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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3452 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for March 6, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Last week @Lizzardspawn asked why none of the sequels to the first two Terminator or Predator movies have been any good. Having only seen the first Predator and Terminators 1 and 2, I wasn't really in a position to comment on the inferiority of the sequels, but offered my two cents anyway based on my secondhand knowledge of Terminators 3-6. This got me thinking about Terminator 2 and I ended up reading the entire Wikipedia article (and the sub-article dedicated specifically to its special effects). Last Friday we sat down to watch a torrented version of the rerelease for Blu-ray which includes all of the cut scenes. It still looks great, although annoyingly there were a few points in the first half of the movie in which the colour grading would change dramatically in consecutive shots (I don't mean consecutive scenes: I mean consecutive shots in the same location), which was distracting and a rather glaring oversight for a rerelease apparently overseen by Cameron himself. It also ends with the corny, sentimental ending I criticised last week, rather than the "open road" ending from the theatrical release. But all that aside, the film still holds up, many of the visual effects still look positively jaw-dropping thirty-five years later, and the film is a true landmark in action films.

This got me thinking about my favourite action films, in no particular order:

  • Terminator 2: As above.
  • The Matrix: Perhaps the only film that can rival Terminator 2 for innovation in visual effects, and a spellbinding sci-fi romp on top of that.
  • Die Hard: my brother and I have a tradition of watching this every Christmas, to the point that I daresay I could probably recite the entire film from memory with some prompting. Nothing beats bellowing "no more table!" in a thick Teutonic accent with a glass of Bailey's.
  • The Rock: probably my single favourite action film ever. Whatever one might think of Michael Bay's "chaos cinema" style more broadly, it works here. Nicolas Cage's goofiness had not yet veered into outright self-parody, Sean Connery remained as wryly charismatic in his sixties as peak Bond, and Ed Harris lends palpable gravitas to an anti-villain whose motivation is more sympathetic than any of the protagonists' (it's amazing to me that Harris never served: he's completely convincing as a military man). It's an action film in which violence is deployed both for cathartic escapism and for heart-rending pathos (the scene in which the SEAL team is gunned down in the shower room is a moving audio-visual statement on the pointlessness of war), without any consequent feeling of tonal dissonance. It's an unusually cerebral and literate action film which offers thought-provoking meditations on the morality of American military adventurism, while still finding the time to have fun and give us great lines like "Your besht? Loshers always whine about their besht. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen."
  • Speed: I was positively obsessed with this film as a small child, a testament to the power of raw sound and image to overpower one's critical thinking faculties. Even ignoring the film's brazen disregard for the laws of physics, one could fill a book with the plot points that don't make a lick of sense or are dependent on contrived coincidences – and yet, in the moment, one simply doesn't care. Probably Keanu Reeves's best performance ever (admittedly not a terribly high bar to clear), his chemistry with Sandra Bullock* is believable and irresistible, Dennis Hopper offers perhaps the most entertaining action-movie villain since Hans Gruber, and the soundtrack is memorable, exciting and emotive.
  • Saving Private Ryan: More of a war film than an action film proper, although its impact on the genre is impossible to dispute. Even people who don't like the film as a whole will concede that its depiction of the Omaha beach landing set the tone for how action movies would look, sound and feel for decades afterwards.
  • The Fugitive: I only watched this film quite recently, but it deserves its place in the canon of action-thriller films for grown-ups. On a second watch I was struck by how vacant and anonymous Harrison Ford's leading man turn is: Tommy Lee Jones is the film's real protagonist, and steals every scene he's in.
  • Total Recall: As discussed here. The film which best encapsulates Philip K. Dick's entire aesthetic, and the best Paul Verhoeven film I've seen (I'm curious about Starship Trooopers and Showgirls).
  • Heat: Like Saving Private Ryan a marginal example, and more of a crime thriller than an action film. In a runtime of nearly three hours, it only contains two or three real action setpieces, but one of those happens to be one of the most tense, nerve-wracking and explosive shootouts in cinematic history, so it would be remiss of me not to include it.
  • Predator: Right up there with Terminator 2 as far as action/sci-fi goes, and I like that it's not as self-serious in tone.

Are there any recurring patterns here? Nostalgia obviously plays a major role: several of these films (Speed, The Rock, Terminator 2) were films I watched repeatedly on VHS as a child. Relatedly, there are no entries from this century (excepting the marginal case of The Matrix Reloaded, which I'm counting under The Matrix). Every film is also American: I've heard great things about Asian action cinema, but both times I tried watching Hard-Boiled I turned it off about half an hour in.

