Do You Still Enjoy Action Movies

First act:
Bad guy does bad stuff
story of good guy origin is told
(these can be switched in order)

Second Act:
Bad guy wins first battle generally killing unimportant side character/s
Good guy comes back to save the day and girlfriend or whatever who's apparently in the movie.

End.

If they don't follow the formula sometimes yeah.
 
I still love them. I don't give a shit if I already know whats going to happen I love going on the ride.

It's not the 'knowing what will happen' that bothers me.

I am OK knowing the good guys will win.

It is when a normal guy can walk out into an open space with a handgun and have 20 guys in defensive positions with machine guns all firing at him and they are all missing, and he is picking them off one by one.

I don't mind the 'hero' beating big odds, but make it at least somewhat realistic. Give him 3-5 opponents and give him some reasonable cover too. In some way make it makes some sense.

In the old days (lol) for example you would see the hero Dirty Harry or Clint Eastwood's Western Persona's in fights you thought realistic and winnable despite him being in bad spots. That does not mean the odds cannot be stacked against him but he certainly did not look invulnerable.

Something changed in action films however where any connection to realism was dropped and instead it was all about bigger and badder odds to the absurd proportions were a guy could literally walk up to an entire army with a hand gun and slowly work his way killing them all while surviving with fans thinking ZOMG that was awesome as long as the special effects were huge.
 
I haven't liked many pure action flicks in the last few years, but DREDD really floored me. I also haven't seen the new RIDDICK yet, but I expect it to be great.
 
First act:
Bad guy does bad stuff
story of good guy origin is told
(these can be switched in order)

Second Act:
Bad guy wins first battle generally killing unimportant side character/s
Good guy comes back to save the day and girlfriend or whatever who's apparently in the movie.

End.

If they don't follow the formula sometimes yeah.

It's a three-act play.

As George Lucas so succinctly put it:

"In the first act, you introduce the characters. In the second act, they fall into a hole. In the third act, they get out. That's drama."
 
Been a while since I saw a really great one. Nothing seems to compare to the old school stuff like Running Man, Commando etc...

Drive and Running Scared were both pretty cool. Not sure if those count as action? Taken was badass too.
 
There has to be something else there.. But occasionally. They can be well done movies.
 
I enjoy watching them - a lot -
mma make me avoid "wired" ones like crouching tiger hidden dragon, i'm more into the realistic ones like (the last fight in donnie yen "flashpoint") so here's a small list
the raid redemption
Yamada: The Samurai of Ayothaya
ip man
undisputed 3
the protector (tony jaa)
I also enjoy ones with great cgi
avengers,man of steel, but generally am disapointed by ones based on comics,since i grew up reading those comics and the movies aren't that authentic.
And the last kind i like have car accidents axplosions etc, like white house down,die hard 5 ,fast and furious 6
I also watched a chinese comedy/martial art movie : princess and the seven kung fu masters was quiet funny :D
 
Do you still enjoy summer fun action movie. I not really enjoy them any more. Every time the hero is in danger, you already know he is gonna get out of it and save the day. Movies like Die Hard,James Bond, Fast and Furious,etc. No matter what happens in the middles of the movie, you know its gonna work out in the end and the good guys win.

In doses. For the most part I need something to keep me on the edge of my seat guessing what is going to happen next. But sometimes I just need a cut and dried good guys vs. bad guys all out action flick.
 
Braveheart isn't really a action flick. IMO. More of a history movie like Glory and The Alamo.

There is absolutely nothing historical about Braveheart other than a guy called William Wallace opposed the English and got hung, drawn and quartered for his troubles. Everything else in that movie is pure horseshit.
 
There is absolutely nothing historical about Braveheart other than a guy called William Wallace opposed the English and got hung, drawn and quartered for his troubles. Everything else in that movie is pure horseshit.

Where do you start? The Scots hadn't painted themselves like that for, ooh, a thousand years. They didn't wear kilts for another few hundred either.
 
