60 to 90 Minutes of Flat, Dead, and Often Hilariously Insipid Narrative
July 3, 2021 4:01 PM Subscribe
I guess they don't think historical films, if fictional, don't count, because Rob Roy and The Last of the Mohicans should absolutely be on that list.
posted by Beholder at 4:16 PM on July 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Beholder at 4:16 PM on July 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I thought Run Lola Run and The Professional were odd inclusions. Both great movies, but this was an odd list to find them on.
posted by mhoye at 4:20 PM on July 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 4:20 PM on July 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
this was an odd list to find them on.
Like all internet movie list, it's clickbait, which is fine.
As for Tombstone being included, it's a fantastic film, but the action really doesn't start until the midway point.
Also, no Saving Private Ryan.
posted by Beholder at 4:33 PM on July 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
Like all internet movie list, it's clickbait, which is fine.
As for Tombstone being included, it's a fantastic film, but the action really doesn't start until the midway point.
Also, no Saving Private Ryan.
posted by Beholder at 4:33 PM on July 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
The Professional doesn't belong? Have you watched it? :)
posted by Splunge at 4:34 PM on July 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Splunge at 4:34 PM on July 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
...to rake in more than $520 million at the box office, outearning its reported $100 million budget by orders of magnitude.That's not what orders of magnitude means. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
posted by Hatashran at 4:41 PM on July 3, 2021 [80 favorites]
Thirty years ago today, Tri-Star Pictures released a film that would go on to rake in more than $520 million at the box office, outearning its reported $100 million budget by orders of magnitude.$520M/$100M = 5.2, and 1 order of magnitude is a factor of 10.
With a factor of 5.2, log10 5.2 ~ .72
So .72 orders of magnitude, to be a little more precise.
posted by jamjam at 4:42 PM on July 3, 2021 [25 favorites]
Speed should be higher
posted by churl at 4:46 PM on July 3, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by churl at 4:46 PM on July 3, 2021 [10 favorites]
Maybe insidehook.com's style guide dictates the use of base 2 for computing their orders of magnitude.
posted by kaibutsu at 4:48 PM on July 3, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by kaibutsu at 4:48 PM on July 3, 2021 [13 favorites]
The article notes that Jurassic Park's dinosaurs "look every bit as terrifying in 2017 as they did a decade and a half ago." Which is interesting given that this article was published today. If they indeed use the counting system kaibutsu endorses, they could say that the dinosaurs still look scary 100 years later.
posted by HeroZero at 4:51 PM on July 3, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by HeroZero at 4:51 PM on July 3, 2021 [11 favorites]
Ronin and Heat are much too low. Die Hard 2 is much too high and Face/Off should be off.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:57 PM on July 3, 2021 [14 favorites]
posted by kirkaracha at 4:57 PM on July 3, 2021 [14 favorites]
I was actually shocked to find Die Hard 2 that high on the list.
posted by Carillon at 5:09 PM on July 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Carillon at 5:09 PM on July 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
They rank DH2 inexplicably higher than DHWAV but can't even spell Renny Harlin's surname right.
Also what, no: Face/Off absolutely belongs on this list.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 5:13 PM on July 3, 2021 [7 favorites]
Also what, no: Face/Off absolutely belongs on this list.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 5:13 PM on July 3, 2021 [7 favorites]
Can't even spell Renny Harlin's surname right.
Or Jan de Bont's.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 5:36 PM on July 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
Or Jan de Bont's.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 5:36 PM on July 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
No Van Damme? The fuck?
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 5:48 PM on July 3, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 5:48 PM on July 3, 2021 [6 favorites]
14. The Fifth Element (Luc Besson), 1997
New York pop-culture writer Frank DeCaro once called it “Gay Star Wars.” Was it the outfits? The fight scenes choreographed to a techno alien opera? Chris Tucker?
Action movies of the 90s, here brought to you with the incoherent homophobia of the 90s.
posted by belarius at 6:12 PM on July 3, 2021 [27 favorites]
New York pop-culture writer Frank DeCaro once called it “Gay Star Wars.” Was it the outfits? The fight scenes choreographed to a techno alien opera? Chris Tucker?
Action movies of the 90s, here brought to you with the incoherent homophobia of the 90s.
posted by belarius at 6:12 PM on July 3, 2021 [27 favorites]
Having Con Air above The Rock is inexplicable, but then again, so is most of this list. Die Hard 2 should’ve sunk the series.
Bad list is bad, and should go to its room and think about what it’s done.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:19 PM on July 3, 2021 [17 favorites]
Bad list is bad, and should go to its room and think about what it’s done.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:19 PM on July 3, 2021 [17 favorites]
Despite the names of the people involved in making it, reading Ronin as an action movie does the viewer an extreme disservice. The Professional ain't an action movie in any sense of the word except maybe that it has no particular point of view, which is a quality that most action movies share.
posted by wierdo at 6:22 PM on July 3, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by wierdo at 6:22 PM on July 3, 2021 [7 favorites]
Even when this article says something I strongly agree with, like The Terminator being better than Terminator 2: Judgment Day, it fucks it up by describing the former as the latter's "plainly superior 1984 prequel". A prequel is produced subsequent to an existing work and takes place prior to said existing work, it doesn't simply mean a preceding entry in a series.
posted by Strutter Cane - United Planets Stilt Patrol at 6:24 PM on July 3, 2021 [14 favorites]
posted by Strutter Cane - United Planets Stilt Patrol at 6:24 PM on July 3, 2021 [14 favorites]
Aside from the misspellings and weird choices, I think that we can also dispense with caring about what David Foster Wallace had to say about T2.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:29 PM on July 3, 2021 [12 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:29 PM on July 3, 2021 [12 favorites]
Speed should be higher
I often feel this way when I'm driving.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:20 PM on July 3, 2021 [15 favorites]
I often feel this way when I'm driving.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:20 PM on July 3, 2021 [15 favorites]
No Van Damme? The fuck?
