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Jorgeazgad from B Ehind you! Since: May, 2010
#1: May 19th 2011 at 11:58:45 PM

The first paragraph is just a rant I wanted to write just for the hell of it, I recommend you skip to the last sentence.

Recently I have been thinking about the car culture in my country. People tend to favor unpractical, expensive, and big cars. After all big cars are a sign of power and status. Why? Common sense will never know. High Budget Action Movies acentuate this culture. Like a lot of the world my country consumes entertainement from the USA. While many of the action movies made have some depth like probably "Inception" I tend to see some pattern repeated on most of them.

Big cars, bad dialogue, adrenaline, cars, sexy buns and amazingly the American Military are some aspects the pattern repeated. What comes inmediate to my mind are the XXX´s movies, transfomrers,and the too fast to furious ones.

So the topic is , why is it that the same formula for bad movies works, even though we all seem to know these movies are bad and to some extent ridiculous. IS this the ideal formula to atract the lowest common denominator? How do they define and tell about the worlds culture? What do you think about them and do you see a them as a cancer on the film industry? ( If this topic has already an existing conversation just tell me right away ).

edited 20th May '11 12:05:22 AM by Jorgeazgad

Buscemi I Am The Walrus from a log cabin Since: Jul, 2010
I Am The Walrus
#2: May 20th 2011 at 12:38:04 AM

The reason why these films make money: they don't require brain cells, undeveloped men get hard-ons (and possibly masturbate) to expensive cars and violence and pure 100% jingoism (notice that the lowest grossing Fast and the Furious movie took place in Japan, featured Japanese cars and featuring the international sport of drifting rather than generic American racing and cars). This is why no-talent hacks like Chris Morgan keep making movies and talented people like Kerry Conran get blackballed after just one movie.

Also because Hollywood knows the audience for these movies, they can stick anyone in the leads while having established actors embarrass themselves in supporting roles. Case in point: Transformers. The generic leads: Shia Le Beouf, Josh Duhamel and Megan Fox. Talented actors embarrassing themselves: John Turturro, Hugo Weaving, Peter Cullen and the late Bernie Mac.

edited 20th May '11 12:39:22 AM by Buscemi

More Buscemi at http://forum.reelsociety.com/
Deboss I see the Awesomeness. from Awesomeville Texas Since: Aug, 2009
I see the Awesomeness.
#3: May 20th 2011 at 1:17:58 AM

Because action movies are fun popcorn flicks. It doesn't require a particularly large amount of skill or planning to build a generic action film. The main thing they could stand to drop is the romantic subplots.

IS this the ideal formula to atract the lowest common denominator?

Yes. So long as they're willing to pay for it.

Fight smart, not fair.
Gvzbgul from Middle Earth Since: Jul, 2010
#4: May 20th 2011 at 5:22:07 PM

You forgot the romance subplot.

NULLcHiLD27 Since: Oct, 2010
#5: May 20th 2011 at 10:36:38 PM

[up][up][up]Hugo Weaving was in Transformers?

dRoy Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar from Most likely from my study Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
#6: May 20th 2011 at 10:42:18 PM

You forgot the romance subplot.

*Chokes it to near death before garroting it and beating the entire corpse to the bloody pulp and shoves the whole thing down to furnace*

I hate it*

so freaking much.

edited 20th May '11 10:45:30 PM by dRoy

Continuously reading, studying, and (hopefully) growing.
Karalora Since: Jan, 2001
#7: May 20th 2011 at 10:54:15 PM

It's pretty funny that this thread should come up now, because a story I recently started working on contains the following sentence:

He hadn’t turned the light on, and the monitor image reflected off his glasses like in that scene in pretty much every action movie where the hero has to convince the hacker to break into the terrorists’ network and wreck their security.

Buscemi I Am The Walrus from a log cabin Since: Jul, 2010
I Am The Walrus
#8: May 20th 2011 at 10:54:59 PM

[up] [up] [up] He was Megatron.

edited 20th May '11 10:55:11 PM by Buscemi

More Buscemi at http://forum.reelsociety.com/
whataboutme -_- from strange land, far away. Since: May, 2010
-_-
#9: May 20th 2011 at 10:58:10 PM

Aaah, action movies! How I loathe thee for being generic!

