What's Wrong With Every Action Movie Ever

[Anonymous]

I have a major bone to pick with action movies! Yes, I am well aware of Hollywood magic and CGI and that this is 'just a work of fiction,' but come on already!!!!

1. A light chop to the neck and you're instantly disabled

In real life, there are absolutely well trained fighters who with one blow can completely disable or even kill someone, but unless the action star has been granted with supernatural abilities, one punch to the stomach, or one chop to like the side of the neck is not going to make an equally trained fighter flip all the way over and pass out. It's ridiculous and you always see it when they are being set upon by multiple fighters. The action star quickly is able to knock out like 12 people with a few weak blows.

2. Imminent danger=Sex

FACE. PALM. Long ago, writers decided the best way to include women who are in their words, "forced to see these films," is to have an ill conceived down right idiotic love story pop up out of no where with some random woman the main character meets, the main character almost always being male. It's patronizing to think that one day they met and the next they are walking off into the sunset in love with one another. Every. Single. Movie. I don't doubt that action stars, being mostly human themselves, would have a hook-up or two along their quests for revenge if they were going into the long term but NOT at the exact second danger is happening. Not only that, it often comes after a major fight where *ahem* physically what they were doing, given the types of multiple injuries sustained, would be no where near pleasurable or possible for them to do.

3. One hundred and forty five bullets later, and not one hit the target

Years ago, a tv show wanted to test this notion of the untrained mob movie gangster spraying bullets upon a couple of targets like you'd see in an old movie (or like what often happened in reality). They wanted to prove that even the most untrained person with an automatic weapon like that, could hit a target just by doing that, and guess what, they did. No surprise! If you spray bullets on a crowd with an automatic weapon, even if you can't aim for crap, you're hitting something....UNLESS....you're in an action movie. Every balcony scene where the star is running across being sprayed by bullets, they are NEVER hit. Hits every single pillar in front of them, but never them.

4. Car chase goes on and on

Okay, so the action star is being pursued on foot then has to hop in his all too convenient super expensive Italian sports car to then plow through a major city in an intense car chase and...no one calls the police? I literally happened upon a fire that broke out in a high rise building in the major city I live in and within like 3 minutes, they were set upon by dozens of police, ambulance, and fire trucks. Given our current high alert status everywhere, emergency services trains for all types of scenarios involving outbreaks of emergency and crime in major cities, add to that most are monitored by CCTV so the thought that a car chase could go on for an extended period of time and cops or air patrol are no where to be seen is ridiculous. Also literally 99.9% of people have cell phones so who do you think they're calling?

5. No one has a gun...really?

Shout out to martial arts and how fantastic fight scenes look when made by skilled fight coordinators, but this is 2020. If I'm say the head of a villainous crime syndicate, I have to pay and train the guys that I'm using to commit crimes right, so why would I want to keep having to do that because every time I send them, they die...due to one chop to the neck...because they don't use guns. And the saying is still true that you don't send a guy with a knife, to a gun fight. I mean when have you ever heard on the news that the gangsters in a known drug den were all taken out with martial arts?

6. Humans are immortal

I don't care how trained you are, you are not falling off the side of a building (John Wick) or getting hit by three cars, or taking 3 bullets or having fought 72 guys and walking away like nothing happened. Even if they do show the action star dealing with pain, he goes to sleep it off and the next day is ready to fight. I recently stubbed my own toe and was down for the count and had to stay off it for 2 weeks and you're telling me this guy gets repeatedly punched in the head and thrown through some 12 plate glass windows and he's up and ready for coffee in 24 hours. I mean, where are the abrasians, the fractures, the spinal cord injuries, the broken limbs. Pain and injury are only shown when it's extremely convenient or important to the plot rather than as the injuries occur in real movie time. You also have no doubt in your mind that the bad guys will magically sustain way more injuries than the hero or his/her team ever will.