Jean Claude is more of an '80s boy. I'd even say most of the movies he made in the '90s were '80's action movies.
posted by VTX at 9:02 PM on July 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
Jean Claude is more of an '80s boy. I'd even say most of the movies he made in the '90s were '80's action movies.
posted by VTX at 9:02 PM on July 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
This is a very strange list, but it did remind me of a few movies that I really need to watch or rewatch.
Also taking recommendations for less famous '90s action movies! I'm excited to watch Van Damme in Maximum Risk, since apparently it's a great combo of Western action with Hong Kong action.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 9:04 PM on July 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
Also taking recommendations for less famous '90s action movies! I'm excited to watch Van Damme in Maximum Risk, since apparently it's a great combo of Western action with Hong Kong action.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 9:04 PM on July 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
As others have mentioned, Face/Off does not belong on this list. Here's the only scenario I can imagine, because it happened to me: I hadn't seen the movie since it came out, and in my mind's eye it was AMAZING. Cheesy, yes, but John Woo, Pulp Fiction era Travolta, Nicolas Cage before he jumped the shark (ok, well that's a stretch).
So, with that in mind, a number of years ago, I set it up for movie night for my then-17 year old, ideally the perfect audience.
Omg, that movie did NOT age well, maybe it was never good. Probably that. I think the reason it was ever popular is because at the time Travolta and Cage were very well known personalities, and the idea of them playing off each other felt novel and fresh. However, you take that part away, and oooh yeesh, not a whole lot there. My son was yawning 1/2 way through, I may have ended up watching it on my own while he drifted off.
So, back to this list (which I actually appreciated for some of it's unconventional choices), I can only imagine they put Face/Off at #2 because they have not re-watched it, because if they did, they would realize it sucks.
posted by jeremias at 9:12 PM on July 3, 2021 [6 favorites]
So, with that in mind, a number of years ago, I set it up for movie night for my then-17 year old, ideally the perfect audience.
Omg, that movie did NOT age well, maybe it was never good. Probably that. I think the reason it was ever popular is because at the time Travolta and Cage were very well known personalities, and the idea of them playing off each other felt novel and fresh. However, you take that part away, and oooh yeesh, not a whole lot there. My son was yawning 1/2 way through, I may have ended up watching it on my own while he drifted off.
So, back to this list (which I actually appreciated for some of it's unconventional choices), I can only imagine they put Face/Off at #2 because they have not re-watched it, because if they did, they would realize it sucks.
posted by jeremias at 9:12 PM on July 3, 2021 [6 favorites]
True story; I saw Face/Off in the theatre with two friends, a male/female couple. At one point the guy got up and left; I assumed he was just going to the washroom or whatever, but after a while I realized he hadn't come back so I asked his girlfriend where he went. She told me "Oh, he's probably passed out in the bathroom. He has a thing about facial injuries and surgery." So I went out and found him in the lobby, white as a sheet; he told me that back in high school he'd been in a class where a show they were watching included a scene of some plastic surgery and he'd gone full white-out right there at his desk and had to be led to the nurse's office until he calmed down and he regained his sight. And yet somehow he willingly came to see a movie named "FACE/OFF" and his girlfriend, who knew he was prone to extreme reactions to scenes of facial trauma, did not put a stop to it. He insisted the two of us stay for the rest of the movie, but he was going to just wait in the lobby, thanks very much. They were two good people but a very strange couple. Also, the movie had its moments but mostly sucked.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:40 PM on July 3, 2021 [19 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:40 PM on July 3, 2021 [19 favorites]
I mean I think John Woo's foray into Hollywood does deserve to be represented on this list as the action director who's been stylistically ripped off more than anybody else of that decade--with the likely exception of Cameron--but also because Face/Off is fuckin bonkers, overstuffed with big wild ideas from the magnetic ocean prison to the No More Drugs For That Man scene to a half dozen action setpieces far more inventive than most of us had ever seen in a theater in the 90s and with a clarity and intelligence for the physical geography of a dynamic scene that Woo carried off better than absolutely any of his contemporaries.
If it's not your jam then obviously that's fine and I wouldn't try to convince you otherwise, but this weird, stupid movie fills me with sheer glee on every re-watch, especially the extremely cockamamie shot where the two adversaries who have exchanged faces are back to back against some kind of gigantic double-sided mirror feature in the ballroom or wherever the hell they are, and then they whirl around in balletic slow motion to shoot each other through the mirror that separates them, but each is facing and shooting through his own reflection of him with the other guy's face, which is like a double switch em up and also extremely rad and cool and you think in your mind, "that is extremely rad and cool" because you're suddenly 17 again. It's perfect for a list like this.
posted by churl at 9:43 PM on July 3, 2021 [25 favorites]
If it's not your jam then obviously that's fine and I wouldn't try to convince you otherwise, but this weird, stupid movie fills me with sheer glee on every re-watch, especially the extremely cockamamie shot where the two adversaries who have exchanged faces are back to back against some kind of gigantic double-sided mirror feature in the ballroom or wherever the hell they are, and then they whirl around in balletic slow motion to shoot each other through the mirror that separates them, but each is facing and shooting through his own reflection of him with the other guy's face, which is like a double switch em up and also extremely rad and cool and you think in your mind, "that is extremely rad and cool" because you're suddenly 17 again. It's perfect for a list like this.
posted by churl at 9:43 PM on July 3, 2021 [25 favorites]
was Jack Ryan in high school then?
posted by clavdivs at 10:42 PM on July 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 10:42 PM on July 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
Fun list.
