I've been watching alot of action movies latley, and I realize why they tend not to get Oscars. Its Because they suck. Why? They dont deliverenough drama. What makes any movie oscar-worthy is if it's emotionally moving. So when I say "it doesn't have sufficient Drama" I'm not saying it has to be like a Mexican Soap Opera. When I say "it doesn't deliver sufficient Drama" I'm saying *It's not emotianally moving enough*.What's the difference between movies like:
A- Blade 2, xXx, Wanted, Aliens vs. Predator, Rush Hour, Mission Impossible, Transformers, the Val Kilmers and George Clooney Batmans ,,,etc and,
B- movies like Gladiator, Braveheart, Terminator 2, Saving Private Ryan, Lethal Weapon 4, the entire Star Wars series, the Tim Burton Batmans ...etc
The difference is that the movies in category B delivered sufficient Drama. The movies in category A. Look at Mission Impossible, his entire team that he had HISTORY with died in the first scenes of the movie. A short aftermath scene of him panicking happens, two scenes later he's fine and dandy again. Nope.I'm not emotionally moved Mr.Writer. There's not enough Drama.
On the other hand, look at Terminator 2. when T-800 dipped himself in the Lava and John Connor was like: "No!! No!! I order you not to kill yourself!! I order you not to kill yourself!!!"Yes. I was emotionally moved.. Now that's Drama. This new trend of Action movies lacks emotion, lacks Drama. It's just a series of "entertaining stunts". Exactly like watching the circus. Without Drama its just eye-candy. Where's the meaning in that? Okay moving on to problem 2 of what needs to be changed in Action movies
2-The characters are too generic. The hero is always the same cookie-cutter model of an action hero movie. The hero is either a generic Mr."Do the right thing" man who loves his family or a Mr."badass who kicks everybody's ass then leaves" guy.
Moving on to problem number 3: Not setting up the challenge with enough suspense. Im sure alot of you watch Naruto. Naruto is an awesome example of how to set up a challenge and a suspense correctly. The match between a protagonist and an antagonist in Naruto is full of outsmarting back and forths and unpredictable turnarounds in the middle of the battle. Before those two opponents battle, you see **** loads of Ability Reveal Scenes that show how powerful they BOTH are. I think 40% of an Anime are whammy holy-****-like Ability Reveal Scenes. Yes, 40%. I'm not exagerating. If you see a match between two opponents in Naruto (or any other Anime for that matter) .. you'll be at the end of your seat biting your nails over who is going to win the fight. Is that the case in these hack action movies?
Did you guys see how disappointing the battle between Spidey and Venom was in Spider Man 3? Were you guys even excited when Tony Stark and Opedia fought in Iron Man? Were there scenes that showed how powerful Venom or sandman was? Nope. So when you saw them fight, did that scene feel like a match between Naruto and Sasuke; or even better, Goku and Kid buu? Nope. That's because they didn't set up the challenge correctly. (Like how Animes do it.). Action scenes these days dont have enough outsmarting backs n forths, just a bunch of collateral damage explosions and fancy stunts.
Moving on to Problem number 4: Important Showdowns are not written the way they deserve to be. Did you see the Showdown between Pyro and Ice Man in X-Men 3? For those of you who saw Wanted, were you disappointed that Wesly didn't have a Showdown with Angelina Jolie (she was supposed to kill him after all)? Did you guys see how Liu Kang finished off Shang Tsung in the Mortal Kombat movie? Or worst of all, the Venom and Spidey showdown in Spider Man 3 -_-". It's pathetic right? They give an unimportant car chase scene 10 minutes of screentime but when they battle with the main Villain he finishes him off in 2 minutes after the bad guy does some long monolouge.
In Terminator 2, I think 3/4 of the movie was a chase and a battle between T-800 and T-1000. Not "2 or 5 minutes". In the Matrix , 3/4 of the trilogy is spent revealing Neo's abilities, fighting against the machine army and the agents, and exploring human nature in relation to machines. This all ads up to the Final battle between Agent Smith and Neo. But did you feel emotionally involved? To me it felt like reading Java script or a computer program module. This is why the Matrix, However action packed, is not fully respected by most critics.
So that's my problem with current action movies:
1-They don't deliver enough Drama.
2-Characters are poorly designed and generic
3-The challenges and suspense are not set up effectively enough
4-The important Showdowns are not satisfying with enough screentime and enough action.
I used to literally say "if there is no explosion within 2 minutes im watching another movie" like the typical American movie goer. Movies like transformers are fun to watch, but why wont it win movie of the year?
I really liked Dark Knight. And the movie is Legendary for Non-Action Reasons like Drama and Characters. I do not think that it's awesomeness is just because of swirly twirly stunts that "look cool". I just saw Watchmen. It was a heck of an action move. losts of @$$ kicking, but the most emotion was between the silver sprectra and dr. manhattan. It didnt show tension within society like it did in the comic, i mean the there's a friggin countdown to doomsday! Mr. Zack Snyder, you did a good job making a pointless action scene in 300, but dont bring your brainless fight scenes to superhero cinema, the genre is suffering enough.
The emotions and Drama of what the "battle is about* is more important than the action in the actual battle itself
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