What would you say your favourite action films are? Are there non-American action films that I really must see? Are there any from this century that I really ought to check out? (Before anyone mentions John Wick: I will concede that its action sequences are expertly choreographed and filmed, but when I watched it a few years ago I came away feeling distinctly underwhelmed, finding it stylistically confused and at odds with itself.)

*Rumour has it that none other than Ellen deGeneres was the frontrunner for the role. I feel quite confident that, had they gone with this, it would have derailed the entire film.

Looking at the era of movies you cite here, for non-american films my mind instantly goes to GoldenEye.

The production is overwhelmingly British/commonwealth, although the scriptwriter was American.

Predator

The problem with Predator is that they want to expand the lore but went with the "planet of hats" trope where they are a race of hunters.

So when they try to show anything more than the Predator hunting it comes off as lazy and unsatisfying writing.

It'd be better if they started dropping hints that the ones we see are aristocratic safari hunters engaged in illegal poaching. "Dutch the Human" actually has a big fandom on their homeworld for killing one.

Make a movie where a group of Predators comes to earth, then mid movie the authorities show up to try to arrest them, and then the humans are stuck in the middle of the unexplained chaos.

The Terminator series has a similar problem. You can keep going with humanity vs Skynet, but the terminators start feeling shoehorned in. Skynet should have more than one trick.

In general action movies suffered from competition with video games. As the home gaming experience got better movies couldn't compete with the over the top action experience.

This was exacerbated by a push to strictly enforce R ratings and limit the marketing of R films. The fun gunplay and boobs films stopped being made. They became serious adult films or nerfed PG-13 adventures.

The other problem is that in the CGI age filmmakers became convinced that everything had to be frame perfect. But no one who is enjoying a movie is actually going to care about minor visual problems you can see in slow motion. Schwarzenegger movies are a great example of this. In Commando stuntmen are launched into the air when he throws grenades and you can see the catapults launching them if you look closely. In T2 you can clearly tell stunt doubles are doing the bike scenes if you look closely. No one cared.

Hollywood was always the king of big budget action spectacles and they are easy to dub into a new language. Other countries couldn't really compete directly so they went with things with more local flavour. Hong Kong does good action scenes but there are usually some plot points that are harder to understand as a westerner. China has been making some patriotic action movies lately that with some over the top depictions of Americans that end up being hilarious.

I'm curious about Starship Trooopers and Showgirls

Lindsay Ellis did a great review of Showgirls.

Starship Troopers is actually very interesting from a CW standpoint. Verhoven grew up in Nazi occupied Netherlands. He always had a guilty soft spot for the Nazi propaganda aesthetic. After Showgirls bombed he went to the studio to pitch an idea about fascist humans fighting communist bugs. The studio thought it sounded like Starship Troopers and got the rights to Starship Troopers. Verhoven tried to read the book, didn't like it or finish it, and let his screenwriter work on adapting it.

As a result there's a big split where the left thinks that the humans are clearly supposed to be fascist. But the actual movie depicts a functional society with suffrage limited to those who complete military service.

I kind of think of Starship Troopers in the same vein as Fight Club. They are both obviously parodies, and as a matter of actual fact are both intended to be parodies, but accidentally make strong enough points (or present them convincingly enough) in a few respects that some people will watch them and interpret them straight anyways. I would say more but this is the Fun thread :)

On a second watch I was struck by how vacant and anonymous Harrison Ford's leading man turn is: Tommy Lee Jones is the film's real protagonist, and steals every scene he's in.

Tommy Lee Jones can Act and ends up being the protagonist in almost all his movies. Harrison Ford kinda shows up, and kinda showing up and being Harrison Ford turns out to work sometimes. I could probably count on one hand the number of times it's worked since 1983, though.

Have you seen Shrinking? I think it proves Ford can act when he wants to, he just doesn't usually bother.

I've only seen a half dozen or so Tommy Lee Jones movies, but you'd think that would be enough to prove to me that he can act, and yet I have to say it wasn't. It did prove that he could act the hell out of one particular fantastic character archetype (highly competent authority, caring in actions but very sparing with warm words, clever with a little dry wit but otherwise blunt and no-nonsense), but that's not always the same thing. Can you suggest anything I should watch that exhibits more range from him? (Please don't say "Batman Forever"...) Some of my favorite movies to watch for the first time were ones in which a popular-but-typecast actor goes way outside of their prior comfort zone (e.g. Jim Carrey in "The Truman Show", Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Twins" or "Kindergarten Cop") or at least plays a part where their usual comfort zone is just a small facet of a more complex character.

