OPINION: Big dumb explosions

Giant explosions, devastating car crashes, lots of guns fired with various degrees of legality and the big movie stars with roaring muscles. It’s action!

Perhaps the most anti-intellectual genre, said here affectionately, action films still are important to an industry which wouldn’t survive if every film were those realistic pretentious dramas. Or maybe it would, it’s hard to tell when action is what most theatergoers are looking for.

The unrealistic fantasy of action films provides a level of escapism which most theatergoers are predominantly looking for. It helps that film has advantages of medium in providing a window to every piece of a scene. That guy really looks like he got punched hard.

Very similar to musicals, spectacle is the attraction here. That’s not to say action hates being smart, but it often can feel devolved. It’s a part of our monkey brains to see something cool and say it’s cool, that will never go away. But, the smarter action movies will take a more approachable lens.

The highs and lows of action can be found under a single brand which has completely changed how the industry markets franchises: Marvel. What’s made the brand lucrative for Disney is what has driven away deeper analysis. I mean, how smart can a superhero brand be when every movie is named after the main character?

Yet, the franchise captures the attention of filmgoers every time there’s a marketing blitz. Now, with Marvel being a character-focused brand, you can buy balloons with previously esoteric characters like Rocket Raccoon because of the daunting machine of these movies.

I think the character focus is exactly what makes action films easy to connect to. Think about movie stars, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, Liam Neeson, Dwayne Johnson, full testosterone taking the plate. At this point, action is a male-centric world where the biggest men fight with the biggest muscles.

In recent years, attempts have been made to rectify this, although it took Marvel 11 years since their first iron gladiator for a woman to don a cape as a lead. Yet, most women in lead roles have been sexualized for the male gaze and has lead to deeper industry issues around how women are treated. For every Wonder Woman (which, in my opinion, there’s still room for improvement), there’s a million Elektras and Lara Crofts.

Women can’t just be cold-blooded heroes or killers, they’re femme fatales, fetishistic and most often sidekicks or love interests rather than leads. If the action genre is going to have a reckoning with its components, it needs to begin with more attention toward who it wants to appeal too. Most action films don’t really care.

In their attempts to appeal to young boys, bland juvenile comedy, boobs and toned-down action to get a PG-13 rating have diluted action to big dumb explosions. What you see is what you get.

So, what are the good ones? Typically, the movies which grab an R rating, pushing their action to the most extreme. Of course, getting lost in how many buckets of CGI blood need to be hauled in should be a calculated choice, diluting poor action choreography with goopy matter can turn horrifying.

If there’s one cheat code for good action, get a good editor. Best example is “Baby Driver,” one of the best feats of film editing in the past decade by a rare team of two in Paul Machliss and Jonathan Amos. Cutting car chase scenes to music is a simple challenge but extremely effective technique which pays off to one of the best action movies of the year.

Use the budget effectively. If you have too much, do too much. I like recommending “The Fall Guy” from last year, mostly because it understands exactly what to do with a ridiculous budget if you’re given it. But, this extends to more aesthetic-driven forms. Sci-fi, fantasy, historical, apocalyptic, space, past, future. If there’s action, do something crazy.

“The Lord of the Rings” converted parts of New Zealand into a world where “Hobbiton” is a real place. “Planet of the Apes” used CGI and motion capture to convert fictional apes into breathing characters. “The Matrix” injected new lexicon into how we talk. “Pirates of the Caribbean,” some of the most expensive filmmaking ever, really does feel like a swashbuckling high seas adventure.

Even in worlds like our own, like in “James Bond” or “Mission: Impossible,” there’s room to flip normalcy, and those movies know it. Throughout it all, it’s grounded by characters. Indiana Jones, Luke Skywalker, James Bond, Ethan Hunt, Jason Bourne, whatever super-duper man is under the costume. These are our new heroes, and maybe soon some of them can even be women. It’s just a thought.