How Action Should Be

Tuesday, 22 May 2012 15:46

Written by Editor

I admit that over the past few years, I have savagely attacked many popular movies that most of you enjoyed.

The majority of these were action movies. Now, here´s the thing, I like action movies – but they have to be put together properly and they have to follow the rules.

Some rule-abiding action movies are: “Die Hard” (1, 2 or 3 – avoid 4, it was a bit of a let down), “Desperado”, “Indiana Jones” (except “Crystal Skull”), “Big Trouble in Little China”, “Bad Boys”, the “Lethal Weapon” series, etc.  The general rules for action films are the following: the special effects must not overtake the movie, there must be some humour and – most importantly – it should be no longer than 120 minutes.

However, these days, people do not pay attention to these rules and end up making awful, mind-numbing drool, that is painful to watch with some lame story that totally loses its point, because it has been eaten up by the special effects. A perfect example of this is “The Matrix”. Now I liked “The Matrix”, I understood the story and the effects were great. Unfortunately when the sequel was released the effects took over and the story was lost. I became so lost in the second part that by the time “Revolutions” came out, I really didn´t care what happened to any of the characters. And it´s a shame, because there was a really good story and it could have even been a classic – until it got annihilated.

John Woo´s 1996 “Broken Arrow” was a pretty good little action flick. John Travolta was in top form and was brilliant as the bad guy, my only complaint with “Broken Arrow” was that the last piece of cheesy dialogue ruined the whole movie for me.

Perhaps “Scott Pilgrim vs the World” isn´t everyone´s cup of tea, but personally I thought it was a super action / comedy. The soundtrack was amazing, the effects worked perfectly with the comic book action in the story, not to mention Kieran Culkin stealing the movie. Absolutely brilliant, and not to be missed.

One of the things that bugs me the most about over-the-top action movies is the explosions. Now, I am not one of those “save the planet” hippy people, however, I fail to understand why it is necessary to blow up cars and pollute the atmosphere for the sake of a movie. If technology is that brilliant now, why don´t they make CGI explosions, help the planet a bit and see if we can make it last a bit longer.

The point I am trying to make here is that special effects are like make-up, they should be used to enhance certain bits of the movie, not drown the storyline, like “Matrix Reloaded” which was the equivalent of a drag queen!

By Amy Thomas