7. I really don't think they know how bombs and fire work

The hero is running away from a building because a bomb is about to explode when, boom, he flies off and lands on the ground, then swiftly manages to get back up and off he goes. (Cue laughter). If you are that close to a bomb, there is going to be a lot of pressure surrounding it and you which goes off and can totally F with your equilibrium, vision, and hearing. That and not to mention the loads of shrapnel from the building or device shooting straight for you. Some of the most gruesome injuries happen from this debris afterward which is why when they test these things, they are MILES away and behind bullet proof glass and not one hop away. Also fire tends to equal smoke, and yet no one in a scene having been in a building choked black with smoke has the nasty black smoke spot on their faces from inhaling it, or has respiratory issues.

8. Technology is SUPER ridiculously convenient

We need you to zoom in on the most crackled grainy image taken at night on a barely functioning security camera, right there, closer, closer, yes, there, now enhance, more, more, yes, the image of the bad guy I'm hunting is now perfectly clear now-------UM, doesn't happen in real life and no, you can't spend 2 minutes under high pressure hacking into the worlds most complicated security systems and actually get in. If it were that easy, why in the actual hell, would they be considered top notch.

[Lliam]

That was so funny and I totally agree.
One you didn't mention is outrunning an explosion. I've seen it in numerous movies. Typically, the hero is in a hallway, he realizes that a bomb is going to explode and starts running. An instant later, the bomb goes off and you see him running toward you in slow motion as the fire from the blast starts to catch up with him. He eventually makes it to the window at the end of the hall and dives through the glass just before the blast reaches him. Immediately afterward, a huge blast comes out of the window. Fortunately, though, the hero outran it and fell three floors to land on the roof of a parked car, only to groan and walk away with a slight, momentary limp.
Um, news flash. Explosions are instantaneous. You can't outrun them.

Another one that gets me is the hundreds of round of ammunition that a hand-held automatic weapon can fire without reloading. People only run out of ammo when it is integral to the plot.

How about the way bullet impacts spark? LOL Or the way they can shoot at the back of a car and make the gas tank explode like a bomb? Or getting hit with a shotgun blast makes a guy fly six feet backward into a wall.
How 'bout the way they have to cycle their weapon for effect when they point it at someone, even when we know there was already a round in the chamber. The sound of the gun's action cycling is supposedly really ominous. Golly, how suspenseful!

And the stuff they do with cars is a joke. They can crash into the side of another car at 60 miles per hour to push it out of the way and just keep going. Or fly over something, sail through the air, land, and keep going. The car has some cosmetic damage but still functions like a race car.
To give one example, years ago I watched the Starsky and Hutch movie on VHS. At the end, they bought him a new car. He enthusiastically and got airborn over an intersection. They showed the car close up as it landed and went past the camera. I slowed down the VHS tape and saw the car body buckle. You couldn't see in at regular speed. But that car body was destroyed. It as a total loss. I used to be an automobile damage assessor, so I know. In movies, they use multiple duplicate cars to achieve the effects they want. Don't try this at home, kids. LOL

The absurdities are endless.

Action movies can be fun. But most have the simplest of plots, rely on visual and sound effects to enduce excitement, and don't portray realism at all, even when realism, in some cases, would be just as effective. The ones I do enjoy watching are those where really bad shit happens to the bad guys - his head gets cut in half with a machete; a hand grenade get stuffed in his shorts; he falls on a spike; he gets hit by a helicopter rotor blade, ... The more over the top the better when it comes to that shit. It makes me LMAO.
I have to say, though, that I'm not really amused by characters who are supposed to be human doing humanly impossible shit. As far as I'm concerned, it detracts from the movie. I also hate it when guns and cars don't work the way then do in real life. I just roll my eyes and say "This is retarded."

[MarkRet]

Just about every action movie that comes along has to out-do the previous action movie. In the commercials, I see nothing but explosions, gunfire, car chases, and lots of booming noise. I don't usually watch action movies, because there's very little story beyond the stupidity. That picture of Indiana Jones looking at a mushroom cloud had me thinking, "This guy's gonna be dead in about a day!"