Under Siege is awesomely pulpy. You have great performances from Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Busey, Erika Eleniak's naked breasts and somewhat passable from Segal.

It's been many years since I saw it, but he was a villain in Under Siege and I remember him being noteworthy. Also the villain in Blown Away, but again many years since I saw it (edit - I remembered now that his accent was really bad, though). I think Cobb would count for him playing against type.

Three Burials and Valley of Elah might be too similar to the authority role you describe.

I've never seen a Steven Seagal movie and I always figured if I did it'd be "Under Siege", but man, even the (VHS release?) trailer on IMDB excitedly sums it up as "Die Hard on a battleship", and IMHO the Die Hard On An X genre is a pretty risky one. There are some decent TV episodes that got enough mileage out of just putting familiar characters into that situation, but for a movie you've got to have some great idea on top of the "Die Hard" premise to make it feel like anything other than a cheap knock-off.

"Cobb" I'd never heard of before, though, and it looks surprisingly interesting. The trailer alone makes me think I was too skeptical of Tommy Lee Jones. Thanks!

I have an as-yet unexplained fondness for Demolition Man.

If it counts, The Street Fighter (1974) was a rather dark masterpiece. Do not watch for entertainment.

I have an as-yet unexplained fondness for Demolition Man.

What needs to be explained about that? It's Demolition Man!

If martial arts are your thing, the Raid and The Raid 2 are both excellent and showcases for silat. The first in particular is about as lean and as tense and insane as an action movie can get with limited resources. Second one is larger and nowhere near as tight but is far grander in scope and execution. In the same vein, The Night Comes For Us is also great but requires a strong stomach as the gore in it is extreme.

Donnie Yen has a patchy filmography, but Ip Man and SPL are genuinely good films even ignoring the action. I have a soft spot for Raging Fire as the goodbye for Benny Chan. We've passed peak Donnie, though; he was faster earlier on in his career. He's improved as an actor and as an action director, but physically he's past his prime and there's no real replacement.

I still recommend trying to power through Hard Boiled because you about stopped at the point it starts to get truly batshit. However, if you seek realism in your action, that's not where it's at.

If you enjoyed Heat, I recommend watching Cold Eyes, a Korean flick from a while back. It's not really an action film, but it includes some impressive action regardless and some tense, well-constructed sequences.

Mad Max: Fury Road is an ode to tricked-out car chases, to excess and beyond, with exceptional production design. Bullet Train is a remarkably funny and sharply edited movie, a fun distraction full of bright lights, charisma and cool people doing cool things even if the final act is subject to a bit too much CG nonsense.

The first Raid movie was the first time I watched a martial arts film that sold me on the "these guys aren't choreographed, they're hitting each other for real" element.

Which simply means that they were immaculately choreographed, but the EVERY strike was delivered like they wanted the other guy dead. And still maybe only time I've seen a two-on-one fight where I truly believed the two weren't holding back and the one was still winning.

There are a significant number of hits in that movie that were not pulled. People just ate hits for the action gods, and it was filmed in Indonesia, so paltry things like actor safety, insurance, etc. were not a primary financial concern. They also went through about half a year to eight months worth of physical training to even pull it off, and were lucky enough to have Yayan Ruhian involved.

Yeah, it surely helped that these guy were absolute no-names so no need to get prissy about the physical demands/possible injuries.

Which created a bit of a contrast when Ruhian and Rahman showed up in John Wick 3 and the fact that it was choreographed and they were pulling punches and waiting their turn was blatant by comparison. Not really buying it, even if they bother to spotlight the respect the fighters have for him.

Sorry John, if it is hand-to-hand then Mad Dog solos you.

Okay, to contrast and add to the point, the OTHER time I saw a two-on-one was that was a believable challenge is that infamous Mission Impossible fight. "Yeah, I can accept Henry Cavill getting bodied by an Asian half his size, that guy is badass."

I'm realizing while reading this list that I never liked traditional action movies. It's the big spectacle that I enjoy. Sci fi and fantasy movies with massive battles. Or large explosions in modern settings.

