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Ah, the domain which USED to be owned by Stallone and Aaaahhnald. Who would have thought that NICOLAS CAGE would have such a successful run of them.(The Rock, Con-Air, Gone in 60 Seconds. Hey, I didn't say they were great, they just made money. Although personally, The Rock was pretty good.) Anyway, here are my ruminations on some action movies from the last... oh, about 20 years now.... and boy do I feel old. Ugh.
By the way, there are no Jackie Chan pictures since martial arts pictures are a list of their own. And 'The Matrix' is off because you could say it's more of a sci-fi picture since it has a number of sci-fi elements which constantly appear through the film; the Sentenals, constant references to the Matrix, et al. Something else to mess with. hehehehehehehe.
1. Terminator 2; You could argue this is a sci-fi film, but since this happens in contemporary America and the only real high-tech items are the terminators, I'll treat this as an action flick. This is Jim cameron at his best; characters you feel you've known forever, explosive, creative fight scenes, stunning stunts, and villains that take your breath away.
2. Rambo-"First Blood Part II; this film came out in the '80s, so it oozes flag waving, takes gratuitous advantage of the MIA issue in 'Nam, and has enough patriotism to make you want to go out and beat-up a Russian It's also a stunning action flick. Besides Rocky Balboa, this is the best character Sly ever created. John Rambo is the ultimate conflicted, efficient killing machine who just wants the war over. Yes, this is a contradiction, but it works very well in Stallone's hands. Oh, and guess who wrote the screen play; Jim Cameron.
3. Die Hard; a movie which made Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman stars and made 'yipee kiyah' a cool taunt. Wilis and Rickman play polar opposites in this classic game of cat and mouse in a sky-scrapper.
4. Blue Thunder; not as well known as the rest of these pictures, but still great. Roy Schneider is superb as a burned out 'Nam chopper pilot who gets sucked into a government project designed to show the merrits of using armed helicopters for crowd control in LA for the Olympics. Malcom McDowell is also perfect as a nasty, annoying, and cold-blooded government liaison who is running the project. He's also Schneider's fomer CO from 'Nam and a hell of a pilot himself. The movie culminates in an amazing final battle of armed 'choppers flying over Los Angeles.
5. Raiders of the Lost Ark; How could I leave this one off? Sci-Fi Channel declared this the best action movie of all time. Hmmmmmmmm... yeah, you could say that. We all know the theme, we've all owned a fedora because of this film, and there's always the whip.... and let's just leave it at that.