The ruins of San Francisco in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
As long as there have been movies, there's been an audience to watch things blow up. Sometimes it's laughably unrealistic, and sometimes it's amazing and generates a genuine feeling of awe. But the means by which things fall apart and get destroyed almost always has been a manifestation of societal fears, both real and imagined. Whether it be Soviets with nukes, asteroids the size of Texas, aliens, robots, zombies, terrorists or being done in by our own foolishness, it speaks to some deep-seated fear about an aspect of life brought to life.
While the action movie can be mindless and dumb, it's also cathartic on some level. It posits a fantasy in which violence is effective and heroes win. Where so much of life is full of petty squabbling over how best to fight the evils of the world, or arguing with people as to whether those problems even exist, the action movie gives the viewer a story in whicha person or persons confront those problems head on, get things done and villains are eradicated with extreme prejudice.
It's interesting to note how the nature of the genre has changed over the last 30 years. The economics of Hollywood have forced the major studios to neuter much of the controversial content of the genre (sorta). Given the enormous financial cost of production, where '80s action movies were full of sex and blood, the current-day crop of films must adhere to a PG-13 rating and are just one aspect of a commercial product that's an advertisement for other merchandise (e.g. toys, t-shirts, video games, apps, etc.). However, in a sort of cinematic proof of the quote usually attributed to Joseph Stalin, instead of scenes with individuals getting their heads blown off, action films have become more "family friendly" by expanding the violence to depictions where its used against society as a whole. But it's a "cost-less" violence where whole cities are leveled but somehow things are usually okay for the characters and the world by film's end.
So, with that to chew on, I thought I would posit a simple question for tonight's post. What are your favorite action films? Continue below the fold for more.
From David Chen at Slashfilm, 'Transformers: Age of Extinction’ is the Culmination of Film as Commerce:
The heavily advertised climactic scene in which Optimus Prime & Co. ride Dinobots to victory doesn’t happen until nearly 2.5 hours into the film, after the audience has already been emotionally pummeled into submission. Their motivations are never explained. They show up for a few minutes, do some damage, and then leave to roam about China, I guess. They simply exist to look badass and sell action figures.
The Transformers films have made nearly $3 billion worldwide, but their merchandising has made over $7 billion. As with all the properties that came before Age of Extinction, this movie exists to sell toys. Having several of the key “characters” occupy over 80% of the marketing but less than 20% of the movie is a great way to demonstrate that fact unequivocally.
For a short period after the September 11 attacks, there was an apprehension to depicting scenes of mass destruction, since in most movies the way to show that "shit just got real" is to either destroy national landmarks or New York City. However, that "too soon" fear only lasted for a short while. Over the past decade almost every big-budget summer movie, from
The Avengers,
Man of Steel,
Star Trek Into Darkness,
Transformers,
World War Z,
Pacific Rim, etc., has scenes of cities being destroyed, and emulate to some degree the chaos that happened in the streets of New York in 2001. But some have
wondered whether it's a situation of diminishing returns and audiences are becoming numb to watching buildings fall over. Or that what works as spectacle betrays the nature of some stories.
A recent example of the latter is Man of Steel, in which many Superman fans were unhappy with how the destruction of Metropolis was handled, since Superman doesn't seem to give a shit that an entire city is being destroyed around him.
From Devin Faraci at
Badass Digest,
Why The Destruction In MAN OF STEEL Matters:
Rescuing innocents versus stopping the baddie - that is the final moral choice Superman makes in Man of Steel. It’s a great moment, a truly hard decision that clearly impacts him immensely. Unfortunately it’s a hollow decision because Superman just saved four people after letting hundreds of thousands die.
Says Mark Waid:
Particularly in this last sequence, his utter disregard for the collateral damage was just jaw-dropping as they just kept crashing through buildings full of survivors. I’m not suggesting he stop in the middle of a super-powered brawl to save a kitten from a tree, but even Brandon Routh thought to use his heat vision on the fly to disintegrate deadly falling debris after a sonic boom. From everything shown to us from the moment he put on the suit, Superman rarely if ever bothered to give the safety and welfare of the people around him one bit of thought.