Marvel movies have been a boon for me. I unironically enjoyed the Transformers movies. I have fun watching Michael Bay films. Star wars original trilogy was my favorite as a kid. And I loved the huge starship battles in episode 1.

I don't really like action, I like thrillers, but action movies, not really. But you people also say that Princess Mononoke is action film, which I did not see coming, but here is my brief action list.

  • *Castle of Cagliostro *. I actually like it for other reasons, but I hear the film buffs used to call the car chase scene the best car chase ever on film. If you don't like a romantic heist movie, perhaps skip the rest.

  • Pacific Rim. I sort-of liked Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, so I decided to check out his other work ... which I had dismissed for reasons I no longer remember. One thing I did learn, he is massive anime nerd and somehow managed to make the best real robot action movie of 2010s, in Hollywood. Shonen tropes served with overload of cheese, but it is the finest mozzarella.

  • Dredd. As far as I remember Dredd as 2000AD character, the comic has silly plots and is supposed to make satirical commentary about America, the man, and the authorities, like all 80s British comics are ... but it is drawn gritty, nearly seriously. In film medium, it works when it looks like a serious, gritty film. Well executed, too.

Not exactly a recommendation but possibly worth consideration: Craig-era James Bond. Gadgets and hacking are too silly and plots disappointed me given how "serious" it attempted portray Bond, but I think the action scenes had je ne sais quoi, class?

I hear the film buffs used to call the car chase scene the best car chase ever on film

You must watch The French Connection. Friedkin was risking, not just the lives of his stuntmen, but those of random passers-by as well. The man was a nutcase.

thanks, it is in my to-watch list, I guess I will bump it up.

To Live and Die in LA has entered the chat.

Already downloaded it, been meaning to watch it.

Brilliant, it's one hell of a movie and I think I can safely say that the car chase alone is worth the price of admission!

Castle of Cagliostro

Funny, I've never seen this one but reading the name jogged my memory. I think I saw a trailer for it on my Ghost in the Shell DVD years ago.

Not exactly a recommendation but possibly worth consideration: Craig-era James Bond.

The only one I saw was Casino Royale and I did enjoy it (breath of fresh air after the silliness of the Brosnan era). Probably more of a spy thriller than an action film.

Pacific Rim

I've never watched a mecha film, or TV series, or anything (watched the first few episodes of Evangelion before giving up on it, may try it again). This one piqued my curiosity primarily for featuring my one-time celebrity crush, Rinko Kikuchi, who starred in the excellent film adaptation of my favourite novel of all time, Norwegian Wood. The only films of del Toro's I've seen were Pan's Labyrinth (decent, but didn't really love up to the hype) and Hellboy II (bland forgettable capeshit slop). As far as the three big men of Mexican cinema go (del Toro, Cuarón and Iñárritu), I think he's the weakest link.

Evangelion starts with a too whiny main character and unbelievable premise, I never got far with it either. Some of Gundam is OK.

Pacific Rim is also nonsensical and silly, but del Toro is very good at distracting you with giant mechas fighting Kaiju and destroying scenic cities in process.

Great write up. I'd explain the decline in action movie quality to the complex dynamics of genre filmmaking as a whole: pure action movies, rom-coms, and comedies used to be huge at the box office, attract big stars, and attract big budgets, but over the last 15ish years, all three genres have been demoted almost entirely to low-tier streaming fair. Action, romance, and comedy still exist on film, but on the biggest budgets they are packaged in super hero films and cross-genre blockbusters. In 1994, you could get Nick Cage and Ed Harris and Sean Connery to work together on a $100 million blockbuster like the Rock, now you can only get that money for a Marvel movie where the actual action is a secondary concern (at best). Meanwhile, pure action movies are left to Jason Statham, rom-coms are pumped out on Netflix, and comedies are almost dead entirely.

comedies are almost dead entirely.

This is what baffles me a bit about the current landscape. Growing up comedies were usually some of the biggest movies in a given year. Superbad, Tropic Thunder, Zombieland, whatever Will Ferrel movie came out that year, and Seth Rogan's Oeuvre.

Inevitably those would be the films people would be quoting at each other forever thereafter.

And they're really a footnote these days. My guess is its just been subsumed by television series.

Or, as you point out, subsumed by Superhero movies. Deadpool still does big numbers while being more pure comedy.