Anyway, on topic. I don't see the formula for action movies to be working. It's just good enough for people who want to watch these movies, despite everything that's wrong with them. I guess it's still a matter of taste. We can only hope the industry finally decides to change something about this formula for the better. I would suggest less "shit blows up" and more story and character development. They need these things. Badly.

Please don't feed the trolls!
NULLcHiLD27 Since: Oct, 2010
Deboss I see the Awesomeness. from Awesomeville Texas Since: Aug, 2009
I see the Awesomeness.
#11: May 20th 2011 at 11:10:24 PM

I'm perfectly satisfied with the level of genericness in my action movies myself.

Fight smart, not fair.
Morven Nemesis from Seattle, WA, USA Since: Jan, 2001
Nemesis
#12: May 21st 2011 at 2:23:27 AM

One of the things that encourages the bad action movie is that most of them will work well internationally, because they're easy to dub and nothing anyone cares about will be ruined by a bad one.

A brighter future for a darker age.
maxwellelvis Mad Scientist Wannabe from undisclosed location Since: Oct, 2009 Relationship Status: In my bunk
Mad Scientist Wannabe
#13: May 21st 2011 at 5:35:48 AM

[up][up][up] And that was the problem with casting him. They got the guy who pllayed one of the most memorable villains of film history, and now he's been pitched down so as to be unrecognizable, and all he basically says is "RAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!"

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great
shiro_okami Since: Apr, 2010
#14: May 21st 2011 at 8:36:36 AM

[up] Yes, one of the things I hate about the Transformers movies is that all of them besides Optimus and The Bumblebee get demoted to set pieces.

Anyway, action movies are incredibly formulaic, the only thing they have going for them is the adrenaline rush, Fanservice, and, most importantly, the formula is rarely ever broken, so there isn't really any competition in the genre. That the few good films that break the mold, like Inception, get so much hype is proof of this. Perhaps this is why some critics mistakenly think that Inception is a philosophical movie with a side order of action rather than the reverse.

edited 21st May '11 8:37:10 AM by shiro_okami

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#15: May 23rd 2011 at 4:09:29 AM

When people go to see an action movie, the primary draw is seeing some cool action scenes. Some plot and characterization are expected to tie it all together, and having a well-done story or cast of characters can certainly improve the movie, but they're not really essential to the movie's success, so they often get skimped on.

HuskieJon Since: May, 2011
#16: May 27th 2011 at 12:14:48 PM

Any bad action movie has to have a tag-along character. His/her purpose is to provide a humorous contrast to emphasize the fearlessness of the action hero.

The tag-along will say things like:

"You are not actually thinking of jumping the car over the gourge!"

"Forget it! There's ten of them and only two of us".

"I can't believe you just did that. You're Crazy!"

Against his objections, the tag-along has to take the wheel the car and keep the speed over 60 mph, while the hero jumps from the car to the bad guys vehicle.

MarkVonLewis Since: Jun, 2010
#17: May 28th 2011 at 6:47:27 PM

Personally I enjoy action flicks because they are fun and entertaining.

If I'm gonna spend a couple hours of my time, and about $10 or so of my money, I want to be entertained and have a good time.

Besides, bad action movies can easily work as a comedy. In the way bad sci-fi can.

edited 28th May '11 6:48:58 PM by MarkVonLewis

Gvzbgul from Middle Earth Since: Jul, 2010
#18: May 29th 2011 at 3:18:21 PM

I used to not like formulaic action films. But then I saw The Fifth Element and really liked it. And it's pretty much as generic as possible. So I've changed my approach, when it comes to formulaic films I don't pay attention to the film itself, but the stylings of the film. And that tends to be where a good formula film makes itself unique.

Kersey475 Since: Nov, 2009
#19: Sep 13th 2011 at 2:09:55 PM

Remember fellow tropers, Tropes Are Not Bad. I do admit that the formula ("Big cars, bad dialogue, adrenaline, cars, sexy buns and amazingly the American Military") can be modified, but can largly be left intact and NOT be bad.

For one thing, the bad dialogue has to go (personally, I don't know what counts as "good" or "bad" dialogue so let's move on). For anything else, just apply The Law Of Bruce (a.k.a. The Villain Makes the Plot) to the formula and make the Big Bad a Dangerously Genre-Savvy Chessmaster who frequenlty utilizes Batman Gambits that rely on the Action Hero winning. Why not go a step farther and make the Big Bad a full-fledged Magnificent Bastard?

