🎬 #84 Possibly the best 'actiony' film ever made.
🎬 #84 Possibly the best 'actiony' film ever made.
That was my favourite word to describe what I wanted to see in a film when I was 8 years old. ‘I want to watch something ‘actiony,’ it just meant something with action in it.
Simple enough - but few films deliver their promise of belonging to the strange sub genre of ‘action.’ Because all films are technically action films because good films show actions - they tell the story of characters through… actions.
These are two of my absolute favourites from childhood and remain so today. They also both possess the perfect mix of action cinema and science-fiction.
Happy choosing, happy viewing
Bry
FILM ONE: TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY.
1991 Dir James Cameron
The reason this is one of my favourite films is that all the action is underpinned by a theme of sacrifice - a total and under dedication to the cause. Which is do whatever it takes to protect John Connor. I’m guessing this is the reason why the film resonated with so many people at the time and still today. Like all Cameron’s films - the spectacle is only a 1/4 of the story. It’s what motivates that spectacle that really matters. In this case its the proto-father son relationship, the protection of a family unit for the sake of the survival of the entire future human race.
What I love about the character of the action in the film is that it perfectly reflects the protagonist and antagonist. Arnolds T-100 is bold, brutal, cut the bullshit - his movements and actions have the bluntness of someone trying to get the job done with the least faff possible and with no concern for his own safety. Robert Patrick’s T-1000 is duplicitous, literally - he can imitate people and take the form of any non-complex material object, he’s slippery and nimble, athletic. He slides through elevator doors, slithers from holes in ceilings, and creeps through metal bars - again with no concern for his own physical well-being.
As shown by the thumbnail above - the action throughout feels like there are real stakes involved because it all feels very real - it feels dangerous. This is something you just don’t get with fully CGI shots, they feel like an imitation of danger, danger bubble-wrapped. The iconic helicopter going under and over the bridge was filmed for real - the only person who agreed to be in the helicopter to shoot it was Cameron himself, the rest of the crew backed out. Commitment and sacrifice from the director - all for the cause of telling a story about commitment and sacrifice.
The clash of these opposites, an immovable object and an unstoppable force is what makes this stuff so cool to watch. Here are two examples that always stay with me. Arnold’s T-100, instead of continuing to fire from a distance, in a traditional shoot out, climbs on top of the truck during a chase scene and fires round after round at point blank range into the T-1000’s face and chest. A machine solving a problem. Next, and this might be my favourite single action in any film ever, - he jumps on the side of the truck and grabs the steering wheel, yanking the truck and the T-1000 away from John and Sarah. One swift movement that sums up the entire film for me. Sacrifice, protection - no matter what the cost. Even recalling it is giving me goosebumps. If you don’t watch the entire film - enjoy the clip below. Though it’s obviously best enjoyed in the context of the wider story. I love this film so so so much I even had the poster on my wall growing up. Enjoy!
TL;DR Big on heart and action, Cameron’s follow-up expands the scope of the world he established in the gritty tech noir original.
*Available for a small rental fee on Amazon, Apple, Google and YouTube in the US and the UK.
Fact: This was the first film to surpass $300 million at the international box office.
FILM TWO: PREDATOR
1987 Dir John McTiernan
When you read a summary of Predator it comes across as a potential B midnight movie-style affair. But when you witness the verve and subversive tact by director John McTiernan, it’s clear that Predator becomes a firmly A grade picture. Part of the reason I love how the action in the film is handled is because we go from something quite A-Team-esque to something quite nihilistic. We see the literal death and dismemberment of the idea of the all American action hero. It’s only when their techniques disregard the traditional brute force, traditional ‘action’ approach that there’s hope in overcoming their foe.
The scene that really seals this is when the team fire into the oblivion of the faceless jungle - unloading thousands of rounds of ammo and not hitting a single thing. It’s the most macho show of force imaginable. And against their enemy - it’s totally ineffective, their action hero antics mean nothing. The Predator quickly dispatches the soldiers. Its actions somewhere between hunter and butcher, pulling skulls out of faces the way a hunter might process their prey deep in the woods.
Even the final moments are a total subversion of what we expect from the 80’s action picture. We see our hero, Dutch, in the chopper - McTiernan chooses no uplifting score, no cheers and whoops and hugs, not even smiles. Here we see the traumatic events of the film all over Dutch’s mud and blood caked face. He has the equivalent of the 1000 yard stare, trying to process what they’ve just been through. As they're choppered back home to civilisation - there’s no sense of real victory. And you know when Dutch arrives wherever he does, after having his world shattered, he’ll struggle to readjust to normality, he’ll be lost - trying to select cereal in the supermarket.
TL;DR McTiernan’s action sci-fi film has one of my favourite Arnold performances - what starts as a parody of his traditional hero, descends into a hollow, harrowing ordeal for a soldier who’s lost everyone he knows.
*Available for a small rental fee on Amazon, Apple, Google and YouTube in the US and the UK.
Fact: The macho-antics continued behind the scenes. The cast would try to outdo each other by arriving earlier and earlier to the onset gym - so they could get the biggest pumps for their scenes that day.