The explanations I've heard for the decline of comedies:

  • Foreign box office is much more important now than in the past (especially China) and it's hard to do cross-cultural humor.
  • Comedy movies used to make more money in the VHS/DVD phase than in theaters (often 2-5X as much), but now that whole sector is basically dead, streaming isn't as dependent on marginal movie value.
  • In the olden days, movies were the best way for a comedian to get their content out. Now we have many more televised specials, YouTube, podcasts, Twitter, etc., all of which are far lower cost and less risky than a comedy movie.
  • As you say, tv comedies are still alive and well, and pumped out at a faster rate than ever in the streaming era. It's still easy for Shane Gillis to make a little Netflix show like Tires, but if he was around in the late 1990s, he would have been paid $10 million for a $40 million budget movie.
  • And yeah, the genre bending of modern blockbusters seemed to have consumed much of the desire for movie comedies. Even the action-comedies like Men in Black or Beverly Hills Cop seem to have fallen off.

That all makes sense.

But still, Superbad did $121 million domestically. Relatively unknown cast and director, a non-sequel, just carried on the strength of writing and acting.

And somehow, near as I can tell, the 'vulgar teen/coming of age sex comedy' is literally dead as a genre, and I partially blame MeToo, since borderline rapey interactions are a source of some of their humor.

Gen Z Came of age without any equivalent cultural touchstone.

I think that's mostly explained by the normal ebb and flow of comedy trends. The vulgar teen coming of age sex comedy era was basically 1999 (American Pie) to Superbad (2007), with Road Trip and Van Wilder and a bunch of others inbetween (I don't think 21 Jump Street counts, too meta), maybe with Project X as a limping capstone (2012).

But I also can't think of the defining comedy trend of the 2010s. I asked AI what the biggest comedies of the 2010s were, and it said: Deadpool 2 (2018): $785.8 million Deadpool (2016): $782.8 million Men in Black 3 (2012): $654.2 million Ted (2012): $549.3 million — the decade's biggest "pure" live-action comedy The Hangover Part II (2011): $586.7 million 22 Jump Street (2014): $331.3 million (It also noted Bridesmaids for cultural importance, which is true, but also vaguely fits into coming age but from the other gender).

What's the trend of those movies? Sequels and IP I guess. The better and boringer answer for "what was the comedy trend for Gen Z" is just Marvel movies, or rather, a sanded-down, repeated ad nauseum derivative of Joss Whedon comedy.

Or maybe Marvel is still the late millenial trend, and the real gen Z trend is that they don't care about comedy movies at all, and their comedy world is memes and streaming and nonsense like "6-7."

The vulgar teen coming of age sex comedy era was basically 1999 (American Pie) to Superbad (2007),

Have to disagree, since my dad had VHS copies of Revenge of the Nerds, Porky's, and Earth Girls are Easy. I was not allowed to watch.

By 2001 the genre was played out enough that they produced Not Another Teen Movie as a full on parody of the entire thing. Which introduced me to Cerina Vincent('s breasts). I think it's just been a mainstay of Hollywood since the 80's until circa 2012 (Project X), and now is just gone. Might just be the fact that kids watch actual internet porn now, so titillating tease movies don't have the appeal they used to.

and the real gen Z trend is that they don't care about comedy movies at all, and their comedy world is memes and streaming and nonsense like "6-7."

Streamers and Youtubers.

The fact that Markiplier made a pretty bad (by most accounts) indie horror movie that nonetheless made $50 million is a sign of something.

Also, Horror as a Genre is still plugging along extremely well, which mildly surprises me, since imo the genre hasn't had much originality to offer for decades.

Have to disagree, since my dad had VHS copies of Revenge of the Nerds, Porky's, and Earth Girls are Easy. I was not allowed to watch.

Ah, fair enough, but I'll nitpick to say that American Pie was a resurgence of the trend, and it definitely increased the gross out angle of it. Totally agree that internet porn put a big dent in the appeal of this stuff.

Also, Horror as a Genre is still plugging along extremely well, which mildly surprises me, since imo the genre hasn't had much originality to offer for decades.

I'm surprised you think this, I think we've been in a horror renaissance since the mid 2010s and really kicking off with Hereditary (2018). Since then, we've had other Ari Aster movies, Jordan Peele, Robert Eggars, the Philippou Brothers, Zach Creggor, Osgood Perkins (more mixed), Empty Man, Smile (at least Smile 2), Together, etc. To me, this stuff is waaaaay better than almost all pre 2010 horror movie, except some of the true classics like Exorcist or the Shining.