The Last Shogun was pretty good, until the big battle scene at the end. The samurai were charging straight into artillery, rifle, and gatling-gunfire and getting mowed down, except Tom Cruise, who just got knocked off his horse with a few scratches. Cruise betrayed his original army (US Army contracted to train Japanese army) to go play samurai for the summer, gets a few scratches, doesn't die, doesn't commit suicide (like a defeated samurai would do), puts his old US Army uniform back on, and everything is wonderful again. That RUINED the whole movie!

The first half of Lucy was good, until the big car crash chase scene and the big shootout with the Korean gang. Lucy could have just used her mind to push all the cars out of the way, and immobilize the gang, but I guess the action was more important.

[Screenwriter]

That was Last Samurai...

[Maria542]

Hi Mark, can we be good friends and if i may ask do you have google hangout or kik for a private chat?

[MarkRet]

@Maria542 - About the only online media I get into is Girlsaskguys.

[Screenwriter]

I too enjoy interesting questions as much as the answers offered.

[Phoenix98]

I'd first like to say John Wick fixes literally everyone of those problems.

Also actually the neck thing is completely possible it only takes around a 1,000 pounds to reliably break someones neck and cause instant if not near instant death, a simple front kick when done right moves at about 40 mph and can hit with a 1,000 pounds of force. Enough to snap someones neck and cause instant death.

Likewise it requires much lower amounts of force to disable someone through the use of a hit to the neck, especially in one of the necks several weak spots that are more prone to damage. I can disable someone with a single strike to the throat or even kill them. And never judge a technique by how it looks even the most basic techniques are deadly or dangerous if done correctly. You'd be amazing just how many pounds of force can be added to a strike by merely turning your foot and or hip.

Don't get me wrong you are definitely right about the whole neck chop thing in some movies but not all of them.

The human body for all it's strengths is when you get down to it remarkably fragile and the human body is also capable of amazing feats of strength at the same time.

[myTake Owner]

Read that first one all the way through because the point was not that it can't be done, it's that light chop to the neck that sends the guy flying that's ridiculous or it's ridiculous to think that even fighters who very well can knock someone out with a single punch could equally repeat this with such precision on 5, 10, 20 guys in a row disabling them all. This also lends itself to another issue in that, if there are 10 guys surrounding the one guy, they aren't going to sit and wait their turn to launch their assault...again, making a scenario like this basically impossible.

[Phoenix98]

I read through everything and while you do make a point that point is more relevant to old schools cheesy action movies. It's not so much a problem with modern day ones, because hollywood is learning, slowly but learning.

[myTake Owner]

I'd argue they aren't learning fast enough----you're saying John Wick fixes all these, but if you saw the last one, Wick is thrown through a dozen pieces of glass and walks away with 2 cuts on his head....little to no damage to his clothing, palms of his hands, face, nothing. He also repeatedly lands on his back from at least a 20 ft height, nothing happens. He's shot at by hundreds of bullets----hundreds, how many times was he shot? He's in a long chase on motorcycles and via horse....I mean, it's to a point where it's comical in how out of touch that movie is at points.

[Phoenix98]

When it comes to glass it's all about how you go through it.

As for the rest of it John Wick is not supposed to take place in our world so it can have some stuff that wouldn't be totally realistic. But in his defense he is supposed to be literally the best assassin in the world and was wearing a suit of highly advanced armor that's bullet proof /=. But I stand by what I said in that it fixes most of the problems with action movies.

[myTake Owner]

You've explained nothing but the armor bit which they said he does possess. And he doesn't choose how he goes through the glass, he's literally being thrown into it by his fellow assassin who I'm pretty darn sure doesn't care how gentle and precise John needs to be thrown through them in order not to be hurt.

