My first article back from a four year hiatus, it feels pretty good, but I’m still a little lost. I still plan on doing short movie reviews, but first I think I should tell you what I believe in when it comes to action movies. I know this first article is long and egotistical, but if you can get through it I promise the rest will be much shorter and to the point.
I got a lot of letters (all from other dudes) who think I’m dumb for my recent comment about action films and not liking the Transformer franchise, or pretty much any dumb action film “for what they are”. I figured that if I’m going to start up my movie review blog once again I should at least address my thoughts on action, especially since the majority of what I see tends to be action films.
Let me make one thing clear, action scenes are only interesting to me if I actually care about the survivor of the outcome. In films like Transformers 2, the Star Wars prequels, and Fantastic Four we are presented with dazzling action sequences, but these only come across to me as desperate distractions from the fact that I have formed no emotional connection with the main characters. I mainly use Transformers 2 as an example because while about 98% of action films suffer from this problem, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was so poorly written and directed that I could barely remember anything about that film even while I was leaving the theater! Despite its self-important and bloated run time here are the only things I remember about this movie:
1. The opening sequence was impressive and I felt like maybe this film wouldn’t be so bad
2. The betrayal I felt immediately afterwards
3. Steve Buscemi voiced an RC car that humps Megan Fox
4. I think Sam’s mom got high, leading to the worst comic relief scene ever made
5. Optimus Prime died, but magically came back to life when Michael Bay realized he couldn’t make a shitzillion dollars on the next movie without him
6. Sam died, but magically came back to life when Michael Bay realized he couldn’t make a shitzillion dollars on the next movie without him
7. There was an old Decepticon SR-71, which became a good guy
8. Sam screamed “OPTIMUUUUUUUUUUUS!’ a lot.
9. The last fight scene was in the desert
10. The bad guy had robot balls
11. There was a doomsday machine in the great pyramids
I am not joking you, those are the only things I can remember as I was leaving the theater. Why didn’t I remember anything else? I just plain didn’t care.
Compare this to the fact that if you talk to anyone who knows about my love of film they will tell you that I can remember almost any movie I like down to the most miniscule details after only seeing it once. Why? Because I care about the characters and the story behind those films, so those scenes stick with me after the movie is done. When I go into work the next day after seeing a film what do you think I would rather talk to my friends about: if they thought Inception took place in Cobb’s dream the whole time and the possible philosophical ramifications of this idea? How brilliantly acted and utterly chilling the Joker’s interrogation scene was in The Dark Knight? Or how much I liked when the robot punched the other robot? Action without purpose can’t be reflected on properly, and therefore is utterly meaningless and simple to forget without something to back it up in the audiences mind, it’s like creating currency without gold to back it up financially.
Even more insulting is the way that Michael Bay directs this film, with a heavy and serious tone usually reserved for Oscar contenders, to wacky random mayhem without any sort of transition. It was just really jarring how the film would go from heavy, ominous orchestral music with a sweeping camera angle, to wacky humor with Steve Buscemi humping Megan Fox’s leg. A movie without a consistent tone always comes out as a mess, and there are plenty of summer movies being released for purposes none than to be commercial diarrhea, guilty pleasure action films such as GI Joe, Captain America, or Van Helsing, all of which have a consistent tone throughout the film. These films are meant to be nothing more than empty action scenes strung together by razor thin “plots”, but their directors and production teams treat them as such. When a film is treated as a light-hearted action film it’s a little bit easier to defend its lack of story arcs and character development, at least then it has sort of a campy, fun quality to it, but Michael Bay filmed and defended Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen like it’s freaking Hamlet. He even fired Megan Fox from the third project simply for stating that the film “…isn’t a great film, but it’s a good popcorn action film”.
Now I know what you’re thinking, When did Kyle become such a holier than thou wannabe film critic? He probably doesn’t even like action movies. Well yes, OK, I am a prick, but despite that I absolutely love action movies. In fact, out of my five favorite films of all time (Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, Children of Men, The Good the Bad, and the Ugly, and The Shawshank Redemption) four of them are action films, but the big difference is that they are GOOD action films. No one can deny that Raiders of the Lost Ark didn’t have some amazing action sequences in it, action sequences that still hold up by today’s film standards, but on top of that the film had some of the best dialogue ever written, some of the best acting to ever come out of an already stellar cast, and some of the best direction to ever come out of a Hollywood icon, all of which combined to make every scene of the film a Hollywood benchmark. Everything in the film blended seamlessly to create an emotional connection with the audience that accomplished miracles. Harrison Ford created a movie hero that became a household name and film legend, and Karen Allen created a heroine that was such a cool and refreshing change of pace from most female leads that it caused audiences around the world to fall in love with a woman who was butt ugly by most standards.