My personal benchmark on Horror films is The Ring which was innovative as it was a monster movie but the monster doesn't appear until the end, after the fakeout that things were 'fixed,' and most of the horror is the sense of dread that permeates the film.

And that movie only 'works' because of that brief period where CRT TVs, VHS tapes, and landline phones were the most common tech of the day. I don't think you could remake it effectively now!

And as I understand it the recent crop of horror films avoid this issue by making the horror come from psychological conditions that may or may not have a literal personification onscreen, sort of a 'the monster is inside you the whole time' concept, or more abstract "racism/sexism/right wing politics/relationship drama" as the looming allegorical danger.

I think what I mean wrt horror films is that they inherently play with the same tropes over and over again. Body Horror, Jumpscares, indestructible/implacable entity that wants YOU, specifically, dead, straight up gore (hello, Terrifier 3), psychological uncertainty (am I crazy or not?), various metaphors for sexual assault, and the occasional thick layer of existentialism.

I haven't heard of one that really breaks the mold of audience expectations in a while. Cabin in the Woods was innovative for satirizing how formulaic they tended to be.

I watched Weapons last year, and it was a satisfyingly entertaining movie, and the ending was great. But after the initial mystery of "Where the fuck did those kids go" resolves, I felt pretty disconnected. The film wisely switches over to 'action' mode whenever the pace starts to lull. And the concept of being 'locked in' and conscious whilst your body is compelled to commit violence against people you care about is indeed horrifying.

I just feel no need to watch the film again!

Perhaps the most 'innovative' recent horror movie I saw was 2014's The Guest. And it was innovative in the sense that the 'horror' element was hiding in plain sight, then escalates to the point where its basically a straight-up slasher movie... but also with competent action. Oh, also Bone Tomahawk (same year) for hiding behind a Western facade for 90 minutes and whipping out the horror only after you've gotten comfortable that the movie plays by the standard Western rules. I feel a need to watch the film again... but not sure if I can stomach it.

I guess I just like Horror movies that masquerade as something else so you don't KNOW what they're trying to do until it is too late. Straight horror movies generally have me anticipating most of the scary bits well before they happen. Also it always annoys me when the core danger in the film could be handily solved with a gun.

But I do have to retreat from my argument about horror not doing much innovative for decades. I've also heard good things about Nosferatu and Midsommar.

More comments

Dredd, as mentioned.

The Raid: Redemption and its sequel. Absolutely insane Indonesian martial arts flick, but the director is Welsh. Launched several of its actors to greater fame. It will probably ruin any other modern martials arts movies for you. I don't know how they filmed that without anyone dying.

Mad Max: Fury Road. Watch the rest of the series too, but this one set a new standard for cinematic balls-to-the-wall action.

The Bourne Trilogy. Okay, there are more movies... and they're not terrible. BUT the story and character arc of the original three are perfectly executed. Great action (especially the 3rd) but a lot of people really dislike Greengrass' shaky-cam style in the second and third. Bail out if you're getting motion sickness, it doesn't get better.

Hot Fuzz. Probably in the running for the best action-comedy of ALL TIME and the jokes and interlocked plot elements are so dense you'll need to watch like 3 times to catch most of 'em.

Upgrade. Very 80's-coded... but they put effort into using modern techniques and it should surprise you a few times with how clever it is.

Shoot 'Em Up. Parody of a particular brand of late-90's early-2000s action schlock that is self aware but not offensively so. I love the soundtrack, personally.

The Expendables 1 and 2 (skip 3 and 4). Equal parts funny but inelegant satire of 80's action movies and a loving tribute/sendoff to some of the top stars of the era. Tried and very much failed to pass the torch to a new generation of action stars. I blame superhero movies.

Taken. This movie doomed Liam Neeson to doing action roles for 20 years. Everyone really only knows THAT scene, but the whole thing is quite the entertaining ride.

300. My God. Its like the purest distillation of "12 year old boys playing with action figures" movie I've ever seen, but Zack Snyder was BORN to make this film. It has a distinct look and feel that has simply never been replicated since.

Hardcore Henry. Also not a movie for those sensitive to motion sickness, but extremely impressive achievement that falls just a tad short of greatness, but is also full of "how the hell did they film that" moments.

