We've genre dived down the multi colored walls of sci-fi, horror, crime, and
least controversially, Westerns.
But this week it's time to get crazy.
Coming at you in two parts, these are our pics for
the ten best action films of all time.
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For the first half of this, we wanted to look at some of the larger sub genres
inside of the high adrenaline umbrella that is the cinematic world of action.
Sorry, great action, horrors action romances, and action faith films.
You're going to have to find homes inside other category.
These are only for the biggies.
And speaking of other things we aren't looking at today, superhero movies,
we're saving them for a later list.
But in terms of what we are looking at, first up is the action comedy.
And my God is it a feast of a category here.
From Sherlock Junior to 21 Jump Street.
From Starship Troopers, to Attack the Block.
From Men in Black, Tropic Thunder, The Good The bad and
the Weird to Why Don't You Play in Hell?
There's an entire buddy comedy sub sub genre in here with movies like
Leathal Weapon 2, Bad Boys, 48 hours and The Nice Guys.
We freaking love the work of Stephen Chao especially his Kung Fu Hustle and
Journey to the West.
Of Edgar Wright, especially in his never bested action parody Hot Fuzz, and
all of Jackie Chan's lighter work.
And we went back and
forth on a number of films from all three of these action comedy artisans.
But at the end of the day, there was just an irrepressible special place in
our hearts for the Legend of the Drunken Master.
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>> What the hell was that?
>> What does it mean when there's a picture of a scar?
>> Good stuff.
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>> Drunken master two is about as brilliant and
action comedy as there ever could be and we've talked about it before.
Notably it's final fights scene, but almost every single moment of combat, and
there are lots, puts most other action comedies to shame.
And that's because it manages to sit astride both of its high definite sub
genre components, as an action movie and a comedy.
Such that one side strengthens the other.
The action makes the comedy better and vice versa.
It isn't a good action film at the expense of being a good comedy, and
it isn't alternately funny and full throttle.
It is both together at the same time, driven by the exact same engine.
This average martial artist gets better the more drunk he gets, and
the more drunk he gets the better the action becomes.
The more absurd the whole thing is, the more we're laughing.
It's an action comedy perfect storm which is why its the true gem of the sub genre.
Let’s turn now to the science fictionalized world of action,
where the best examples will be those that use the peculiarities of future tech to
expand the creativity of their carnage.
Here we find Snowpiercer and Ecape from New York, alongside Edge of Tomorrow, and
Inception and Minority Report and Upgrade.
And look, it wasn't a perfect movie but
recently a leader had some pretty awesome action.
But standing atop the sub genre, we find three clear stand outs that we
spent an uncomfortable amount of time going back and forth between.
There are Aliens, The Matrix and our number 9 pick, Terminator 2, Judgment Day.
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>> Get down.
(Sound) Much like Drunken Master,
T2 straddles both its sub genre elements in a way that maximizes their synergy.
It sets up its story premise with time travel,
develops its combat with robot-on-robot badassery.
And even fleshes out its human moments through the improbable pairing of boy and
AI guardian.
And every single one of these elements works perfectly.
Terminator was already a fantastic action film, but
in T2 the set pieces are second to none.
Arnie has never had a better role, and god,
is the T-1000 a perfectly engineered villain.
T2 was earth shattering in an era of action movies breaking ground.
Combining ingenious practical effects with ILM's latest wizardry with an endless
watchability that endures to this day.
(Sound) Next up,
we look to the best of the war films.
We had to mostly skate past incredible non-starters that aren’t
quite action-y enough, like Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter and Paisan.
And on to films like Battle of Britain, Platoon, Lone Survivor and Cross of Iron.
We find excellent half actions in the form of Zero Dark Thirty.
The Hurt Locker and especially Saving Private Ryan, in different times and
places we find excellent more action in Braveheart, 300, and Ran.
But for our third pick on this list and by action movie criteria alone, we actually
think no one has done it better than Ridley Scott in Black Hawk Down.