It's a subjective internet movie list/clickbait article, so no emotion wasted in reacting with "$FILM is ranked too high!!" or "how could they leave off $MOVIE!!" or similar. But I will say, that after finishing reading the article, one of my first thoughts: "I really want to watch Last Action Hero again."
posted by Theophrastus Johnson at 11:06 PM on July 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
It's a subjective internet movie list/clickbait article, so no emotion wasted in reacting with "$FILM is ranked too high!!" or "how could they leave off $MOVIE!!" or similar. But I will say, that after finishing reading the article, one of my first thoughts: "I really want to watch Last Action Hero again."
posted by Theophrastus Johnson at 11:06 PM on July 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
Last Action Hero holds up way better than it has any right to.
posted by wierdo at 12:01 AM on July 4, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by wierdo at 12:01 AM on July 4, 2021 [15 favorites]
I understand not thinking Face/Off is good but it’s certainly still fun.
posted by atoxyl at 12:43 AM on July 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 12:43 AM on July 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
Last Action Hero holds up way better than it has any right to.Mostly due to Charles Dance I think
posted by fullerine at 12:46 AM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
"Mostly due to Charles Dance" ... see also "Space Truckers" in general and his complete immersion in the rule during this scene specifically.
posted by ewan at 2:13 AM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by ewan at 2:13 AM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Whenever I think about Last Action Hero I think about whether if I lost an eye I could get away with a cross hairs glass eye.
I watched Face/Off pretty recently (& MI2 also) and I can tell you what has aged badly. John Woo & his fucking pigeons.
posted by biffa at 2:39 AM on July 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
I watched Face/Off pretty recently (& MI2 also) and I can tell you what has aged badly. John Woo & his fucking pigeons.
posted by biffa at 2:39 AM on July 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
Yeah some weird inclusions on that list. Die Hard 2 is crappy--I wouldn't even put it in this list. Same with Face/Off; John Woo is perhaps the most overrated director of the last thirty years. Don't believe me? Watch Mission: Impossible 2 without laughing out loud. The doves...
Heat is much more of a drama with some great action scenes.
Ditto on The Last Action Hero: it's a really fun movie marred by--and I hate to say it--a really obnoxious and, frankly, bad kid actor in the lead. He pulls the movie down, along with its pretty terrible attempts at humor. If TLAH had been a LOT less tongue-in-cheek, and more geared for adults, it would've worked a lot better. But the action is pretty great.
posted by zardoz at 5:09 AM on July 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
Heat is much more of a drama with some great action scenes.
Ditto on The Last Action Hero: it's a really fun movie marred by--and I hate to say it--a really obnoxious and, frankly, bad kid actor in the lead. He pulls the movie down, along with its pretty terrible attempts at humor. If TLAH had been a LOT less tongue-in-cheek, and more geared for adults, it would've worked a lot better. But the action is pretty great.
posted by zardoz at 5:09 AM on July 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
I like that this list acknowledged films outside of the US/anglosphere, but given that, there’s a weird erasure of Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez on this list. I don’t need True Romance, Desperado, Pulp Fiction and El Mariachi to all be on this list, but I’d trade one of the Die Hards to get any of them here.
I guess for me, I am less interested in the relative rankings than whether “Best (GENRE) films of (DECADE)“ can actually do a good survey of the variety that made that decade special. And if we’re talking about the 90s action, the beats to hit for me are:
posted by bl1nk at 5:32 AM on July 4, 2021 [5 favorites]
I guess for me, I am less interested in the relative rankings than whether “Best (GENRE) films of (DECADE)“ can actually do a good survey of the variety that made that decade special. And if we’re talking about the 90s action, the beats to hit for me are:
- CGI magic - Opening the Uncanny Valley
- breakthrough Asian cinema
- ridiculous global disaster movies (arguably a CGI magic sub genre)
- Cops and robbers bromances
- Late/post Cold War paranoia thrillers
- Female Led Ass Kicking
- the Nic Cage Golden Age
- the Schwarzenegger hegemon
- Jerry Bruckheimer unleashed
- Tarantino/Indie ultraviolence
- goth trench coats with guns, fangs, and/or hacking
posted by bl1nk at 5:32 AM on July 4, 2021 [5 favorites]
Action movies of the 90s, here brought to you with the incoherent homophobia of the 90s.
Tell me you don’t know who Frank DeCaro is without saying you don’t know who Frank DeCaro is.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 5:48 AM on July 4, 2021 [5 favorites]
Tell me you don’t know who Frank DeCaro is without saying you don’t know who Frank DeCaro is.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 5:48 AM on July 4, 2021 [5 favorites]
"Check out this list which will make you think, 'Wait, do I need to see that again*?' for several movies on it."
* more than once
posted by filtergik at 6:45 AM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
* more than once
posted by filtergik at 6:45 AM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Zardoz, you are generally right but DH2? Totes wrong. I'd go as far as to say it is the best of the bunch, as well as being the most Christmassy. A much underrated baddy, then a decently done second sub-baddy. Bit more for Mrs Maclane to do. Good setbacks for the goodies, helping to make the baddy worthwhile. Nice switch with the marines. Dennis Franz. What's not to like?
posted by biffa at 8:03 AM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by biffa at 8:03 AM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
I watched Under Siege a couple nights ago, not realizing it had been directed by Andrew Davis a little bit before he made The Fugitive. It is interesting to watch what is basically The Fugitive with all the stupidity/misogyny/etc. dials turned up to 11.
posted by HeroZero at 8:50 AM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by HeroZero at 8:50 AM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Two things:
This list made me realize that I have been "meaning to watch" Run, Lola, Run for 24 years.
Also the best thing about the Die Hard movies is this tribute song.
Also (third thing!), during the nineties before we had kids, my partner and I went to the movies all the time. It was common for us to have seen literally everything that was playing at any given time. So this is the only decade for which I could possibly have an opinion on so many of the movies on this list.
Oh, wait. I have another Die Hard story. Thing 4.
So, I graduated from college in 1987 with a double major in women's studies and political science. I had come out in 1985 by falling in love with my randomly-assigned junior-year roommate (it was mutual! and glorious!), and after graduation, went right into a PhD program in Women and Politics. My girlfriend and I kissed, came out, and went all-in on lesbianism in the span of, like ten minutes, so by the time I dropped out of grad school in 1989, I'd spent my undergrad years immersed in a pretty radical women's studies department by day and a campus lesbian group by night, followed by two years in a brand-new PhD program that attracted lesbians from all over the country. (And who, once that first girlfriend and I had broken up partway through my first year in grad school, I slept my way through like I'd been issued an alphabetical checklist.)
