce Lee and "kung fu" movies, "The
Bridge On The River Kwai", and "Force 10 From Navarrone", and
where do I stop. . . ) probably started my love of Action
Movies. The action is freakily good (and awesomely
timed) considering a lot of it is
stop motion. If you've never seen it, I have no
doubt you'll love it. It's the kind of Saturday afternoon movie
that kept you inside when it wasn't raining. Yesterday's
Clash of the Titans.
•
Jason and The Argonauts
This is just a short list.
Check the
HIT LIST
for much more . . .
More to come . . . still working on it . . . . . . . .