[myTake Owner]

Literally...this: https://youtu.be/uH074Dv1cPE

You can totally appreciate an action movie with all it's flaws, and love it, but you can also recognize how stupid it can be at the same time when it comes to basic things like head+going through glass+multiple times=death, concussion, multiple abrasions, far more bleeding, or inability to fight well, or all of the above....As I told someone else, guys talk so much crap about how unrealistic rom com movies are, but you point out the flaws in an action movie and ahhhh, too much, eh?

[MrOracle]

- 2 butterfly bandages and an arm sling will fix up ANY lead character.
- If someone shoots at you, you just duck out of the way. Bullets don't move very fast.
- Imagine a typical horror movie if someone had a gun. The end credits would role before the opening credits were even finished.
- Someone who is shot will recover 100% within 2 weeks.
- Cars can "jump" multiple times, and get 25 feet of air, and be perfectly drivable.
- Every criminal seems to own a car with a drift brake and posi-traction.
- The "love interest" is always super hot, usually innocent, and falls for the shady hero.
- Zoom in and enhance DOES NOT EXIST!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Vxq9yj2pVWk

[Shiver]

1. Pulling punches is so you don't actually knock people out.

2. Sex sells, that's the only reason it happens.

3. Plot armor.

4. It's usually just filler.

5. It's an action movie, so there's gotta be action, especially with the main villain.

6. Plot armor.

7. Fictional explosions make for better scenes I guess.

8. Yeah that's pretty stupid. At least explain it by establishing the characters are using some more advanced tech.


In conclusion, I see where you're coming from, but it's supposed to be entertaining, not extremely realistic. They're supposed to be exaggerated, that's how entertainment works.

[ZackBan]

Well a realistic movie essentially means the hero dies in the first five minutes and then what?
While I agree with most of what you said it's also the things that make action films great. The larger than life feel to them.
When I'm in the theater watching an action film it's usually because I'm tired of all the serious stuff in life and want to let loose for two hours. If I want real I'll go for thrillers they usually offer a more relatable story but it's a headache and needs you to focus in order to keep up with the plot.
Also the photo of John wick is not in the right place here.
This movie actually changed action movies for the better since the fights are very realistic even if they are unrealistic odds with one against an army but bullets don't get sprayed he actually reloads and performs military combat moves to dispatch enemies and not just a wwe punch to kill a guy.

[goaded]

"the hero dies in the first five minutes"
Which is what I liked about the Game of Thrones books; after a short time you realise that nobody is The Hero.

[ZackBan]

Exactly why Game of Thrones is not an action story. It's about politics and lies and betrayal with a few war segments in order to pull in audience but the main point is not showing off an immortal perfect person.

[MackToday]

The real problem with action movies is they are a tedious string of car chases, fist fights, gun fights, explosions followed by more of the same. They are boring af nothing happens, nothing. I would have the squad of commandos arrive and have to build a base or something. The whole show would be about building a good size base with nothing but boulders and packed dirt or something. It would be kind of like science fiction in a way I suppose. All about getting the boulders up onto old trucks and placing them in position and watching the walls go up, playing cards and pouring over diagrams. Flight of the Phoenix (the original) was kind of like that, pretty cool.

[aziz222]

I get you and I understand you, what's worse audience aware of it yet love it I loved John wick but u don't relate to him at all, it slightly felt more realistic than some movies where hero puches everyone and kicks their asses with no guns u really should watch bollywood movies there a big joke, and what's more annoying of them all when they fight final or semi final boss it usually one of two things either the fight with fists or Melle weapons and throw away their guns or vilian dies of a roof top or something and hero wanted to Save him, shit full of cliche really

[Furuok]

I didn't read the full layout of this, but would love to just answer the question. There is time evolved called a budget. Sometimes there is limited places for actual scene, or the vision is off a bit. Every director has a signature, while a producer has the roll of attraction. No offence young adults in some productions don't make much money. Kids and families bring more money while release dates are times so families can attend multiple movies at the same time. Young adults learn watching the movie on the big screen is altered with originality. If you are a YouTube or Netflix movie goer realize the movie mite be better at the theater mite have added scenes or lines. Is there a movie called, " Every Action Movie Ever " I didn't see that late please don't be numbed by my words. Probably was the budget.

