Yo Brommando!
In an article for EW titled, ‘The Raid 2’ and the Death of the Hollywood Action Movies, Darren Franich writes, “Hollywood only makes action movies now. Hollywood doesn’t really make action movies anymore.”
Agreed. Consider nearly every major motion picture (PG-13, hi-concept, etc) released this year. All of them, at their root, are action movies and yet none of them even remotely resemble the genre as we once knew it (Die Hard, Rambo, Terminator, etc).
Something is definitely missing. Just because a movie has action in it, can’t make it a part of the action genre. If that was the only criteria, you’d have to start adding comedies where actors get into elaborate, and ridiculous, fist fights.
So I decided to create a list of rules, or elements, that every action film needs to be considered part of the genre. Sure, these are just my opinion, but hey, that means they’re the Thompsonator’s opinions too.
Enjoy the video and let us know what you think in the comments below.