Fast forward nine months from grad school drop out, and I'm newly back in Michigan, living with my parents while I job hunt. To pay my bills while looking for a "real" job, I worked the closing shift at the Burger King drive-thru in my small hometown, often getting home, totally wired, at 2 or 3 in the morning. My parents, by this time, had cable TV, which I had never had before, so I'd sit in their living room, eating the leftover grilled chicken salad I wasn't supposed to have brought home from the restaurant, and watching MTV or scrolling through the channels.
It was during one of these late nights that I saw the video for "Birdhouse in My Soul," and thus discovered They Might Be Giants.
It was during another that I happened upon "Die Hard," showing on some movie channel. I'd never seen it, having learned in women's studies that action movies were all about what we'd now call toxic masculinity, and were also co-terminus with pornography ("pornography is the theory, rape is the practice"). I don't know what made me stop on the movie; probably nothing else was on, to speak of. Probably I intended to watch five minutes of it while I ate my salad and then go to bed.
By half an hour into it, I was pacing my parents' living room, ranting into thin air. This was amazing! Why had the lesbians and women studies profs lied to me about it? OMG. If they were lying about Die Hard, what else might they have been lying, or, more charitably, wrong about? What if radical lesbian feminism wasn't actually a true guide to the culture but an ideology that I'd been subjected to? That I'd bought into? WHAT THE FUCK WAS GOING TO BECOME OF ME NOW?
YIPPEE-KI-YAY MOTHERFUCKER indeed.
And that is how Die Hard changed my life.
posted by Orlop at 8:54 AM on July 4, 2021 [38 favorites]
This list made me realize that I have been "meaning to watch" Run, Lola, Run for 24 years.
Also the best thing about the Die Hard movies is this tribute song.
Also (third thing!), during the nineties before we had kids, my partner and I went to the movies all the time. It was common for us to have seen literally everything that was playing at any given time. So this is the only decade for which I could possibly have an opinion on so many of the movies on this list.
Oh, wait. I have another Die Hard story. Thing 4.
So, I graduated from college in 1987 with a double major in women's studies and political science. I had come out in 1985 by falling in love with my randomly-assigned junior-year roommate (it was mutual! and glorious!), and after graduation, went right into a PhD program in Women and Politics. My girlfriend and I kissed, came out, and went all-in on lesbianism in the span of, like ten minutes, so by the time I dropped out of grad school in 1989, I'd spent my undergrad years immersed in a pretty radical women's studies department by day and a campus lesbian group by night, followed by two years in a brand-new PhD program that attracted lesbians from all over the country. (And who, once that first girlfriend and I had broken up partway through my first year in grad school, I slept my way through like I'd been issued an alphabetical checklist.)
Fast forward nine months from grad school drop out, and I'm newly back in Michigan, living with my parents while I job hunt. To pay my bills while looking for a "real" job, I worked the closing shift at the Burger King drive-thru in my small hometown, often getting home, totally wired, at 2 or 3 in the morning. My parents, by this time, had cable TV, which I had never had before, so I'd sit in their living room, eating the leftover grilled chicken salad I wasn't supposed to have brought home from the restaurant, and watching MTV or scrolling through the channels.
It was during one of these late nights that I saw the video for "Birdhouse in My Soul," and thus discovered They Might Be Giants.
It was during another that I happened upon "Die Hard," showing on some movie channel. I'd never seen it, having learned in women's studies that action movies were all about what we'd now call toxic masculinity, and were also co-terminus with pornography ("pornography is the theory, rape is the practice"). I don't know what made me stop on the movie; probably nothing else was on, to speak of. Probably I intended to watch five minutes of it while I ate my salad and then go to bed.
By half an hour into it, I was pacing my parents' living room, ranting into thin air. This was amazing! Why had the lesbians and women studies profs lied to me about it? OMG. If they were lying about Die Hard, what else might they have been lying, or, more charitably, wrong about? What if radical lesbian feminism wasn't actually a true guide to the culture but an ideology that I'd been subjected to? That I'd bought into? WHAT THE FUCK WAS GOING TO BECOME OF ME NOW?
YIPPEE-KI-YAY MOTHERFUCKER indeed.
And that is how Die Hard changed my life.
posted by Orlop at 8:54 AM on July 4, 2021 [38 favorites]
The Last Action Hero has had at least one FPP here; I say at least one, because I'd swear that there was another one based on a very good oral history of the film (Part 1, Part 2) that goes into exhaustive detail on how we got a movie that tried to deconstruct the action movie genre and simultaneously tried to unironically be that sort of movie at exactly the same time. TLAH, for all of its many faults, at least had a magic movie ticket as its enabling plot device, which is why it's better than Face/Off, which wants you to believe that it's possible to do a double face transplant that not only works perfectly but heals almost instantly.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:17 AM on July 4, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:17 AM on July 4, 2021 [5 favorites]
Since mention was made of Van Damme, I am compelled to suggest a viewing of John Woo's first U.S. film, which starred Van Damme - "Hard Target" - from 1993. It's a lean, mean thriller with a great villain turn from Lance Henrikson, and script and direction assist from Sam Raimi.
posted by Mr.Pointy at 10:07 AM on July 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by Mr.Pointy at 10:07 AM on July 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
The 80s were the decade I went to see movies constantly, so I'm surprised at how many of these 90s action movies I have seen. I think the 90s had a lot of movies that were touted as "the first" or "the ultimate" of whatever the topic was, so you felt obliged to go see it even if you doubted you would enjoy Nicolas Gage exchanging faces with John Travolta (reader, I didn't) or Arnold Schwarzenegger menaced by Robert Patrick (reader, I did). "Jurassic park" was supposed to have amazing special effects; "Run Lola Run was supposed to be the first arty Euro-action film. However. looking through this list, the one I'd most like to see again is "The Fifth Element". I like action movies to be snappy and unpredictable and that sure was.