[Maria542]

Hmmm i love your comments, well im maria from united state and you?

[Furuok]

Kansas City native with a kind heart.

[waaromniet]

Point 2, the love story that makes no sense isn't just there for the women. They need it for the sex scene, not the other way around ;)
Point 5, living in belgium, pretty central in EU, I feel the opposite of what you say. Feels like there's guns to be found everywhere in actionmovies

[myTake Owner]

Yeah, I have no issue with "sex selling" because it does, but it's the timing of it in movies and the main character than immediately falling in love that lend themselves to ridiculousness. As per your second point, there are definite gun movies, but there are a lot of them where the main character will have a functioning gun then for some reason start in on martial arts because the bad guys are martial artists....it's like, why would anyone even go through all that hassle as a bad or good guy.

[Screenwriter]

The "love" interest in "Braveheart" was a complete waste of time. It was never developed enough that we cared or were interested. It was 10 or so minutes that could've been cut. It added nothing. In most action movies women are just thrown in as afterthoughts. I'd rather them be buddies that do their jobs instead of badly written characters. Zombieland had great female characters with moxie, strength and sexuality. It CAN be done...

[Laozi]

It's called fiction for a reason. Obviously the things that happened in movie don't happen in real life and that's why it looks facinating on screen. Tell me honestly, if you are in theatre and seeing the real life things on screen, will you be staying there for 2-3 hours?

[myTake Owner]

Reality shows like cops, police car chases, and ER shows are super popular, because people also like seeing the real thing. Look, I've established from the beginning this is Hollywood magic because someone would undoubtedly come along and say exactly what you've said, but all movie genres have the same tired tropes, and rely on the same plot points, and the same types of action sequences for a reason---people literally at this point expect them and clearly love them as writers keep using them and if done well, they do well at the box office. This doesn't mean you can't roll your eyes at the fact that someone could fall through three floors of a building landing on their back and just brush off and walk away or that someone's head goes through a car windshield with barely a scratch on them.

[Laozi]

That's why I said it's fiction. In fiction things happen which are impossible in real life. No one loves reality. That's why even reality shows are fake. We know if someone fall from 3 floors he would break most of the bones in his body. But we want to see something else that can not happen in real world but with the touch of real world. And that's why we have movies like John Wick, Rambo, James Bond etc. It's not a big deal. Many people like to see something like that on screen while some not. Logic is applicable in real world scenarios. So put it aside when watching movie and just enjoy thrill, action and graphics.

[Zorrak]

It's just a movie please go easy on mr. movie🙄 majority of movies are meant to be exaggerated especially action movies since they're mainly directed towards men and men like to feel powerful and unstoppable so the action can also give a mild sensation of adrenaline of feeling the act as if you're taking part in it

[Hurlyburly]

Yup, these are some of the reasons why I absolutely cannot stand most action movies since my teenage years xD back as a child/young teen then I could more easier look past non existing plots, shaky cameras and pure stupidity but now they just make me cringe.

[Gunnar1978]

What you describe is indeed the average recipe of an action movie. In my youth I nevertheless liked it (e. g. the "die hard" movies). By seeing morr of these it becomes somehow boring so I watch these movies hardly any more. There are some exceptions like the original "Bourne" movies. These show action that seems at least possible, assuming the guy is well-trained and has a lot of luck.

[loveslongnails]

All of those things are true. Action movies are nonsensical works of pure fiction for the most part. I found myself laughing out loud at the fight scene in John Wick 2, in the beginning of the movie. You just don't get hit by cars, get up, and kick the shit out of 20 people. LOL Uma Thurman's massacre scene in Kill Bill 1 is equally funny, but much more enjoyable !