An interesting way to think about this is to ask oneself this question: in which medium is action and violence handled in a more "adult" way nowadays? TV or film?
And to be clear, I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to blow up a city in a fictional story or that I have a problem with depictions of violence in action films. I'm arguing that the destruction has to go beyond vapid visual effects and aesthetics, and make sense within the story.
So what are some examples of action films that I like?
- RoboCop (1987): Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop is quite possibly the most successful anti-corporate action film ever released by a studio. It's also an example of a film recently remade into a PG-13 version that misconstrues every theme of the original. The original RoboCop masks its social commentary on government and corporations behind its science-fiction concept: "Shifts in tax structure have made the economy ideal for corporate growth." That line is spoken by Omni Consumer Products' "Old Man" (Dan O'Herlihy) as he notes that Detroit has been impacted by this, with schools, police departments and other public services suffering because of those shifts. OCP's ED-209 and RoboCop programs are his way of "giving back" and cleaning things up just enough for OCP to take over Detroit and build their private Delta City. ED-209 is a commentary on absurd product design. Specifically, when companies design something to look good, pretty, tough, etc., and forget to make sure it actually works well. Of course, who cares if it works if you get to sell upgrades and replacement parts to the same suckers who bought the damn thing! Kurtwood Smith's Clarence Boddicker is probably one of the most despicable and vicious villains of any action film. And you want these sons of bitches to go down, because they've robbed people of their humanity. The overarching theme of the film is a man being dehumanized by criminals and corporations, and overcoming it.
- Aliens: Arguably, one of the few films where the sequel is better than the original, although Ridley Scott fans will probably disagree. I wanted to pick one of James Cameron's films, and it was between this, Avatar and Terminator 2. I chose this one because Cameron gave the film a lot of subtext that has always given it a leg up on its copycats or even the Alien sequels that followed it. On its surface, its just a simple action movie. Marines land on planet. Marines encounter aliens. Marines must survive. However, other than being a visually stunning movie, there are little things that make this film memorable. I believe Cameron based the idea of the movie around the aliens being a metaphor for the Viet Cong. The Xenomorphs have no technology, but are an intelligent group who overcome all the weapons and gadgets of the technologically superior force. Weyland-Yutani is a comment on corporate culture and how lives are expendable for profit. Also, the movie further evolves Ripley, one of the few strong heroines up to that point. In this film, she becomes full-fledged action hero in facing down the Alien Queen. Cameron's Avatar is sort of a mirror copy of Aliens in some ways. In both films, humanity travels to a world far, far away and a corporation is trying to exploit resources for their own gain (Aliens: terraforming LV-426 and capturing the aliens for bio-weapons research, Avatar: mining Unobtainium). In both, humanity encounters a hostile alien species that we don't really understand and any attempt to control that species results in disaster. And in both, the military/corporate defense forces are ultimately overpowered by the lower-tech alien species. The only difference is that in Aliens the audience is totally on board with nuking the bastards to Kingdom Come and making the Xenomorphs extinct.
Ripley: You know, Burke, I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage.
- Mad Max 2: Made back when Mel Gibson was somewhat sane, the movie is George Miller's apocalyptic vision of an Australian nuclear wasteland dominated by a psycho S&M gang and settlers fighting over the last drips of petrol, with hardened loner "Mad" Max Rockatansky (Gibson) stuck in the middle. It has all the basic elements of a Western, with a besieged town being hounded by marauders needing the help of a reluctant hero. The film also ends with an iconic chase that has a realism standing in contrast to most of the overused CGI crap in today's movies. A few things that stand out: According to this movie, after World War III the only clothes available will be dominatrix gear and the football pads from a high school JV team. If you're trying to survive in a world where gas is scarce, be sure to roam the Australian outback/wasteland in the last of the V8 Interceptors with its big-ass blower that probably gets 6 MPG. Don't fuck with a man's dog. There are some things that are sacred in this life. Screwing with a man's car, french fries and/or his dog, are over-the-line violations. It's only after Max loses his dog that he decides Humungus' crew needs to die. Feral children with razor sharp boomerangs make great sidekicks. And do not be stupid and attempt to catch said boomerang with your bare hands.