Some Honorable Mentions:

The Accountant

Crank (and the sequel)

Equilibrium

Kingsman: The Secret Service. This movie justifies its existence on THAT church scene alone.

The Edge of Tomorrow.

I think you would really like Snowpiercer if you haven't seen it. Also, @FtttG if you want foreign but don't mind zombies, Train to Busan is pretty fun.

TENET is absolutely moronic in its plot but is a fun movie visually and action wise. Inception too I think makes that list even though it's not intrinsically an action movie, yeah? Well, maybe not. Not sure.

I'm curious how y'all feel about the modern set of Mission Impossibles. I feel like in a lot of ways them (and maybe the Fast and Furious movies, to a worse and lesser extent, plus maybe marvel if you stretch) are the inheritors of the movie niche the 80's type action movies inhabited, even though vibe-wise and spiritually they are plainly very different.

Funny, the only Mission Impossible film I've seen is the first one. Brian de Palma is such an inconsistent director. Scarface is an obvious masterpiece, and Carrie is great, but The Untouchables is overrated as hell, and despite being marketed as thrillers both Blow Out and Body Double were so boring I turned them off halfway through. I was fully onboard for the first half of Mission Impossible when it's a tense, nervy thriller, but by the time the climax rolled around and it had turned into a silly action film I'd completely lost interest. The Prague operation that opens the film and the climax on the train feel like they belong to two completely different movies: it's no surprise it went into production without a finished screenplay.

Curious if any of the sequels are any good.

So, there are the original 3 which are far different in feel, almost feels like a different series. And then there's a small gap, and then starting with Rogue Nation you have another set of 5 (clustered a bit plotwise as a set of 3 and then a final set of 2), and now they're basically done (at least, with Tom Cruise as lead). They're at times gimmicky especially plotwise, quality is variable, but they are in my opinion all quite fun, solid popcorn movies. Fallout in particular, I think even standalone, is actually one of the best action films of the 2010s, in terms of the fights and visuals. So if you're interested, start with Ghost Protocol, if you're just curious, maybe try Fallout directly.

Curious if any of the sequels are any good.

I remember the 4th one being a nonsensical mess plot-wise, even by action film standards, but being very competent as an action movie. There's a part involving a chase in a dust storm, and the direction is such (by Brad Bird) that it's easy to keep track of everyone and what they're doing despite it feeling like it should be a confusing mess. Oh, and Cruise climbs some big building.

Oh, that was the one with Simon Pegg, wasn’t it? I remember it being good. The action was rather formulaic - if any plan was announced explicitly or implicitly, you could guarantee something would go horribly wrong within five minutes - but it was just really nice to see someone who had a very good formula apply it so well.

The action was rather formulaic - if any plan was announced explicitly or implicitly, you could guarantee something would go horribly wrong within five minutes

Are there many movies that don't follow that trope? If so, how? It seems like an exceptionally difficult cliche for screenwriters to avoid. If you announce the plan and nothing goes wrong, you just wasted everybody's time telling them something redundantly before you show the same thing later. If you don't announce the plan and something goes wrong, you've just confused everybody. If you announce a plan and it seems to go wrong but the real plan is going right then the added levels of contrivance are just a more played-out and mockable trope.

Inception, Ocean's 11, Rogue One, Now You See Me, there are definitely a few that pull of a flawless plan either in full or for at least 10-15 uninterrupted minutes of screen time. There's also at least one "perfect heist" type movies where the meat of the story takes place after the money gets stolen according to plan, but for the life of me I can't remember the name. Most of these are emotionally a kind of "competence porn" (although that phrase usually seems to be used to describe books, for which "things go according to plans" is actually decently common in my experience).

Or, occasionally, it's because the actual plan is just a little too complicated to explain purely visually. And actually, if you saw this quote recently, it may be trending this way even if the explanation isn't required at all:

Matt Damon Says Netflix Wants Movies to Restate the ‘Plot Three or Four Times in the Dialogue’ Because Viewers are on ‘Their Phones While They’re Watching’

But overall, yeah, it's a fair and usually correct point you make.

There's also at least one "perfect heist" type movies where the meat of the story takes place after the money gets stolen according to plan, but for the life of me I can't remember the name.

The Great Train Robbery works this way, IIRC.

There's also at least one "perfect heist" type movies where the meat of the story takes place after the money gets stolen according to plan, but for the life of me I can't remember the name.

The Italian Job may count.

