The death of old fashion action movies...

[Lord Blackbolt]

In the 80's and 90's, all you needed was badass's with guns, and dudes kicking ass and you had a big hit at the Box office. The time of Arnold, Stallone, and Bruce are gone. With movies like Losers, A-team, Knight and Day all failing at the Box office, will that put a end to the regular action movie genre. I doubt Salt or even Expendables will be a big hit either.

Unless it's a superhero, or a big scifi action movie... I don't think studios will want to release the the regular action movies in the summer anymore. Especially with the success of Taken and other action movies being hits in the non-summer seasons.

 

[Figs]

I don't think they're dead and we should wait to see how The Expendables does since that has a lot of older action stars that might bring out the older crowd that might be sick of recent action/comic films.

 

[redfirebird2008]

Do you consider the Bourne films to be old school action films? I love those movies. They're just really well-crafted spy thrillers and they manage to hit on some pretty strong themes in addition to the very entertaining story.

 

[Lord Blackbolt]

yeah, but the bourne films came out a couple of years ago. I'm talking about this year really. Almost every regular action movie has bombed.
Although...I haven't seen Green Zone, and people compared that movie to Bourne...and that movie was a failure at the box office too.

 

[Jager X]

Do you consider the Bourne films to be old school action films? I love those movies. They're just really well-crafted spy thrillers and they manage to hit on some pretty strong themes in addition to the very entertaining story.

The Bourne Trilogy gets a big FAIL from me since I cannot watch any of the action scenes without getting a headache.

 

[Octoberist]

Nothing ever dies, especially with genre films.

 

[Ghostvirus]

Ditto on the headache thing on the Bourne Trilogy.

To me the old action movie has been dead for many, many, many years. I want my badass to have a 5 o'clock shadow, drunk, smokes, drives a muscle car, & just doesn't give sh**.

Now every actioin star has to be borderline emo. They have to express there inner feelings & care.

If you want to really see what a great old school action star to me is watch Cobra from Stallone. I flipping love that movie.

Also Dean Winchester on Supernatural has some old school action star qualities. Mixed with that new school feelings stuff. But I love how he is just plain stubborn. He wants to kill god for....godsake.

 

[TruerToTheCore]

I don't know what you mean with that.

The one-man-army action movie is dead since the mid-90s and only survived in DTV movies. Then came the Bay/Woo/Bruckheimer era when average guys like Nick Cage were turned into action heroes. But then at the beginning of the 2000s big "action" blockbusters were suddenly PG-13 movies like X-Men, Spider-Man or even the Bourne movies who didn't take any risks. Emotional problems and all that stuff became mandatory, because if not the movie would have been ridiculed even by the ever-growing "intellectual" audience who started to call these old movies a "guilty pleasure" or "well, that was a dumb movie but fun!" who needed an excuse to have fun. It has been like that since the time.

The old fashion action movie is hard to make these days. Too much post-modern thinking that cannot accept pure heroes and has to deconstruct everything.

Perhaps even video games played a role because you can now play the action hero with quite convincing and spectacular graphics, no need to watch it in cinema!

 

[TNC9852002]

OP is smoking

 

[:eek:]

All genres faces ups and downs. The reason "old fashioned" action movies was so popular in the 80's was probably because they were often the most spectacular you get at that time. Superhero-movies and other more fantasy-themed action/adventures that are popular today were in most cases not possible to do then.

 

[dark_b]

i wonder what will happen with madmax.

 

[Pink Ranger]

Also Dean Winchester on Supernatural has some old school action star qualities. Mixed with that new school feelings stuff. But I love how he is just plain stubborn. He wants to kill god for....godsake.

I blame the Crow for that. That's the great movie that started the whole "tortured, moody action hero" genre.

 

[Evil Twin]

There's still James Bond.

But, otherwise, yeah. The old school action movie is basically in the same category as the western. Upstaged by material they can throw special effects budgets at. And often, instead of respecting the material, they try to graft modern action elements to older story models. It sure didn't help Jonah Hex.

But, like everything, these things run in cycles. Musicals were dead for a while and then made a comeback. The western has had various revivals. Some young turk will figure out a story that works and it will be a big hit.