Now for the record, I’ve selected three examples that demonstrate three important aspects of what I believe are the most important things about action in a film. They are:
Doctor Who-Right off the bat I know this doesn’t seem like a good example for the action genre, but I chose it for that exact reason. Ever since the 1960’s this show has appealed to science fiction nerds like myself because of its original take on science fiction, the carefree attitude of the show, and the well scripted stories that came from the writers. The main draw of the show however, was the character arc and struggles of the Doctor, portrayed by eight actors over thirty-something years and each as different as night and day. At the core the Doctor was a peace-loving, time travelling alien, but his past was steeped in violence, violence so dark and disturbing that he swore to never again give in to violent actions to accomplish his pursuits. In many instances the Doctor would voluntarily sacrifice himself if it resulted in a peaceful outcome.
However, in 2001 when the BBC decided to revive the dormant franchise they decided that modern audiences didn’t want that crap anymore. In their infinite wisdom they cast Christopher Eccleston, a British actor who had appeared as a villain in several action films, as the Ninth Doctor, and while there certainly were instances where the Doctor’s good natured roots showed through, Eccleston’s Doctor was a much grittier, angrier, hateful, and violent version of the Doctor than anyone would have suspected. To top things off, towards the end of the first series they gave him a huge ass plasma rifle, a war face, and had him blowing the living hell out of the Daleks or any other enemy he felt like murdering that day.
This decision proved disastrous, as this incantation went against everything that the Doctor had stood for from the beginning and to this day Christopher Eccleston is widely considered to be the worst portrayal of the Doctor on countless science fiction lists. Luckily, BBC came to their senses and quickly cast acclaimed Shakespearian actor and lifelong Whovian (the Doctor Who version of a Trekkie) David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. Tennant quickly re-established the peace loving nature of the time-travelling adventurer, and because of this many now regard him as the best incantation of the Doctor yet. Between his work and the equally stellar work Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith the last five years of Doctor Who have been by far the best to date.
Despite the fact that Doctor Who has a lot of action in it the success of the show lied in the Doctor’s inner conflict of action vs. violence. The Doctor does find himself in a lot of instances that lead to violence, and while he often travels with companions that are great soldiers such as Captain Jack Harkness, Canton Delaware, River Song, and Rory the Centurian, he himself refuses to take up arms against an enemy if there is a peaceful solution in sight. In fact, I can only think of one time in the last five years that The Doctor even attempted to use physical violence against someone when he tried to jump-kick a Dalek, and it was just as awkward and pathetic as you would expect from a pacifist action hero (I mean that in a good way). The point is that Doctor Who has survived this long not because of mindless action, but because every action has a purpose and story behind it. Simply put, there is no such thing as pointless action.
Raiders of the Lost Ark-Yup, I’m coming right back to this film, but it’s only because in my mind this film is the epitome of a good action movie. Raiders has countless classic action set pieces, and each one is enthralling for the audience because of the connection we have with the characters. Even more important is that this film creates great heroes and villains, but doesn’t fall into the area that every Hollywood movie falls into where it thinks it needs a final epic confrontation.
What do I mean by this? Well, think back to when Star Wars: The Phantom Menace graced the screens. Towards the end of the film the Jedi fight Darth Maul (AKA, the only thing that made the movie watchable). Now while there is no doubt that the action is impressive and dazzles the eye (I’m ashamed to admit that I was enamored at the time), I want you to answer one question for me, why was Darth Maul evil? Seriously, what was Darth Maul’s motivation for fighting the Jedi? Did the film ever give us a reason for why he was evil other than he wore black robes? Did the Jedi murder his family? Was he just a prick to begin with? We’re never told. Yet despite the fact that a final confrontation between Jedi and a a villain with no purpose was completely pointless in this film George Lucas shoehorned this character in for a long drawn out battle sequence. My only guess for why he did this was that he wanted to have a slow lead up to the rise of Palpatine and the Empire, but this would require his motivations to remain hidden. Faced with the fact that he couldn’t distract the audiences with lightsaber fights anymore he created a new character at the last minute, then forced him into five scenes throughout the entire film (each lasting barely a minute) just so there could be a long drawn out fight scene at the end with absolutely no point to it other than to dazzle audiences with shiny objects and kill off Qui-Gon Jinn. You might as well have just had Qui-Gon get electrocuted in a bathtub, or if you wanted to create an emotional moment, have him sacrifice himself to save an important character like the Queen or Obi-Wan, at least then his death would have slightly more meaning than none at all.
