A deep look into the action film genre

The action genre has changed sooooo much compared to the 1980's, and I'd like to figure out why:

Any movie, in order to be effective, must connect in some way with audiences -- with their memories and misfortunes, experiences and expectations, fantasies, and fears. Many motion pictures succeed because they connect with the individual or collective experiences of large numbers of the consuming public. We creature culture and look to it to help us make sense of the world around us. This function becomes particularly crucial in times of change, conflict, and instability.

The images we get from movies and other popular culture media, especially the images that are repeated often or are especially popular or powerful, will likely influence how we view the world, which in turn must influence how we act in it. Thus films become more than stories or pastimes. They function as myths that are an integral part of the process through which we remember history, interpret experience, and prescribe a course of future action.

All and all, it seems to me most films mirror whatever is going on in the real world. In the 1980's for example, the U.S.A. was feuding with the Soviet Union who we assumed was a big, bad, and evil country, and we feared they would beat us with strength and aggression. This was a common fear among many Americans. I believe films sometimes serve as political parables. So to subconsciously prove to American audiences that we Americans are just as strong as the Russians, in a lot of action films, you often saw a lot of unique and brawny looking bad-asses fighting with other unique and brawny looking-bad-asses. These types of films pretty much summed up the feud the U.S.A. was having with the Soviet Union.

Today in action movies, it's all mostly pretty boys or average looking men or women or young adults or even teenagers who don't look like they could kick any serious ass at all playing the action heroes and/or the villians. I think all one has to do is look at events in the real world to figure out why -

First, in the 1990's we realized the Soviet Union was no real threat afterall, and that the biggest contemporary threat we had was Vietnam - This small country filled with a bunch of rural farmers. So many Americans ignorantly assumed this tiny country of peasants stood no chance against the greatest military in the world. If only Americans then realized they were thinking the exact same thing King George III thought during the American Revolution. You'd think all Americans would be the one group of people who should know better then to underestimate anyone. So Americans thought the war with the Viet Cong would a quick and easy win, but they learned it would not be. The ones Americans least suspected were the real bad-asses, whereas the Soviet Union only appeared to be big and bad-ass, but they truly were not, and now those facts reflect many films today.

Also through out the 2000's - No one knows who to trust, or who the enemy is. They could be among us, sitting next to us on the bus, or it could be the government, and this is reflected in our action films in which "ordinary" people are either the villian of the movie or they are the heroes and are caught up in situations and have to fight.

I miss those 80's action movies. Nowadays, everything looks like The Matrix.

.....Get off my lawn.

__________________
#31 on SC's Top 100 Mofos list!!

Interesting piece Zeebo. It's true, cinema reflects the times and Hollywood is a great political tool, often used to promote whatever image the government wants promoted around the world and to it's own people.

I do agree with Deadbite, I kinda miss the simpleminded action fare of the 80s but there have been some amazing action movies over the last decade or so. Inception, The Raid, The Dark Knight...all are great action movies with a deeper meaning, ranging from traditional action fare (The Raid) to sci-fi (Inception). Oh and who will ever forget the Bourne trilogy, I just pretend the 4th movie never happened.

Deadbite...

I can't remember the last action film, outside of The Expendables 2 (which mainly works because it pays homage to older action films) I considered great. If there is one genre that is consistently disappointing in this day and age, it's action.

__________________
"George, this is a little too much for me. Escaped convicts, fugitive sex... I've got a cockfight to focus on."

Noway, have you seen The Raid? How about all three Bourne movies? The Dark Knight?

Interesting thread. I think in the 80's we as americans became a little bit more open to evil characters because they in some way resembled someone or something within ourselves.
Whether it be Ideas, philosophies or even actions on some level or another. You have to remember that the 80's werent just about hairspray, colored hair, and colorful sneakers. It was when crack made it big. When people where finally figuring out that america has a gang problem. When unemployment ran high.

Just watch an episode of Cops from the 80's and compare it to some of the episodes of today......

It seems like the only good action films now are superhero films. Everything else goes over board on the violence and lack any substance. Now action films are just supposed to all about fun and a rip snorting good time. But some are just really lame now. The last good action films I have watched are Premium Rush, The Dark Knight Rises, and The Avengers.

__________________
Going 18600 miles per second.

^^^yeah I Know what you mean......What sucks about some of the superhero movies is that the filmakers basically cheat because everything has already been done for them. Story boards, wrtiting, and even art direction.

I think this is where The Expendables have become a talking point.

80s typical actioners were brainless actioners... nothing more... then the Die Hards and Lethal Weapons came out, eventually leading to the more sophisticated actioner like the recent Superhero genre afore mentioned by the previous posts: Nolan's Batman, maybe The Avengers, even Hulk to a degree... and soon The Man Of Steel.

The Expendables not only brought together a golden 80s cast (plus a few newer stars) but also the complete brainless action up with excessive explosions and gunfire... Expendables 2 though has brought the same, but with a touch more plot to it.


Maybe this is a real life full circle?

__________________

Maybe it is. The industry might go back to the old days of action movies.....

P.S I also heard there is going to be a Rambo sequel

I haven't seen The Raid. I've seen all three Bourne films, and while I did like the last one, I'm no fan. The Dark Knight is great, but I wouldn't classify it as a straight-up action film.

It could be classified separately as a comic book movie but it's basis is as a thriller/action movie but I guess I know what you mean.

And not a fan of Bourne? You sir, are dead to me.

That was a great read, I love 80's action movies, in fact they are my best genre/time period mix. Lets bring them back. Anyone fancy Arnie for Commando 2?

Thanks for the kind remarks! Here are some more thoughts -

Most action movies these days are far tamer than they ever were, far less gung-ho, with much liberal hand-wringing about whether violence is good and who the bad guys really are, etc., etc., when sometimes you just want to see a big guy punching and shooting people without having to question whether the bad guy is really a bad guy or just had a bad childhood, etc., etc.