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

We still have have Jason Statham and the Crank style movies.

 

[Tacit Ronin]

I would rather have the likes of Casino Royale and The Dark Knight than cheesy 80's action flicks. A few of the are great though (Terminator, Predator, Die Hard).

 

[Bad Superman]

I don't think they're dead and we should wait to see how The Expendables does since that has a lot of older action stars that might bring out the older crowd that might be sick of recent action/comic films.

^^^^
What he said.

 

[Sundancer]

A lot of the old action movies relied mostly on star power. I prefer modern action movies where we can rely on story and style.

...eith the exception of the dumb-ass PG-13 rating--which makes action and fight scenes horribly quick-edited and youcan't make out part of what's going on I'm had problems with this with

Daredevil:theatrical (director's cut had longer, better fight scenes)
Transporter
Bourne movies (1st okay, 2nd big headache)
Walking Tall
The Rundown (not that bad though)
Max Payne
MI:2


Whereas people like Keanu Reeves (who did good stunts in the Matrix) will always pale compared to actual martial artists (Snipes, Ray Parks, Jackie Chan) on screen, at least.

Some of my fav action movies involve stars that have proven successful in other genres since they focus on the task at hand and not just being tough.: Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, etc.

 

[amazingfantasy15]

I would rather have the likes of Casino Royale and The Dark Knight than cheesy 80's action flicks. A few of the are great though (Terminator, Predator, Die Hard).

I'd actually consider Die Hard the death of the '80s action movie. Bruce Willis was a regular guy forced into an extrodinary situation. His "regular guyness" was the reason for it's success though, he wasn't Stallone or Arnold, he got his @$$ kicked and was really only there for an emotion reason, reuniting with his wife. Personally I think the '80s action movie still exists though, just in video game form, Gears of War is a total '80s action movie, complete with bad tough guy dialouge/one liners

 

[BlackLantern]

the genre has shifted because of films like "Die Hard", it showed that action movies could be more that just cliches and have a decent story and characters

look at the third Die Hard film, it's a bit tough to figure out exactly what the bad guys are doing right off the bat

 

[Nivek]

I blame the Crow for that. That's the great movie that started the whole "tortured, moody action hero" genre.

It goes back quite a bit farther than 1994. Lethal Weapon had a pretty moody Mel Gibson sucking on a Baretta watching X-mas cartoons.

 

[Nivek]

I'd actually consider Die Hard the death of the '80s action movie. Bruce Willis was a regular guy forced into an extrodinary situation. His "regular guyness" was the reason for it's success though, he wasn't Stallone or Arnold, he got his @$$ kicked and was really only there for an emotion reason, reuniting with his wife.

Agreed, and that's why Live Free or Die hard seems so weird, because John Mclaine isn't an action hero I expect to see jumping a Mac truck into a fighter jet.

 

[TruerToTheCore]

I'd actually consider Die Hard the death of the '80s action movie. Bruce Willis was a regular guy forced into an extrodinary situation. His "regular guyness" was the reason for it's success though, he wasn't Stallone or Arnold, he got his @$$ kicked and was really only there for an emotion reason, reuniting with his wife. Personally I think the '80s action movie still exists though, just in video game form, Gears of War is a total '80s action movie, complete with bad tough guy dialouge/one liners

Die Hard was made in 1987. After 1987 there were lots of great action movies made. Van Damme and Seagal were just starting and had lots of success. And Arnold started to get his big budgets just then.

All until the mid-90s. I think of Eraser as the last classic action movie with big budet.

 

[Golgo-13]

I'm glad i was born during the 70's and grew up in the 80's. The 80's/90's had some of the BEST action movies of all time that would never be accepted if released today. Gone are the good 'ol days.

 

[BlackLantern]

Die Hard was made in 1987. After 1987 there were lots of great action movies made. Van Damme and Seagal were just starting and had lots of success. And Arnold started to get his big budgets just then.

All until the mid-90s. I think of Eraser as the last classic action movie with big budet.

that or True Lies, which was released in 1994

 

[Nivek]

I believe PG-13 Comic Book films have taken the place of the big budget R-rated action films of the 80's/ early 90's in the studios eyes.