(Noise) >> Juliet 25,
hostiles advancing, parallel west to your position.
The advice, women and children among them, over.
(Noise) >> Incoming.
>> Let's just set aside what are some legitimate questions about representation,
so we can focus on what Black Hawk Down does right, the action.
And fortunately for us, there's about two solid hours of it.
It is essentially a mere constant cascade of battles and
skirmishes punctuated by the occasional brief dialogue.
And each successive set piece is as awesome as it is Scott Brothers color.
Scott manages the rare feat of engaging you at the level of the strategic
in the command tent watching the map change from the height of the helicopter,
of the tactical.
Seeing how various chars work together to address challenges and
tackle obstacles in creative team-driven ways,
and in the individual, feeling for each exchange of bullets and soldier injury.
It is an astonishingly complicated balance in outfit only very occasionally manages
not to juggle all three balls at once across its entire length,
sustaining a constant nerve-wrecking tension and
rhythm of serious adrenaline all the while.
Next we turn to action adventure, but first, what really is action adventure?
It's honestly hard to say and we're not entirely sure.
But you know it when you see it, it's going to take you somewhere exciting.
It's going to be a little funny along the way and most of the time,
it's not rated R.
It's The Mummy, and Pirates of the Caribbean.
It's The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Great Escape and
definitely North by Northwest in its earliest forms.
It's Star Wars and Jurassic Park, and maybe the Fugitive and
definitely Raiders of the Lost Ark, but we think you can find adventurous action
at its absolute best in the recent Mad Max Fury Road.
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Who hears even one bad thing to say about George Miller's high octane
crowning jewel?
Conceived visually from go with panels rather than words,
cutting edge CGI well hidden amidst real practical mayhem that
harkens back to the best parts of an earlier era of film making.
Vast in its creativity and world building that suggests back story and
consequences extending far beyond the run time and frame.
The latest Mad Max truly is a masterpiece of action.
There's such unbelievable attention to detail in its rhythm and
to eye trace that Miller seems to magically guide your attention to
just the right things for just the right amount of time for maximum coherence.
There are about 10,000 things happening at once, yet you never once lose track.
There is a mastery of craft on display here that is rare indeed.
And it doesn't hurt either that the character and the story that craft is
being employed to illustrate happen to be certifiably bat shit awesome.
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Rounding out the first half of our list, we want to take our intermission only
after a fitting first act climax at the epic action film, with the size and
scale and volume all turned up to 11.
Combining the vastness of the adventure film with the conflict size of the war
film, and there aren't a ton of films that can pull this off, but
the ones that do are those like Alexander Nevsky, the Sea Hawk.
Ben-Hur Lawrence of Arabia, The Lord of the Rings, and Gladiator.
The Gangs of Wasseypur absolutely belongs in this part of the conversation as
the Bollywood action film answer to the Godfather,
as does Love Exposure for its length and tonal scope alone.
However, to cap things off for today, we don't think there's a better made more
exciting and forever enduring action film in the Seven Samurai.
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>> Here they come.
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>> There's a reason we keep talking about
Kurosawa's Seminal samurai film here on CineFix movie list.
It does just about everything you'd ever want an epic to do and how.
It's got comedy, drama, romance, action, adventure, pathos, heartbreak,
team building, plan making, entire village training, (Inaudible) bare buns,
show stopping skirmishes, and
a rain-soaked final battle sequence that's shot simply and clearly.
And without VFX, and yet still manages some all time great levels of excitement.
It's all the complex whole team action dramatics of the entire
Marvel Cinematic Universe in one single movie.
It's got one of cinema's best heroic journeys and
its power pick on one of the best action films of all time, part one.
(Sound) So what do you think?
Disagree with any of our picks.
Do we leave out any of your favorite action films.
Let us know in the comments below so we can steal all your ideas and
claim them as our own in part two.
And be sure to subscribe for more CineFix movies.
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We were just kidding about stealing your ideas, we already wrote it.