Situational Invincibility and How it is Ruining Action Movies
We like our action movies to be big, to be brash, to be full of gunfights and cool explosions and scores of dead bodies littering the streets in the wake of our stalwart hero. But this same desire often raises a problem: our hero can’t die, or even barely be hurt at all, so all elements of tension, all suspension of disbelief go out of the window.We never wonder if our hero will rescue their friend or kill the bad guy, because you can be damned sure they will, with only an annoying flesh wound and a few smartass quips to speak to the “struggle” that they went through on the way.
John Wick: Chapter 2 - Review
It is damn hard to do action well. Harder yet is to do it twice in a row. John Wick crashed into the action scene and made an indelible mark with stylish and well-choreographed action, a highly stylized aesthetic, and an interesting world to back it all up. It took the old writer’s adage of “show, don’t tell” to heart in a way that few films do, and with it created a compelling story that dragged you in and made you want to learn more. Chapter 2 had the incredibly difficult task of following this up well. John flirts with the underworld in the first, and as he walked away with his new friend at the end, we were left to wonder if he was truly back, or if he was going to try to pick up the pieces of his shattered life.
Commando: The Best Action Movie of All Time
Gather around and let me tell you a tale of the greatest action movie ever made. Our determined and glistening hero, rippling with absurd muscles and bristling with enough armaments to destroy a small country, finds himself waging a war against a South American despot, all in order to save his lovely and innocent daughter. It’s a tale that will live on through the ages. I’m of course talking about Commando, the 1985 Arnold Schwarzenegger film, also starring Alyssa Milano, Rae Dawn Chong, and Vernon Wells.