If there absolutly HAS to be a romance subplot, one way to avoid it being a boring Romantic Plot Tumor is to make it a prolonged Slap-Slap-Kiss between a Deadpan Snarker Action Hero/Action Survivor and a equally snarky Action Girl.

Any comments on this appraoch to the formula?

edited 17th Sep '11 11:50:49 AM by Kersey475

Recon5 Avvie-free for life! from Southeast Asia Since: Jan, 2001
Avvie-free for life!
#20: Sep 13th 2011 at 4:21:25 PM

Talent actors embarrassing themselves... Peter Cullen...

The man did G3. There's no way he can embarrass himself anymore, even if Uwe Boll made the fourth film.

For the best action movie, set it In Medias Res during a big battle and end it before the battle is over, if your SFX budget holds out.

edited 13th Sep '11 4:24:00 PM by Recon5

Kersey475 Since: Nov, 2009
#21: Dec 30th 2011 at 1:33:06 PM

[up][up]

Anyone else have any ideas on how to modify the typical action movie formula or opinions of the ideas I suggested in the post above?

shiro_okami Since: Apr, 2010
#22: Dec 31st 2011 at 8:52:16 AM

The first and foremost thing needed is good, if not inventive, plots. Inception and The Dark Knight are two good recent examples. If you don't have that, you can at least make it up with a TON of Lampshade Hanging and Genre Savvy (by The Hero HIMSELF, not an Audience Surrogate tag-along). Also, while the Action Hero doesn't need to be Rated M for Manly, he shouldn't be a wimp who spends nearly all of his screen time embarrassing himself and end up with a Ms. Fanservice who falls for him for no reason whatsoever (Sam Witwicky, I'm looking at you).

If there absolutly HAS to be a romance subplot, one way to avoid it being a boring Romantic Plot Tumor is to make it a prolonged Slap-Slap-Kiss between a Deadpan Snarker Action Hero / Action Survivor and a equally snarky Action Girl.

THIS. This was probably the best part of the So Okay, It's Average Prince of Persia.

Also, one thing that could be brought back is action scene comedy, such as in the original Indiana Jones and A New Hope. The first action scene in Raiders Of The Lost Ark actually plays out more like an episode of The Three Stooges. Die Hard also has the Action Survivor as a Deadpan Snarker. All of these movies had a sort of charm that has since been lost.

edited 31st Dec '11 9:06:15 AM by shiro_okami

IndirectActiveTransport plays capoeira from Chicago (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Every rose has its thorn
plays capoeira
#23: Dec 31st 2011 at 9:55:41 AM

I liked Triple X, the second one anyway. It had some good applications of physics-when it is dumb to shoot into the water, when it is not. It also had some bad physics in those same scenes but we got lots of tank action. Tanks are awesome. The plot, don't remember the details other than military planning coup, call on a criminal for help. Good enough, better than crazy guy wants till kill half the world because it will cause anarchy, send a single anarchist after him, from the first.

I liked the Transformer films too. Giant robots kicking around puny Earthlings with their panicked reactions up close would have sold me tickets good enough. The Earthling's inevitable comeback punctuated by giant transforming robot battles made Transfomers and Dark of The Moon the best films of the years they aired and Revenge of the Fallen was fun too. Would non American focus be nice? Yes, but it did go to China, Jordan and Egypt, and we got to go underwater too, however briefly.

Buldogue's lawyer
Kersey475 Since: Nov, 2009
#24: Dec 31st 2011 at 10:41:35 AM

[up][up] "The first and foremost thing needed is good, if not inventive, plots"

So, does a good villain usually lead to a good plot? And what kind of villains usually best lead to a good plot?

Personally, I think a Dangerously Genre-Savvy Chessmaster lampshading action movie cliches before using them against the Action Hero as part of his Batman Gambits/Xanatos Speed Chess would be the best kind of Big Bad for this formula (that, or a full-fledged Magnifcent Bastard).

shiro_okami Since: Apr, 2010
#25: Dec 31st 2011 at 1:13:05 PM

[up] A good villain is nothing but an interesting character. If a good villain leads to a good plot, it's usually because the villains schemes (and the ingenious ways the heroes defeat them) not only make sense but are just that entertaining. Personally, I like good inversions to The Law Of Bruce and Villains Act, Heroes React as much as I like to see those tropes played straight well.

edited 31st Dec '11 1:17:42 PM by shiro_okami


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