Lord Humungus: Just walk away. I will give you safe passage in the Wasteland. Just walk away, and there will be an end to the horror.
- Die Hard: I mentioned this movie last week and the "Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker!" scene. This movie is one of the first big action blockbusters, and it has been copied hundreds of times (i.e. "Die Hard on an X"). This is also absolutely a Christmas movie (and technically Lethal Weapon is too). The events occur during Christmastime, with Hans taking over Nakatomi Plaza during the Christmas party. One of the signature moments of the movie is a dead terrorist with a Santa cap being found and having "Now I have a machine gun, Ho Ho Ho" written across his sweatshirt. I always go a bit of time between seeing the original Die Hard, and then I'll catch it on TV and I'm alway surprised by how well it stands the test of time. One thing that has always made it stand above all of those copycats is the quality of the villain, Alan Rickman's "Hans Gruber." That character is not an idiot, and neither are his henchmen. They're just outwitted by John McClane (Bruce Willis). Director Jon McTiernan purportedly based the tone of the film on William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." All of the events happen during one crazy festival night (i.e. Christmas), and causes changes in the relationships between the characters.
From Eric Lichtenfeld at Slate, Yippee-Ki-Yay ... The greatest one-liner in movie history:
When terrorist-slash-exceptional thief Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) taunts hero John McClane (Bruce Willis), "Who are you? Just another American who saw too many movies as a child?" and asks this "Mr. Cowboy" if he really thinks he stands a chance, McClane's answer—"Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker"—marks the moment that McClane, an everyman, assumes the mantle of America's archetypal heroes: Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Gunsmoke's Marshall Dillon and others who have been so vital to American boyhood. Unlike the many actionmovie one-liners that are rooted in the hero's narcissism, McClane's stems from our collective wish fulfillment. He is not referring to himself, not suggesting an "I" or a "me" but an us. And considering the European Gruber's appreciation of fashion, finance, and the classics, McClane's comeback acquires an additional subtext: Our pop culture can beat up your high culture.
- Taken: Produced and written by Luc Besson, and directed by Pierre Morel, Taken made Liam Neeson an action star. Similar to Man on Fire with Denzel Washington, the plot seems to have been written by the bitterest single dad who ever existed who knows Krav Maga. In a lot of ways it plays as a slightly toned-down Death Wish with the action turned up to 11. Basically, it's a "dad porn" fantasy in which somebody fucks with your kid and you tear down everything to rescue her.
- The Seven Samurai: Considered one of, if not THE best and most influential films ever made. Akira Kurosawa's 1954 film tells a timeless tale of seven warriors coming to the defense of a village, not for money or fame, just for rice and a sense of honor. What makes the movie so influential and led to it being remade, homaged or flat out ripped off numerous times is how Kurosawa pulls together story elements and tropes, and makes a cohesive narrative that stays interesting over 207 minutes. The story is intrinsically Japanese, and yet not. The reason the movie has been adapted in so many cultures is that it speaks to certain universal values of justice and the belief that when it comes down to it, people can put aside their differences and come together for the greater good. The Seven Samurai has a claim for being both the first modern action movie, but for also being the source of all "assembling the team of ragtag bunch of misfits" stories. Beyond the plot, the cinematography of the film is amazing. The biggest visual memory I always have of this movie is just the camera shots, in the rain, of the samurai and farmers running back and forth from one end of the village to the other in the battle sequences.
From
Roger Ebert:
Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" (1954) is not only a great film in its own right, but the source of a genre that would flow through the rest of the century. The critic Michael Jeck suggests that this was the first film in which a team is assembled to carry out a mission--an idea which gave birth to its direct Hollywood remake, "The Magnificent Seven," as well as "The Guns of Navarone," "The Dirty Dozen" and countless later war, heist and caper movies. Since Kurosawa's samurai adventure "Yojimbo" (1960) was remade as "A Fistful of Dollars" and essentially created the spaghetti Western, and since this movie and Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress" inspired George Lucas' "Star Wars" series, it could be argued that this greatest of filmmakers gave employment to action heroes for the next 50 years, just as a fallout from his primary purpose.