Hate 'em.

I can't suspend my disbelief.

Every once in a while one comes along that everybody says is good and gets really good reviews, so I'll give it a shot. I never make it more than 15 minutes before I turn it off, pissed off at society for loving it so.

Two most recent examples...Dark Knight and Skyfall. I just can't do it. The first scene of Skyfall I believe featured a car riding on 2 side wheels like the Dukes of Hazzard. WTF?
 
I'm more into 80s-90s action movies. Today is nothing but explosions, crappy story and slo-mo. I admit I have my guilty pleasure action movies, but nothing beats the old school action flicks.

Foreign action movies imo are pretty damn good. (The raid, The protector, etc.)
 
Where do you start? The Scots hadn't painted themselves like that for, ooh, a thousand years. They didn't wear kilts for another few hundred either.

The Scots who fought the English were not weren't even related to the Scots(if you can call them that) who painted themselves like that.
 
It's a three-act play.

As George Lucas so succinctly put it:

"In the first act, you introduce the characters. In the second act, they fall into a hole. In the third act, they get out. That's drama."

George can suck a chode :)

Empire Strikes Back is by far the best movie he's ever been involved with (thank fuck he didn't direct it) and it destroys the formula. Luke gets his hand chopped off, finds out Vader is his father and Han gets frozen, now that's an ending you didn't see a mile away.

You can't expect people to watch the same three acts just with different actors and backdrop a thousand times and not get bored of it, that's an unrealistic expectation.
 
I love a good action movie and watch them whenever I have the time.
 
I can't deal with the excessive scene cuts and herky jerky in the scene camera. It's so damn manipulative and easy and utterly impossible to watch. The odd film comes along that isn't bad, but the big block-buster action flicks are generally awful.

I prefer mystery and or action/drama films that have some thought and plot to them.

The biggest thing these movies are getting wrong IMO is the camera-work. There doesn't need to be so much activity and motion and moving parts. The audience doesn't need to be force-fed this hyperactive angst. We don't need close-up face-shots of the actors and actresses all the time. Any fixation on one part of a film eventually detracts from the whole. Longer unbroken camera-shots. Camera a little further back. Less hyperactivity. All would save a lot of movies.

I liked Drive - one of the better action/dramas I've seen in awhile. The Next Three Days was good too. But the classic action blockbuster of today offends all senses for the most part. Unbelievable, noisy, pretentious, lacking humanness, did I say noisy?
 
I can't deal with the excessive scene cuts and herky jerky in the scene camera. It's so damn manipulative and easy and utterly impossible to watch. The odd film comes along that isn't bad, but the big block-buster action flicks are generally awful.

I prefer mystery and or action/drama films that have some thought and plot to them.

The biggest thing these movies are getting wrong IMO is the camera-work. There doesn't need to be so much activity and motion and moving parts. The audience doesn't need to be force-fed this hyperactive angst. We don't need close-up face-shots of the actors and actresses all the time. Any fixation on one part of a film eventually detracts from the whole. Longer unbroken camera-shots. Camera a little further back. Less hyperactivity. All would save a lot of movies.

I liked Drive - one of the better action/dramas I've seen in awhile. The Next Three Days was good too. But the classic action blockbuster of today offends all senses for the most part. Unbelievable, noisy, pretentious, lacking humanness, did I say noisy?

This is a symptom of action stars being pushed who can't actually perform demanding choreography or stunts.

Take Hong Kong kung fu movies from the 1970s. No jerky jerky camera, no manipulative cuts, or shaky close-ups shots. Guys like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung etc. didn't need that because they were skilled.

It's when more and more unskilled actors were thrust into the action limelight that this became common. All these tricks were and are used to cover up the actors' physical inabilities.

The scene is very soft now, too. Almost no leads do their own stunts and special effects are used everywhere to keep actors safe. Nobody wants to risk anything anymore.
 
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