Modern action movies have forgotten that action is an extension of suspense. We are involved in the action set-pieces because we, the audience, are involved in the fate of the characters. It really doesn’t take much to achieve such involvement. But they are elements that often can not be found in modern movies.
Actors and characters that are interesting.
These don’t have to be exceptionally complex characterizations. Commando has a protagonist that charms us and makes us root for him, while having the character Bennet as this great bad guy.
Recent action movies really don’t have these interesting actors and characterizations any more. I myself can’t name any really interesting bad guy characters in recent movies. The last action movie I can remember where they really did try to create this fascinating antagonist was in Avatar. Inception is an interesting example, of this intelligent action spectacle with the most boring, uninteresting lead character imaginable, the DiCaprio character, while having no antagonist character to begin with. Again, you need these characters to pull the audience through. There are many aspects of Inception that I admire, but the lack of interesting characters is one of many flaws that keeps the movie from entirely succeeding.
A story that carries us onto the next action set-piece.
Action for the sake of action doesn’t work. John Wick has cool action, but there’s no story to involve us in the action. It’s just this guy walking around killing armies of antagonists. Compare John Wick to what I consider to be the greatest of all action scenes of all time, the chase scene in Terminator 2, which starts in the games arcade and ends with the explosion in the LA canal. We are involved in this beautifully choreographed scene because we are involved in the story. We are watching these characters battle it out and we want to know what this will lead to. This does not demand Charlie Kaufman-level writing. Simply a story that legitimizes the action.
Not just beautifully choreographed and directed, the events that unfold on screen involve us as part of an ongoing story. James Cameron being the master of mixing action spectacle with tight plots.
Choreography.
Modern day action is often over-choreographed or under-choreographed. Part of it is due to The Matrix, I think. A movie I deeply admire and love, for its intelligence and for the sheer spectacle of its action set-pieces. What The Matrix did is to present these hyper-choreographed action set pieces that made sense in the world that the movie exists in. Post-Matrix action movies have taken that hyper-choreography and removed it from its context. We’re left then with action sequences that don’t involve us.
Another movie that has had a tremendous influence on modern action cinema is Gladiator, a movie that people nowadays often slam as being overrated, I think is still an exceptional action spectacle. A movie that ticks off all the boxes. At its center lies these spectacular fight scenes that are brought to life with these fast editing cuts and a camera that can’t stop itself from shaking, a style that was itself deeply influenced by the opening sequence in Saving Private Ryan.
Stripping this style of the smart and clear choreography, of a filmmaking that intends to throw the audience into the action, modern filmmakers often go too far with the editing, where the editing becomes a way of breathing life into action set-pieces that are inherently dull and unimaginative.
A great example of what all this leads to is this particular action set-piece, from Civil War.
An 11 minute ballet. No urgency, no context, no imagination. Just another reason to have these characters do tricks and crack jokes.
The John Wick series is another great offending example, as is the horrendous, but financially successful Fast and Furious series.
Just a dude walking through a building, shooting at faceless people. No characterization, no set-up or context, no inventive camerawork, no suspense. Just a dude shooting at people we don’t care about. In a time period defined by Marvel, this is considered great action.
Modern filmmakers need to realize that action is an extension of suspense. Take away the suspense, and the story and characters on which suspense depends, and we’re left with something uninvolving.
Some rare examples of more recent Hollywood action films that I thought worked really well, on some level or another.
2013’s Gravity was a particularly fantastic achievement, I think, perhaps the best action spectacle of this past decade. Who needs a plot when you have the darkness of space itself as the protagonist, the amazing George Clooney starring, and a torrent of spectacular action set-pieces that are shot with pure flair and energy. I saw it in theaters back in 2013, and it still remains the last time when a cinematic experience awed me.
I also think the Mission Impossible and James Bond series do it exceptionally well at times. And Christopher Nolan deserves a shout-out of course, for doing these ambitious things with the genre.
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