posted by acrasis at 10:21 AM on July 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by acrasis at 10:21 AM on July 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
Speed should be higher
if Speed doesn't get into the top 5 the list explodes
posted by taquito sunrise at 10:21 AM on July 4, 2021 [10 favorites]
if Speed doesn't get into the top 5 the list explodes
posted by taquito sunrise at 10:21 AM on July 4, 2021 [10 favorites]
Face/Off works if you think of it basically as an opera disguised as an action movie. Nobody talks about how the plot of Turandot doesn't make sense, or that the characters don't act like realistic humans. Same deal here.
posted by nushustu at 10:23 AM on July 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by nushustu at 10:23 AM on July 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
I saw Face/Off shortly after it was released, so well over 20 years ago; my memories of it are thus pretty hazy. But what I do recall is thinking it was kind of a hoot in an over-the-top and non-believable way (like most of both Travolta's and Cage's movies, before and after this one, TBH), and being impressed by the two actors' skill in perceptibly taking on the other one's acting/vocal styles while their faces were "swapped" - i.e. C's performance taking on some of T's mannerisms while playing T's character acting like C's character, and vice versa. The rest of it I have no idea about anymore so I can't speak to how well or poorly it holds together or up.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:07 AM on July 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:07 AM on July 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
(that may be one of the most bewildering convoluted comments I've ever made)
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:10 AM on July 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:10 AM on July 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
FTA:
6. Total Recall (Paul Verhoeven), 1990
The Washington Post once called it an “appalling onslaught of blood and boredom” — as if it were a bad thing
It is a bad thing, and it was appallingly boring. Whatever "wonderful complexity" of plot may have been evident in Total Recall, it wasn't up to the dead weight of Ahhhnold's performance or the relentlessly dumb violence. It's an embarrassment having this movie in a top ten that excludes Starship Trooper (same director) and Run Lola Run, a genuinely innovative piece of cinematic where the action actually is the point of the movie.
I'm also not getting how Hard Boiled can get listed but way behind Face/Off, which I will admit to having enjoyed as an absurd ride, but to rank it as a better John Woo film just makes me think that the editors of Inside Hook were drunk when they put this list together.
posted by philip-random at 11:14 AM on July 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
6. Total Recall (Paul Verhoeven), 1990
The Washington Post once called it an “appalling onslaught of blood and boredom” — as if it were a bad thing
It is a bad thing, and it was appallingly boring. Whatever "wonderful complexity" of plot may have been evident in Total Recall, it wasn't up to the dead weight of Ahhhnold's performance or the relentlessly dumb violence. It's an embarrassment having this movie in a top ten that excludes Starship Trooper (same director) and Run Lola Run, a genuinely innovative piece of cinematic where the action actually is the point of the movie.
I'm also not getting how Hard Boiled can get listed but way behind Face/Off, which I will admit to having enjoyed as an absurd ride, but to rank it as a better John Woo film just makes me think that the editors of Inside Hook were drunk when they put this list together.
posted by philip-random at 11:14 AM on July 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
This may be harsh, but I feel like if a 2021 movie clickbait listicle doesn't tell me where I can stream the movies, it's a little half-assed.
posted by box at 11:20 AM on July 4, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by box at 11:20 AM on July 4, 2021 [7 favorites]
Yeah, this listicle is pretty jarringly half-assed. Just really poorly written and not thought through at all, it screams "I have to turn in an article today, any movie anniversaries out there? go, go, go".
I mean, its premise is that T2 ushered in an era of cookie-cutter F/X porn, (because he googled T2 and that was the most interesting thing he found written about it) and then two-thirds of the movies aren't F/X heavy at all. Like, does Rumble in the Bronx have any CGI? And with that premise, how do you not include True Lies? That is the first born child of T2.
posted by team lowkey at 12:46 PM on July 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
I mean, its premise is that T2 ushered in an era of cookie-cutter F/X porn, (because he googled T2 and that was the most interesting thing he found written about it) and then two-thirds of the movies aren't F/X heavy at all. Like, does Rumble in the Bronx have any CGI? And with that premise, how do you not include True Lies? That is the first born child of T2.
posted by team lowkey at 12:46 PM on July 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
True Lies hasn’t aged well. Not just the crude anti-Muslim sentiments, but especially the misogyny with Jamie Lee Curtis’ character. In fact, that raised a few eyebrows even back then, but looks even worse these days. The action is fun, though.
but DH2? Totes wrong. I'd go as far as to say it is the best of the bunch, as well as being the most Christmassy. A much underrated baddy, then a decently done second sub-baddy. Bit more for Mrs Maclane to do. Good setbacks for the goodies, helping to make the baddy worthwhile. Nice switch with the marines. Dennis Franz. What's not to like?
Renny Harlan, for one. He’s a hacky director with no real style or vision. But my real problem with Die Hard 2 is they take John McClane and make him a typical fearless action hero, but that’s what sets apart the first movie: in Die Hard, McClane is scared. He routinely shows fear and hesitancy, and this part of why it’s such a great character. The sequel has him run out on an airport runway—at night—to warn a plane not to crash. The impossibility of this made it beyond stupid, but McClane does it because he’s a badass, and fear is for pussies. The rest of the movie is similarly bland. Die Hard 3 was better, but some action scenes were so over the top my suspension of disbelief came crashing down to the ground. Don’t even get me started on DH4.
posted by zardoz at 4:35 PM on July 4, 2021 [7 favorites]
but DH2? Totes wrong. I'd go as far as to say it is the best of the bunch, as well as being the most Christmassy. A much underrated baddy, then a decently done second sub-baddy. Bit more for Mrs Maclane to do. Good setbacks for the goodies, helping to make the baddy worthwhile. Nice switch with the marines. Dennis Franz. What's not to like?