This shows how action films think they can’t get by without a “Giant Ass Final Epic Showdown”, even if it serves no purpose and is ultimately pointless to the story of the film. Transformers had a final showdown between Optimus and Megatron, Transformers 2 had a final showdown between Optimus and Megatron, and even though I haven’t seen the third film, I’m guessing Transformers 3 has a final showdown between Optimus and Megatron. In fact I’m going to try something, and I can’t stress enough that I have not seen this film but I’d like to guess what happens in the climax of the third film and I’d appreciate if someone tells me how close I come.
OK, so I’m guessing that Optimus and Megatron fight… again… while a doomsday device is revving up in the background to destoy Earth while Josh Duhamel and a bunch of soldiers are running around shooting things. Sam and girlfriend #2 will have some random climax action scene that serves no purpose except at the last second when Sam saves the day while screaming “OPTIMUUUUUUS!” a lot. There will probably be a new evil guy too, most likely an Autobot traitor or one of Josh Duhamel’s soldier will become a turncoat because all third acts in action movies need a traitor these days, so Optimus has to fight Megatron and this other (probably more powerful) antagonist. Jesus Christ, do something different already Michael Bay! Could you imagine if every James Bond movie ended with Bond fighting Dr. No? It would be like I was watching a big screen version of Inspector Gadget.
Raiders of the Lost Ark had three great antagonists in the form of the condescending and arrogant Nazi supporter Dr. Belloq, the quietly menacing Nazi interrogator Major Toht (AKA The Man in Black), and the Nazi high commander and project leader Colonel Dietrich. The movie could have used any of these three guys for a climactic fight, but instead Spielberg chose to take the road less travelled and the film comes out just as enjoyable as it would have been had they included this fight scene. In fact there is one scene where the film makes us think Indy is going to have an epic showdown with a sword wielding mercenary, but instead Indy just shoots him in the face. Not only is this scene NOT considered lazy, it became one of the most memorable scenes of all time. Indy does indeed get into plenty of one on one fights throughout the film, most notably with that bald Nazi that looked disturbingly like a younger version of my dad, but none of these guys are by any means an antagonist or even an anti-hero, they’re just villainous henchmen, minions.
In the end the three antagonists definitely get what’s coming to them when they’re faces shrivel, melt, or explode, but Indy had nothing to do with their demise, just bad luck and poor decisions. It’s just refreshing to see a Hollywood thought process that isn’t “Protagonist + Antagonist + Big Setting = EPIC ACTION SHOWDOWN!” this is proof that you can create a great, tense, involving action set piece without resorting to by the numbers, pointless action scenarios. You can argue that the climax of Raiders is still extravagant and flashy like today’s action movies, but you can’t even begin to describe it as an “action scene". It’s just a bunch of pissed off angels ripping the Nazis to shreds for the evil in their hearts, but this scene is way more exciting and gripping to watch than most other action scenes. The point is that at the end of the day a well directed and involving fistfight between two dudes in front of a moving plane is a thousand times more interesting and exciting to watch than all the CG robot showdowns in the Transformer films combined.
Battlestar Galactica: Pegasus-While we’re on the idea of minimalist action scenes, my final example deals with the idea that you can create a scene just as tense and exciting as any action film without making a fight scene that costs millions of dollars to make, and fittingly it comes from a television show on the SciFi channel. This example comes from my favorite episode of Battlestar Galactica, the Season 2 finale titled Pegasus.
For those of you who haven’t seen this show here’s a quick summary. The episode begins with the Galactica (which had believed itself to be the last battle cruiser left in the human fleet) stumbling upon another Alliance cruiser, the technologically advanced cruiser “Pegasus”. While the reunion is initially met with overwhelming happiness from the survivors and the commanding officer Commander Adama, these feelings of happiness begin to give way to fear and suspicion when they realize that The Pegasus’ commander Admiral Cain (who has now assumed command of the fleet over Adama) is both ruthless and unforgiving, a stark contrast from the firm but benevolent Commander Adama. Emotions of tension and anger continue to escalate after two of Galactica’s officers accidentally kill the executive officer of Pegasus while he is attempting to rape a prisoner aboard the Galactica. The two officers are transported to The Pegasus where Admiral Cain promises Adama she will give them a fair trial by court marshal when this happens (the scene begins 3:15 prior to the end of the clip, and if the link doesn’t load look it up on Netflix)…
In case the link is broken or didn’t work Adama gets a call that the court marshal was a sham and his crewmembers are going to be executed aboard the Pegasus. This leads to the tense and exciting climax of the episode which is… wait for it…
A phone call.
