This page will cover a wick check for the trope Hollywood Action Hero.
Progress: 8/50.
Why?: Found by looking through Tropes Needing TRS, this seems quite clearly to be a mostly redundant hodgepodge of other tropes such as Action Hero itself, Action Genre Hero Guy, and The Ahnold — was added to Needing TRS as a duplicate of the latter.
The trope page itself is also very poorly written: listing actors who have played this type of character, rather than examples, and kind of complain-y (given that it explicitly compares the Hollywood Action Hero's traits to Common Mary Sue Traits).
Comments in bold.
open/close all folders
Correct use: an 'old-fashioned' Action Hero meeting certain characteristics: unambiguously heroic, big and tough, jovial or heroic, etc. 3/50
- Men Are Tough: Hollywood Action Hero: Almost always male to reinforce the trope of the manly-man action star. I guess technically, as many of the traits in the trope description are stereotypically "manly" ones.
- Live Action Films: Snake's backstory is that of an archetypal Hollywood Action Hero, a one-eyed ex-Special Forces operative turned bank robber who was on his way to prison before being recruited for his mission. Russell may not have the Heroic Build of someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but everything else about his performance tells the viewer that he can kick ass, take names, and get the job done. He goes into the Manhattan prison island on the orders of the good guys (well, as good as the pseudo-fascist American government of 1997 can be said to be) to rescue the President in exchange for having his sentence commuted, and the only reason he cares about his mission is because of the Explosive Leash they implanted in his neck.
- Unknown Reference: In the episode "Hostile Makeover" of The Venture Bros., old-school manly man Brock tries to convince young Hank to stop emulating Justin Bieber just because "chicks dig him". He loses enthusiasm when he learns that Hank has never heard of Steve McQueen.
A character is an Action Hero 1/50
- Broforce: Inspired by action flicks from the 80s and 90s as well as a few from the 2000s. This seems to just be "the characters are based on action-movie characters?
A character is a one-dimensional and/or cliché Action Hero 1/50
- Video Games (N to Z): Sergeant Cortez (who wasn't even in the first game, despite being the main character of the other two) similarly went from being a rather generic Hollywood Action Hero in 2 to a dorky Idiot Hero in Future Perfect. From a sub-bullet under TimeSplitters.
A character is a parody or pastiche of 1980s action stars or their characters (The Ahnold) 1/50
- Video Games: Compare the European
◊ and Japanese cover◊, which has lead character Ivan holding a katana and a gun on a bluish background with several SOD agents and broken glass around him, with the American cover◊, which has a close up of Ivan holding his katana on a background of fire, in a design very reminiscent of '80s movie posters, making Ivan fit the Hollywood Action Hero stereotype in a more overt fashion. Could have gone in the above folder, but I think the reference to The '80s puts it here.
Potholes 2/50
- Secret Invasion (2023): Cool Old Guy: Nick Fury is the central protagonist of the series, and is likely in his seventies going by the age of his actor. He's still every bit the Hollywood Action Hero and effective spy we've come to know and love.
- The Meg: The Meg was released the same year as Rampage (2018) and Pacific Rim: Uprising, two Giant-monster movies starring a Hollywood Action Hero (Dwayne Johnson and John Boyega). Minimal-context pothole.
ZCE and other misuse /50