Renny Harlan, for one. He’s a hacky director with no real style or vision. But my real problem with Die Hard 2 is they take John McClane and make him a typical fearless action hero, but that’s what sets apart the first movie: in Die Hard, McClane is scared. He routinely shows fear and hesitancy, and this part of why it’s such a great character. The sequel has him run out on an airport runway—at night—to warn a plane not to crash. The impossibility of this made it beyond stupid, but McClane does it because he’s a badass, and fear is for pussies. The rest of the movie is similarly bland. Die Hard 3 was better, but some action scenes were so over the top my suspension of disbelief came crashing down to the ground. Don’t even get me started on DH4.
posted by zardoz at 4:35 PM on July 4, 2021 [7 favorites]
Die hard 2 was originally written to be commando 2. With that in mind, it makes a lot more sense.
Die hard 3 was originally an original script titled Simon Says
posted by RustyBrooks at 6:16 PM on July 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
Die hard 3 was originally an original script titled Simon Says
posted by RustyBrooks at 6:16 PM on July 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
DH 4 started as an offshore financial instrument that acquired an established IP, a spreadsheet and a couple of attorneys.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 6:39 PM on July 4, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by thatwhichfalls at 6:39 PM on July 4, 2021 [15 favorites]
Was Demolition Man not on there?
posted by Carillon at 7:27 PM on July 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Carillon at 7:27 PM on July 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
Look, Point Break is literally unwatchable. I know this because I tried to watch it a couple of years ago and had to give up.
posted by bq at 9:29 PM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by bq at 9:29 PM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Yeah, these ranking pieces are always a bit disappointing cuz there really is a lot more interesting things one could look at about something like 90s action films.
One could note, for example, how the 90s saw a return of the "paranoid" political thriller, where there is suspicion of a conspiracy at the highest levels of power. That was big in the early seventies, largely disappeared in the eighties, other than in more sci-fi/fantasy or generic form, then made a return, probably due to Tom Clancy success but went beyond those films, in the 90s. Unlike the 70s films though, the 90s versions tended towards more tidy resolutions, where the conspiracy may have been "real", but the heroes were able to overcome it.
Another return from the seventies was that of the "unmotivated" crisis, movies like Armegeddon, Dante's Peak focused on natural disasters, films like Tremors, Lake Placid, and Anaconda, went back to "animal" threats, and even movies like Independence Day didn't deal with the "why" of an attack, just the need to survive or overcome the threat. This wasn't a major part of 80s action films.
On the other hand, while the 70s saw the rise of cinephile directors who referenced other movies in their works, but left them still strongly tied to the real world, the 90s saw the rise of the film school directors who not only referenced other works, they left the real world further and further behind, making movies, more or less, about movies, or just playing with movie rules instead of tying the works to anything "real". For some movies this was a studio shift in focus to more "high concept" films, where an unusual idea was the driving force of the story and action and the conflict didn't require attachment to deep motivation to suss out. Speed being the hallmark perhaps for that type, but even action stars like Jean Claude Van Damme headed that way in the 90s, with Universal Soldier and Timecop. The concept providing the hook and excuse for the action.
Movies like Last Action Hero and Point Break, in their different ways, each were as much about action movies as a genre and how they worked, Last Action Hero lightly and directly, Point Break, more thematically and as it related to masculine ideals. Other movies, in the US and abroad, used the action movie idea or its themes to explore tone, style, or atmosphere, the pleasure being in how the movie or action was filmed itself and the development of the plot was secondary. Wong Kar Wai, on the one hand, was making things like Fallen Angels and Ashes of Time, beautiful action tone poems, while Michael Bay and Tony Scott were starting to explore how to, in Bay's words, "Fuck the frame",while Luc Besson and others like Paul WS Anderson were starting to grab at the action movie genre as a way to play with their own personal styles.
Others like Takeshi Kitano's Sonatine, were interested in deconstructing the genre's use of character and violence, in Kitano's case, the Yakuza film, while Johnnie To was just finding his way in how he would come to mix and match genre devices to get something emotionally unexpected, while showing off his skill behind the camera in movies like The Mission, Running Out of Time, and A Hero Never Dies, something he'd continue and improve on throughout the 00s. Tsui Hark, on the other hand, was just damn busy turning out top notch "action" films throughout the decade, The Once Upon a Time in China series, Green Snake, Swordsman, The Blade and others, while some old hands were winding up their careers making quality commercial films like Liu Chia-Liang's The Legend of Drunken Master or Philip de Broca's On Guard.
If people aren't interested in the directors, then you could look at how the action hero shifted from Stallone and Schwarzenegger type hypermanly men to Bruce Willis type more blue collar just a guy heroes while also seeing more Tom Cruise like "specialists" who succeed by intensity of purpose more than intensity of workouts. You could talk about the brief attempt to give more Black actors and directors a chance to make action movies, which is what Hollywood seemed to see as their limit, Dead Presidents, Juice, The Glass Shield, or even Walter Hill's Trespass and Another 48 Hours (which I prefer to the original for being sour instead of sweet as Murphy's character gets to experience the redneck world and we find it isn't the same barrel of laughs).
Or you could look to the rise, and often fall, of some of the quirkier action movies of the time, not just Tarantino, but films like Miami Blues, Attack the Gas Station, I Love You to Death, or Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, or look at those early comic influenced films, like Tank Girl, Mystery Men, and The Rocketeer. There's always other countries to look to of course, where you could maybe write about, say, Indian movies like my fave Khuda Gawah or Thalapathi and compare them to the more familiar stuff, but I know that ain't likely to happen. There's all sorts of ways you could dig into even the familiar stuff that would be more interesting than another ranked list, but I guess these are easy and drive the clicks.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:49 PM on July 4, 2021 [10 favorites]
One could note, for example, how the 90s saw a return of the "paranoid" political thriller, where there is suspicion of a conspiracy at the highest levels of power. That was big in the early seventies, largely disappeared in the eighties, other than in more sci-fi/fantasy or generic form, then made a return, probably due to Tom Clancy success but went beyond those films, in the 90s. Unlike the 70s films though, the 90s versions tended towards more tidy resolutions, where the conspiracy may have been "real", but the heroes were able to overcome it.