Yup, the exhilarating final moments of the episode are nothing more than Adama and Cain in a heated argument over the phone, and while that may sound ridiculous you can’t even begin to pass judgment until you realize how masterfully this scene was directed.
OK, so the first thing you notice is the swell of an amazing musical composition that matches the scene perfectly, which brings an element of tension to the viewer on a simple and subconscious level. The high angle of the camera shot over both ships shows the Pegasus on a higher plane than the Galactica, conveying a subconscious sense of the Pegasus’ dominance over the Galactica, both in command and weaponry. So now with a simple camera trick the audience already knows in the back of their mind that Adama is going against a superior force foe, and they know this without the show saying a word. When the two characters begin speaking on the phone the camera pans around in a circle, initially to show the nervous looks on the faces of the additional crew in the rooms, but as the angry exchange becomes more and more heated the camera begins panning at a faster and faster rate to convey to the audience how quickly the situation is spiraling out of control. Finally, the last shot of this episode is both cruisers scrambling fighters in the beginning of a civil war, and through this whole scene there wasn’t a single action other than slamming down a phone This shows how with good direction, well written dialogue, strong acting, and the correct cinematography to create the right atmosphere a talented filmmaker can turn an ordinary scene into a situation more tense and exhilarating than any action scene in Hollywood. In fact I can honestly say that despite the Star Wars prequels’ 345 million dollar production costs, this single scene from Battlestar Galactica was far more exciting, riveting, and interesting than all of the action scenes in those three films combined.
Honestly I’m beginning to notice that with a limited budget TV is resorting to using effective means of filmmaking to create excellent and memorable emotional connections with audiences, which is exactly what movies are slowly moving away from. TV is becoming much better at reaching out and drawing audiences into their plots, and low budget scenes of television are way better at creating scenes that keep me riveted to the edge of my seat. When Shane dropped a grenade in Lem’s lap in The Shield, I was riveted to the edge of my seat. When Omar Little went after Brother Mouzone at his hotel room in The Wire, I was riveted to the edge of my seat. When Lucius Vorenus walked into the arena to save Titus Pullo in Rome, I was riveted to the edge of my seat. I think the last time I did that in a movie theater was almost a decade ago in the last Lord of the Rings movie.
The point of all of this is to illustrate the fact that just because an action film is loud, flashy, and fast moving, that doesn’t make it a GOOD action movie. Now you may be asking Well, why do you even care? It’s not like me seeing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen four times is affecting you, and even though what you do with your twelve dollars isn’t my business I hate to say that your spending habits are absolutely affecting me, particularly the quality of the movies that are being made. Due to the massive funds being pumped into mindless, pointless, action film adaptations with no purpose a huge amount of amazing film projects are being killed by executives because they think we the audience are a bunch of dimwitted, popcorn munching Neanderthals. For example, great films such as District 9, Up, and Children of Men barely got out into theaters because production companies did the best they could to drown the project just so they could re-direct the funds into better sparkle effects for Twilight 19.
Even more disappointing is hearing about great projects that never had a chance when facing modern trending audiences. Gore Verbinski and Johny Depp announced recently that they had teamed up for an adaptation of The Lone Ranger with a script that was nothing short of masterful, but Disney killed the project because according to them (and I shit you not) there were no werewolves or vampires in it. Guillermo Del Toro, one of the finest directors in Hollywood for the last ten years, was planning an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Mountains of Madness, which would be the first adaptation of a Cthullu mythos for the big screen. Instead, the studio killed it because they thought the audience wouldn’t understand the intricate and eerie plot. Hell, Christopher Nolan had to use every ounce of his skill to get Inception greenlit, even though he had just finished making his third blockbuster in a row for the studio. Producers seriously can’t seem to do anything right in Hollywood, and shouldn’t be allowed to directly control a director’s vision of a film the way that they always do. Remember, these are the same people who did everything in their power to have Johny Depp fired from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl because they thought Jack Sparrow was going to ruin the movie.
So what was I hoping to do with this article? I don’t know. I know I’m not going to change Hollywood trends and what you see, which is fine, but when Michael Bay releases Transformers: Whatever of the Thing in another two years ask yourself “Do I have to see this in the theater, or can I wait to watch it at home?”
