Weekly Discussion: Your favorite action movies • Page 2

Mad Max: Fury Road is an obvious answer, it's an action movie that actually tells story through action. Every action sequence in that film is storytelling, it is informing story, thematics, and character, everything is imbibed with meaning. So many action films seem to feel that action and story/character are separate, that story and character are for dialogue, which is supposed to be utilized to get us to the action. It's one of J.J. Abrams' biggest flaws, because though he is as talented a director there is at creating exciting and visually engaging action, it's often not given the weight it should have to really mean something, and he seems to forget or contradict character and thematic work that came before in service of that action.

As far as films go that are closer to George Miller than J.J. Abrams, if I were to craft a list, it'd probably include films that might not be considered "action" in the basic understanding of the genre as a label.

Magic Mike XXL: For this inclusion, I'd ask: what is action? How do you define it in a cinematic context? Because the dancing in this film is technically action, and it informs thematics about sexuality, masculinity, femininity, and artistry. And not many films have ever made their "action" sequences as simultaneously meaningful and entertaining.

If you want to focus on "action" in a traditional sense, closer to fighting and the like, then I'd shift a little bit.

Master and Commander: One of the best chase films ever made.

Hot Fuzz: Its action is as good and thematically important to its story as any of the films its satirizing.

Spider-Man 2: For me, no comic book film is better. Its costumes and performances can be silly, but comic books are often silly. I don't know that any comic book film balances character and thematics as well, or as focused (the Dark Knight is stellar, but has stumbles in attempting that balance, particularly the justified/forgiven privacy violations made by Batman).

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: Shane Black is known for being one of the best at action comedy, and I adore Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Jaws: Spielberg is a master. The pacing and deliberately placed action makes it all the stronger, and some of his imitators should take note.

Starship Troopers: Paul Verhoeven is unrivaled in his subversiveness, particularly in here, Robocop, and Showgirls.

El Topo: Abstract and non-conventional in narrative, intense in its sequences of action and conflict. Bizarre and challenging, but rewarding.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy: I just fucking love those stories so much. Pure good vs. evil, but not hokey. As elegant and magnificent battle sequences as film has ever seen.

Attack the Block: Tragically underseen. Like Verhoeven's best, it has so many complex and nuanced things to say, about the inner city, about race, and it's a wild alien invasion romp as well.

Out of Sight/Haywire: Soderbergh's films really defy labeling as simple as "action", but he has top tier skill in melding genre and shooting action (he was director of photography on Magic Mike: XXL and the dance sequences in there are seriously stunningly and masterfully shot)

Battle Royale: A favorite of mine from adolescence that I need to revisit now with age.

MacGruber: Because it's brilliant.

 

El Topo as an action movie is something I can get behind.

 

Independence Day
The Matrix
Mad Max: Fury Road
Pacific Rim
MI: Ghost Protocol
Kill Bill: Volume 1

 

Speed lmao

 

This thread has made the term "action film" harder than ever to define. When people are listing films like Starship Troopers, Kill Bill, and even Seven Samurai, we are defining action films as films with some sort of violence or action scenes, rather than as the pre-dominant meaning behind the film. If we start to use this definition, something like Citizen Kane is an action film because Charles Foster Kane slaps someone and trashes a room. For defining action films, I would generally look at the film as something where the action is itself the film, with the breaks serving as a visual break for the viewer and a time for exposition.

Mad Max: Fury Road and the first two Terminator films are likely the high water mark, with Aliens another worthy option. What all four films have in common is the impending threat; we are always waiting for the singular villain to catch up with the protagonists or spring from the shadows. All of the films are somewhat clunky when the characters are not being threatened, but the brilliance in these films is that threat. In other action films, villains and protagonists seem to interact whenever the script decides to put them back together, but in something like Terminator 2 you are both waiting for the liquid Terminator to return as well as thinking he might even already be there. They operate similarly to a rollercoaster, where the slow climb to the top is more enjoyable by the knowledge of what is coming.

The great action films are also aware of their own stupidity and the limits of the genre. The guitar player in Fury Road is hilarious because you know someone objected to it and Miller said to go to 11. Too many modern films abuse their freedoms given by CGI to ruin this impact.

 

A lot of thrillers, sci-fi, comic book films, Westerns, etc have enough overlap with action that I feel fine bringing them under the umbrella. Plus I had trouble thinking of pure action movies. The Terminators are great pulls.

 

That is fair, although usually pure action films are about the visceral thrill while something like a Western or a science fiction film uses them as a tool to express their themes. The Terminator films have a backdrop of human carelessness with technology and our inability to stop mistakes despite warnings, but it is never more than a line or two in between explosions. When I think of Terminator 2, I can't remember too much about the dialogue, but I can remember the assault on the research facility or the highway chase with the coolant. With something like a Western like the Searchers the violence is only a means of conflict resolution, and the stuff you remember is elsewhere.

 

Heat
Aliens
Fury Road
T1 & T2
Die Hard
Bourne Supremacy and Ultimatum
Goldeneye
Casino Royale
MI3
Collateral
John Wick
Ronin
Point Break
Robocop
Raiders of the Lost Ark

Some of these obviously aren't pure action films, but I think they're close enough.

I'm with you. That opening scene is great. "look at you go!"

 

The Rock is one of my favorite action movies.

 

Skyscraper.

I haven't even seen it yet and I know that's my #1.