Another return from the seventies was that of the "unmotivated" crisis, movies like Armegeddon, Dante's Peak focused on natural disasters, films like Tremors, Lake Placid, and Anaconda, went back to "animal" threats, and even movies like Independence Day didn't deal with the "why" of an attack, just the need to survive or overcome the threat. This wasn't a major part of 80s action films.
On the other hand, while the 70s saw the rise of cinephile directors who referenced other movies in their works, but left them still strongly tied to the real world, the 90s saw the rise of the film school directors who not only referenced other works, they left the real world further and further behind, making movies, more or less, about movies, or just playing with movie rules instead of tying the works to anything "real". For some movies this was a studio shift in focus to more "high concept" films, where an unusual idea was the driving force of the story and action and the conflict didn't require attachment to deep motivation to suss out. Speed being the hallmark perhaps for that type, but even action stars like Jean Claude Van Damme headed that way in the 90s, with Universal Soldier and Timecop. The concept providing the hook and excuse for the action.
Movies like Last Action Hero and Point Break, in their different ways, each were as much about action movies as a genre and how they worked, Last Action Hero lightly and directly, Point Break, more thematically and as it related to masculine ideals. Other movies, in the US and abroad, used the action movie idea or its themes to explore tone, style, or atmosphere, the pleasure being in how the movie or action was filmed itself and the development of the plot was secondary. Wong Kar Wai, on the one hand, was making things like Fallen Angels and Ashes of Time, beautiful action tone poems, while Michael Bay and Tony Scott were starting to explore how to, in Bay's words, "Fuck the frame",while Luc Besson and others like Paul WS Anderson were starting to grab at the action movie genre as a way to play with their own personal styles.
Others like Takeshi Kitano's Sonatine, were interested in deconstructing the genre's use of character and violence, in Kitano's case, the Yakuza film, while Johnnie To was just finding his way in how he would come to mix and match genre devices to get something emotionally unexpected, while showing off his skill behind the camera in movies like The Mission, Running Out of Time, and A Hero Never Dies, something he'd continue and improve on throughout the 00s. Tsui Hark, on the other hand, was just damn busy turning out top notch "action" films throughout the decade, The Once Upon a Time in China series, Green Snake, Swordsman, The Blade and others, while some old hands were winding up their careers making quality commercial films like Liu Chia-Liang's The Legend of Drunken Master or Philip de Broca's On Guard.
If people aren't interested in the directors, then you could look at how the action hero shifted from Stallone and Schwarzenegger type hypermanly men to Bruce Willis type more blue collar just a guy heroes while also seeing more Tom Cruise like "specialists" who succeed by intensity of purpose more than intensity of workouts. You could talk about the brief attempt to give more Black actors and directors a chance to make action movies, which is what Hollywood seemed to see as their limit, Dead Presidents, Juice, The Glass Shield, or even Walter Hill's Trespass and Another 48 Hours (which I prefer to the original for being sour instead of sweet as Murphy's character gets to experience the redneck world and we find it isn't the same barrel of laughs).
Or you could look to the rise, and often fall, of some of the quirkier action movies of the time, not just Tarantino, but films like Miami Blues, Attack the Gas Station, I Love You to Death, or Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, or look at those early comic influenced films, like Tank Girl, Mystery Men, and The Rocketeer. There's always other countries to look to of course, where you could maybe write about, say, Indian movies like my fave Khuda Gawah or Thalapathi and compare them to the more familiar stuff, but I know that ain't likely to happen. There's all sorts of ways you could dig into even the familiar stuff that would be more interesting than another ranked list, but I guess these are easy and drive the clicks.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:49 PM on July 4, 2021 [10 favorites]
Speed should be higher
Both Speed and Point Break are pretty close to being the platonic action movie, and both star Keanu
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:56 PM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Both Speed and Point Break are pretty close to being the platonic action movie, and both star Keanu
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:56 PM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Look, Point Break is literally unwatchable.
I didn't know it was possible to be this wrong
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:14 PM on July 4, 2021 [7 favorites]
I didn't know it was possible to be this wrong
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:14 PM on July 4, 2021 [7 favorites]
And then he went on to The Matrix, which redefined action movies for the 2000s, and John Wick, which is arguably the platonic action movie series for the 2010s.
posted by mbrubeck at 10:15 PM on July 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by mbrubeck at 10:15 PM on July 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
I didn't know it was possible to be this wrong
That’s how I feel about any criticism of Total Recall.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:23 PM on July 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
That’s how I feel about any criticism of Total Recall.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:23 PM on July 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
Despite the names of the people involved in making it, reading Ronin as an action movie does the viewer an extreme disservice.
I've read this comment a few times and I still don't understand it. Ronin is about a team of specialists pulling off a heist that goes wrong. It has shootouts and some of the best car chases I've ever seen.
It also has rich characterization, a melancholy tone, wonderful dialogue, and a fascinating subtext. But unless you define an action movie as "a movie that offers nothing but action," those things don't stop it from being an action movie. They just make it one of the best.
Weirdo, can you say a bit more about what you meant?
posted by yankeefog at 1:52 AM on July 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
I've read this comment a few times and I still don't understand it. Ronin is about a team of specialists pulling off a heist that goes wrong. It has shootouts and some of the best car chases I've ever seen.
It also has rich characterization, a melancholy tone, wonderful dialogue, and a fascinating subtext. But unless you define an action movie as "a movie that offers nothing but action," those things don't stop it from being an action movie. They just make it one of the best.
Weirdo, can you say a bit more about what you meant?
posted by yankeefog at 1:52 AM on July 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
No Long Kiss Goodnight???