The MI series truly peaked with 4. Tom climbing the Burj Khalifa still puckers my butthole to watch.

After that they had the formula perfected so they remain extremely entertaining and work on the strength of their script and the chemistry Tom has with everyone. So they're all eminently watchable.

I love 50% of your list, and haven't watched the other 50%, but it's all going on my list.

Buddy and I watched Raid II and then took a lunch and watched Winter Soldier in theater for both. Should’ve done it the other way - still one of my least favorite comic book films.

Raid II is just film perfection.

Saw Raid II in theaters and was BLOWN AWAY. High expectations from the first one and they topped it in every conceivable way.

Even the goofy bits (girl with hammers and batboy) worked really well in-context.

That giant brawl in the mud pit at the prison is one of my favorite scenes because all the 'skill' sort of goes out the window as everyone is slipping around barely able to stand, but the brutality of the moves are still fully there. Another of those "how are those guys not dead?" movies.

For non-American Memorable Examples.

Kung Fu Hustle : Stephen Chow's magnum opus, and there's reason it gets referenced as an inspiration everywhere from Exalted to Chuubo's. Incredible action sequences throughout the entire film, incredible clarity and color grading, a great set of character arcs, and defined its own aesthetic. While it wears its western influences on its sleeves (there's a Looney Tunes segment and a reference to The Shining), a very strongly Hong Kong work. It's not perfect -- the CGI is dated in places, the pacing around the denouement is a little too fast, and some of its parody elements are no longer parody enough -- but I don't know of anything better in its genre. If you really like it, Shaolin Soccer and God of Cookery motion around the same concepts and themes, but they don't really hold up.

Drunken Master II (aka Legend of the Drunken Master): the film that put Jackie Chan on the international map. I don't like it as much as Kung Fu Hustle, myself, since it's much stronger for its fight scenes than for its themes or plot, but it's significantly more grounded and less parody.

Princess Mononoke : it's long, it's (cartoonishly) gory, and some of its thematic commentary gets kinda confused, but one of the strongest Ghibli movies and I'd argue the strongest adult action Ghibli movie. Great characters and complex motivations, deep introspection on virtue, and better sense of things existing in a real space during fight scenes than some live-action works. Howl's Moving Castle is a close second in quality and a better introduction to Ghibli in general, and maybe Marnie and the Witch's Flower, but they're far less action-focused.

Ghost in the Shell : the philosophy is a little dated (and way too wordy) at this point, but when the worst you can say about a film like this is that it didn't predict LLMs perfectly, that's praising with faint damns. The more serious problem is just that it's slow-paced and all of the fights are very much curbstomps one direction or the other.

Akira: I'll have to give a disclaimer, here: it does have a famously bad ending, made worse that the original manga's somehow not any better. Like Jet Li's The One, I can't call it good so much as I can call it interesting. Still, there's reason it's inspired a literal generation of animators, and it's still something I like watching.

08th MS Team : technically an OVA instead of a movie, but basically just a movie. Forget all of the newtypes and super prototypes and hyperweapons and one-men armies. It's a war drama as much or more than an action film, and while it's not realistic, it's got an emphasis on realism. If you want a mecha action film that treats fights seriously, this is about as close as you can get, and it's backed up by fantastic animation and great pacing.

The more serious problem is just that it's slow-paced and all of the fights are very much curbstomps one direction or the other.

I rather liked that feature, since it is pretty true-to-life if there's a significant skill/strength differential, which in a world of cyborg bodies... THERE WILL BE. The art is in portraying that gap in a pleasing way.

Also GitS: Stand Alone Complex is maybe the first anime series I seriously engaged with.

And Kung Fu Hustle is a MUST-SEE.

I adore Ghost in the Shell and Akira, and probably should have included the latter in the above list. I'm of two minds about including GitS in a list of action films, as I'm not sure that one chase scene and one fight against a tank really an action movie make.

I saw Princess Mononoke for the first time a few months ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Far more violent than I was expecting from a Ghibli film.

I loved and still love Dredd for its absolutely relentless pacing, Verhoeven-levels of over-the-top action and gore, and its ability to play a fundamentally somewhat silly concept (from a comic book, after all) completely straight.

My favorite thing about Dredd is that Stallone refused to wear the helmet. Urban refused to take it off.

The Sylvester Stallone version?

I assume he means the 2012 Karl Urban version. And seconded on Dredd as an excellent action movie.

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