[myTake Owner]

I was watching this vlogger once talk about his experience getting hit by a car at a low speed, and he showed the bruising which was black and blue within the day, and it's just like, if that was a "light tap," John Wick was HIT by CARS and he's like, oh well, keep going. That's a lot of suspension of belief they want me to have, like too much. Maybe in the next one, they reveal he's been a machine all along...

[Sixgun77]

Can confirm the part about getting hit by a car. One evening after dark a guy ran out into traffic and I hit him. I'd just turned right onto a 25mph road after the light at the intersection turned red and was the 3rd car in line. I hit him doing about 15 mph and he bounced off my hood and went down unconscious.

[Darknut]

They're forgetting one. Running straight while being chased down a road when they could just go where a car can't go. Example the movie, which I thought was pretty decent, Christine when Buddy runs from the fiery car in the night time scene. At least in back to the future though, Marty has the hoverboard to help in the car chase with Biff. Thomas Wilson seems like the perfect bully asshole. I always thought he was like that in real life. I hear he is a nice guy though.

[MysteriousDarkness]

It seems like you want all action movies to be exactly like real life. If they were they would be quite short and or quite boring. You could have a negotiation lasying hours and hours to the point they would have to say something like 7 hours later or show the day/night changing unusually fast just to make it shorter than in reality it would have been. Why worry so much on how action movies are done and instead enjoy them or don't watch them.

[myTake Owner]

It's literally just fun to talk about how ridiculous scenes can be. I mean most guys have talked about how dumb and unrealistic rom coms are, have they not, but NOW it's not okay for me to talk about how dumb action movies are???? Hypocrisy! LOL, It's like the B movie thing---people know how awful they are, but they still love them. I can still like action movies and also acknowledge how crazy they are sometimes in what happens.

[Darknut]

Certainly movies made an impression. I remember 2 fast 2 furious. After the movie was over everyone was out in the parking lot revving their cars up with sound systems going standing around talking. Then you seen modded cars for awhile in town. Then the trend died. I guess they got tired of it. Makes me laugh when I see the movie on Netflix and remember that time. So cheesy but it seemed cool at the time. Soon it will be on AMC.

[MysteriousDarkness]

It is one thing to acknowledge what you think is wrong but you seem to complain about the movies to the point you rather have them be just like real life. In other words you want them boring.

[soleil2666]

This is the 'what's wrong with Hollywood' question. The good of the movies is you get your hormones processed without harming anyone - but way too many people live in that world in their mind and take no personal actions to get what they need. And it becomes entirely possible, once you get involved in your own life (as humans have been doing for millennia)

[Dr_Spins]

Apart from a few exceptions (Die Hard, Terminator etc...) I find it very difficult to follow these films at a deeper level. I judge a good film on my need and want to close all my curtains, pull out the cord on my home phone, switch the cell phone off and just watch. I very rarely have this desire with an action film.

[coolhandroo]

I'm gonna have your back on this one. The format and layout and imbalance of realism between good guys and bad would not be as annoying if it werent the same Fucking thing in every one. There are some exxeptions that stand out because they break the mold like man on fire in my mind but i can't watch most of then at all

[BCA6010]

Don't forget the laughably incompetent "bad guys" who can't hit the broadside of a barn, and "Mary Sue" protagonists.

[myTake Owner]

Don't even get me started....like how the hell did you rise to the top of a renown crime syndicate and you can't even shoot someone point blank standing right in front of you...when given several chances? How?

[Liam_Hayden]

In a typical movie a bash to the back of the head with a shotgun only knocks the person out instead of fracturing the skull and causing a brain hemorrhage or killing him.

[myTake Owner]

....unless, you're the bad guy, then by all means the same exact blow to his skull kills him whereas, the good guy just takes it like a champ and is up rubbing his temples and then ready to fight.