I feel like there were a lot of action films significantly better than DH2 and Face/Off -- and, really, better than many of the good films on this list that have been left out of the discussion. Crimson Tide? Men in Black? Thinking not very hard, I'm guessing there are ten or fifteen 90s action films not on the list that I'd put on the list before I'd put DH2 or Face/Off on it.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 8:13 AM on July 5, 2021 [5 favorites]
I feel like there were a lot of action films significantly better than DH2 and Face/Off -- and, really, better than many of the good films on this list that have been left out of the discussion. Crimson Tide? Men in Black? Thinking not very hard, I'm guessing there are ten or fifteen 90s action films not on the list that I'd put on the list before I'd put DH2 or Face/Off on it.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 8:13 AM on July 5, 2021 [5 favorites]
the action hero shifted from Stallone and Schwarzenegger type hypermanly men to Bruce Willis type more blue collar just a guy heroes
That was certainly a big part of the appeal of the first Die Hard movie, but by the fourth one he's running around on a crashing fighter plane. Even in Die Hard with a Vengeance he survives some unsurvivable things.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:20 AM on July 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
That was certainly a big part of the appeal of the first Die Hard movie, but by the fourth one he's running around on a crashing fighter plane. Even in Die Hard with a Vengeance he survives some unsurvivable things.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:20 AM on July 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
That was certainly a big part of the appeal of the first Die Hard movie, but by the fourth one he's running around on a crashing fighter plane.
Yah, there's the distinction between how Willis tends to play his characters and how the movies treat them, with the more satisfying/successful ones tending, I think, to be those where his approach best matches his character's situations/outcomes. To risk a maybe odd analogy, Willis tends to be best used in a "weak signal/low bandwidth" character roles, where he is drawn into action by threat of loss of frequency drift leading to loss of signal. Where someone like Cruise is more a "strong signal/high bandwidth" guy, fighting to prevent signal degradation at point of broadcast. Reeves, on the other hand, seems to find best result in roles where he appears to be tuned to a different station entirely and finds reason to act because of station bleed between channels.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:30 PM on July 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Yah, there's the distinction between how Willis tends to play his characters and how the movies treat them, with the more satisfying/successful ones tending, I think, to be those where his approach best matches his character's situations/outcomes. To risk a maybe odd analogy, Willis tends to be best used in a "weak signal/low bandwidth" character roles, where he is drawn into action by threat of loss of frequency drift leading to loss of signal. Where someone like Cruise is more a "strong signal/high bandwidth" guy, fighting to prevent signal degradation at point of broadcast. Reeves, on the other hand, seems to find best result in roles where he appears to be tuned to a different station entirely and finds reason to act because of station bleed between channels.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:30 PM on July 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Which 90s action movie was it that had the protagonist with a submachine in each hand, firing while they crossed their wrists over each other?
I mean, while you're all here talking about action movies, somebody help my memory out
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:17 PM on July 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
I mean, while you're all here talking about action movies, somebody help my memory out
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:17 PM on July 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
the protagonist with a submachine in each hand
Am I the only one that initially read that as "submarine" and was mightily confused for a second?
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:33 PM on July 5, 2021 [5 favorites]
Am I the only one that initially read that as "submarine" and was mightily confused for a second?
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:33 PM on July 5, 2021 [5 favorites]
IDEC about anything else, I'm just here to say this list does THE FUGITIVE dirty. Have y'all tried to rewatch it recently? It hasn't aged a day.
Which 90s action movie was it that had the protagonist with a submachine in each hand, firing while they crossed their wrists over each other?
No idea but I'll bet it was Arnie - or maybe Stallone.
posted by MiraK at 8:11 AM on July 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
Which 90s action movie was it that had the protagonist with a submachine in each hand, firing while they crossed their wrists over each other?
No idea but I'll bet it was Arnie - or maybe Stallone.
posted by MiraK at 8:11 AM on July 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
The '90s was when I basically gave up on the genre. There are only a few movies on that list I even think are ok: Tombstone (for the funny lines - the action is forgettable), Rumble in the Bronx, Heat (barely), The Matrix, T2, and Point Break (the ultimate bro movie). I consider the rest to be unwatchable.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:17 AM on July 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:17 AM on July 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
Which 90s action movie was it that had the protagonist with a submachine in each hand, firing while they crossed their wrists over each other?
I don't know which one you're thinking of, but it's probably not Ghost Dog.
posted by box at 8:47 AM on July 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
I don't know which one you're thinking of, but it's probably not Ghost Dog.
posted by box at 8:47 AM on July 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
"Best" films of a particular genre of a particular era is (clearly) going to cause a lot of disagreement. I would have liked it if they'd broken them down into categories like "Most Influential", "Holds Up Best Today", "Most Mind-Blowing At The Time", and crucially "Most 90's Action Movie", which I would say is 1997's Double Team.
I'm guessing it's only considering live-action as well, because otherwise Ghost In The Shell seems a major (no pun intended) omission.
posted by subocoyne at 12:56 PM on July 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm guessing it's only considering live-action as well, because otherwise Ghost In The Shell seems a major (no pun intended) omission.
posted by subocoyne at 12:56 PM on July 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
Weirdo, can you say a bit more about what you meant?
One of the defining traits of action movies is that they lack any real point of view (beyond protagonist good(ish), antagonist evil) or nuance, which are qualities that Ronin has.
posted by wierdo at 2:52 PM on July 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
One of the defining traits of action movies is that they lack any real point of view (beyond protagonist good(ish), antagonist evil) or nuance, which are qualities that Ronin has.
posted by wierdo at 2:52 PM on July 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
The absolute best Die Hard sequel is, of course, The Last Boy Scout
posted by chavenet at 2:10 PM on July 7, 2021
posted by chavenet at 2:10 PM on July 7, 2021
Which 90s action movie was it that had the protagonist with a submachine in each hand, firing while they crossed their wrists over each other?
Seagal does this in a scene in Under Siege, he runs down a ship corridor shooting guys on both sides.
There's not enough love for Wesley in this thread.
posted by biffa at 4:10 PM on July 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
Seagal does this in a scene in Under Siege, he runs down a ship corridor shooting guys on both sides.
There's not enough love for Wesley in this thread.
posted by biffa at 4:10 PM on July 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
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