I noticed in the 1990's it became the era of the 'New Man' who is supposed to be in touch with his feminine side and who looks after his nails and uses moisturiser and hair products. At the same time, there's no longer a clear enemy in global politics, so action films go all gooey.

You could argue Terminator 2 started the trend, with a killing machine that learns the value of life and doesn't kill anyone, and a killer robot that looks surprisingly inoffensive. (although, to be fair, it worked perfectly and it serves as a good Vietnam parable.) If you think of action movie in the 90s, loads of them were pretty-much disaster movies where the 'enemy' was either nature or aliens - Armageddon, Twister, Jurassic Park, Independence Day, Deep Impact, Volcano, The Matrix. We weren't really sure what we were doing and the only enemy at that time was nature. The alien films may have also be intended to serve as a parable for immigration. I'm not really sure. It could have just been a full-time circle thing since aliens were popular in the 50's, and then they came back in the 90's.


At the same time, films became so much softer. Cinema responded to the challenge of TV in the 50s by introducing color and widescreen, things TV couldn't do. In the 70s, as cinema audiences again fell, they introduced violence and nudity. In the 90s, having to compete with TV and video games, if they made R-rated movies, it would restrict the potential audience to a level that was not economically viable, so you can see a definite trend to 'purify' action movies by cutting down on violence, swearing, gore and nudity to get more people on seats and thus more cash.

I do sometimes great action films that have an old fashion theme - a kick ass hero who doesn't look like your neighbor or a model, and he beats the hell out of the baddies who look like they could be WWE wrestlers, and their characters are motivated by nothing more than being bad and sadistic. I love "The Running Man" for that very reason for example. Seeing Arnold going up against bad-ass looking stalkers is entertaining as hell to me. I love that scene where Ben Richards and Buzzsaw are fighting for control of the chainsaw. Two big guys who could kill me with one punch beating the crap out of each other is just fun.


So yeah, I am sure it's agreed that most action movies these days are far softer than those in the 80s because Hollywood is less comfortable mindlessly blowing people away without first examining why the bad people are motivated to do what they do, and they need to get high audience figures and so the violence is toned down to get a lower rating.

Plus they mostly cast young and/or good-looking people instead of rugged people, which makes for a less gung-ho experience.


"The Dark Knight Rises" was awesome for a lot of reasons, one of them being that Bane was an old-school-looking bad-ass. i.e. He looked tough and was tough. Nothing against Scarecrow and Joker - I love both of those characters, but in a fist-fight, Batman could kill those guys, whereas Bane could easily hold his own against Batman - Both physically, verbally, and mentally.

"The Expendables 2" was also a kick-ass film for obvious reasons. I also really enjoyed "Predators" and "The Devil's Rejects" which were two films that also had very bad-ass looking people.

So yeah, I really enjoy today's action movies and I have nothing against them at all. In some cases I even have nothing against an average-looking guy or a model playing the hero or the villain of a film *if* the story is good. There are also still plenty of young larger-then-life action stars such as Dwayne Johnson, Adrien Brody, Vin Diesel, and Jason Statham. I think all four of those guys look like legit bad-asses.

I also think some of the newer action films are just different, which is good, but sometimes I do crave a simpler time when more films had a hero who was really muscular, didn't look like an average Joe or someone who could be your neighbor, and was a man who ideally is 35-years old or older, and he kills the bad guy who is also a man, brawny, scary-looking, 35-years old or older, and not an average Joe, and we didn't have to start wondering whether the villain of the movie was actually good deep down inside and was just misunderstood, and whether the hero is going to be emotionally scarred by what he went through in the film, and all that other stuff. Although I do enjoy deep, thought-provoking films too. I'm just looking for diversity sometimes.

Hopefully because "The Expendables 2" was a hit, we'll see more old-school action films. Diversity is always good.

In terms of modern action movie casting, I'd like to see more use of good character actors and less use of eye-candy. (still a sucker for the 70's Bronson-style flicks)

__________________
Under-the-radar Movie Awesomeness.
http://earlsmoviepicks.blogspot.com/

A little bit of a stretch in your analyses. The simple truth is coreography has evolved and the more technically advanced we get, the more special effects you'll see in action movies. Nothing wrong in today's action. Just check out Fast Five and tell me if I'm wrong.

Oh, I am a fan of today's action films. I am just talking about how most (though not all) action stars don't look like the guys from the 1980's for example.

In Terminator 3 we had a damn chick as the T-X which I never was a fan of. I would have preferred Arnold duke it out with a bad-ass looking man.

Then you have "The Hunger Games" where teenage characters were the leads. I liked the film, but I would have preferred adults as the leads.

Then there are actors like Matt Damon and Shia Labeouf who I just can't take seriously as action stars based on their looks.

Okay, so, I liked The Expendables, but it does not feel like a throwback to 80's action films. There's nothing throwbacky about a bunch of old action stars all hanging out in a garage/tattoo parlor (if I'm remembering this correctly) playing Action Star Hair Salon between moments where they're fighting off bad guys in other countries. It just looks like Dolly Parton/Steel Magnolias with muscles. Great action movies from the 80's weren't all-star casts --- they weren't teams. They were TWO people working together, at most. They weren't clubs. They were mostly bad motherf**kers working alone. If that one bad motherf**ker died, everyone else was screwed and evil won. It was one powerful force of nature against a bunch of other evil forces of nature. THAT'S what made them so good.

I agree. I'm a huge fan of movies like Commando and Predator which are just pure fight and full of plot holes. These days you fight like Jason Bourne rather than picking up a giant gun and killing as much as possible.