Is the action genre suffering?

Modern Action films

Introduction

Hollywood is one of the biggest film distributors in the world, there are others which are above Hollywood. However, Hollywood is the most technically advanced and the budgets of the films that the produce. The aspect about Hollywood that is great is that there is such a wide variety to choose from and what this means that there is about of genres that one person can choose from, you can sit there and watch any film from the romantic comedy to an action film. The action genre is an interesting genre to look at because the prospective, this is because some people view the genre as just mindless entertainment. This was the case in 80’s and 90’s because the action films that came out just had someone onscreen killing people, the one film which comes to mind would be Commando. This is a film which has some excellent action for the time, but the film has one-liners and performance from Arnold that is quite relaxed. But over time the action film became a film which started to have more developed and interesting characters, but also the storylines became more complex. An example of this would be The Matrix, this is a film which has quite a complex narrative. However, from a directing point of view this is one of the hardest genres to get right because there are many different technical factors about the action genre which need to be done to high standard to make a film stand out. There are few examples of action films that stand out, a more recent example would be Mad max: Fury Road, this is an action film which won big at the Oscars a couple of years ago, and this was due to the visuals of the film and the action sequences.

However, over the last decade there has been a decline in the quality of action films in general and this is because of several different reasons. There are many aspects to the current trend of action films which need to be improved. The different aspects can be broken down into three main aspects of any film which are important. These are aspects include the pre-production, the production and the post-production which are also important to any film. These are elements which should have maximum attention focused on them by any creative team. This is because the pre-production elements of the film give the outline and basic information about the characters and understand where the narrative is going into the film. The production is also important and this is because this how the film is put together with the cast and crew working to complete the project, and finally the post-production aspects of the film such as the editing and special effects. This editorial is going to look at the different elements of a how an action film is created, and how people can improve the action films which are being made now. This editorial will look at a variety of action films talking at about the action films which are good and some which are bad, and exploring why some action films work and why some films don’t work.

Pre-production

The first thing to begin with would be the pre-production, pre-production of a film is the foundation of any film which is created. There is quite a lot of misconception when it comes to the pre-production any film and this is because most people just think that the script is the only thing which is done as the foundation of the film. However, this is simply incorrect because there is more than just the script. A surprise to you might be that there a few more steps than just the script. Films mainly start out with what is a logline, this is a basic summary about the film and the easiest way to sum this up is to summarise any of your personal favourite films in a single sentence. This is simplest way to summarise what a Logline is, and an example would be ‘After his daughter is kidnapped in France, a retired CIA official must go to Paris and find his daughter within 72 hours or his daughter will be sold into the sex trade’, this a basic Logline of the film Taken. This the basic of a film and eventually they create the script from this, the script is an aspect which will have all the details about the characters and the runtime of the film and who is the main protagonist and antagonist in the film. The script is a very important to the film for many different reasons, a film which has an excellent script would be Locke which came out in 2013 and stars Tom Hardy. The film is about a man who trying to work out how to fix past mistakes that he has made, this is one most intelligent written scripts because we learn and understand about the character that is onscreen. While he gets phone calls from people, you get this sense that he is isolated from the world but the script exposes this character and it develops the main character very well. This is one of the best examples of screenwriting, in terms of the action genre an example would be The Dark Knight. This is a superhero film but it has action sequences and therefore for this editorial it counts, because most of superhero films have action scenes.

What stands out about The Dark Knight is how all the characters are written and the development of these characters. The characters in The Dark Knight have some of best development that has been put to film, the characters which are developed the most would be characters such as Harvey Dent and The Joker. These characters are very well developed because as an audience we see this character arc that Dent goes through in the film because he is someone who wants to make Gotham a city which is crime free, but he goes through this arc from being someone who understands the law but understands by the end after a tragedy he understands the difference between the law and what is fair. The character is a very interesting character to study because of this, the other character which is well written is The Joker played by the late Heath Ledger. This is arguably one of the best portrayals of this character, this is because the character has been written to show that a small amount chaos can disrupt a government. The character doesn’t have a plan but he just wants to see the city of Gotham fall because of the level of chaos and while this is small aspect to base an antagonist on but because he doesn’t have a plan like most other villains then you can explore more with the character and develop the character. Therefore, and this is probably why some people consider this portrayal of The Joker from The Dark Knight is one of the best villains, and this is because of the screenwriters and how they have written the character.

This are some of the best examples of characters and how they are written onscreen, for every excellent example of how the characters are written there are also characters which are poorly written. There are two easy methods to tell if a character is very poorly written, these two reasons would include that character not having much development onscreen and the audience doesn’t explore the character in enough detail. The second why to spot poorly written characters would be if the motivations for the characters are weak and you as an audience don’t understand why the characters are committing the actions that you see onscreen. An example of the some poorly written characters onscreen would probably be something like G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. This is a film which is quite awful for different reasons, the one thing that stands out in this film is that the character. Take the main character in this film Duke, the character is very weak in this film because the only reason that he joins the Joe’s is because his ex-girlfriend is part of the antagonists and this is all the development that the character gets during the runtime of the film and this is quite a weak reason why he joins. This is not how someone should write character development and writing because outside of this factor there is nothing else that you can explore with this character and when the action scenes come along you as the audience just don’t care whether the character lives or dies. The antagonist in this also very forgettable, Destro is one of the main antagonist characters in this film and he is also forgettable because he doesn’t have strong motivations and therefore his reasons aren’t clear and the script doesn’t show why the character is planning on using a weapon to destroy a large city. This is very poor writing because the motivations for these characters are weak and should have been written with more depth and clarity. G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra is one of example of this were the characters are not written with the greatest of care and therefore there are weak motivations and not enough for the characters to be developed and this loses the audience attention because they simply don’t care.

Production

If the script is quite weak and doesn’t explore the films characters enough this can create a separation between the film and the audience which the studios don’t want. However, the pre-production is not the only reason for an action film failing. The production of an action film is something which also can make an action film fail. This is because the production footage is what the cast and crew have gone out and filmed whether this be on a set or on a location. Action films rely heavily on the director and this is because the director must understand a couple of things that when making an action film. The first thing that the director must understand how the action sequence will look when they come to edit, the main aspect would be camera placement. Camera placement is quite a difficult thing to do and this is because the director must understand where the camera should be and how to make the action look convincing at the same time. There are many different directors which understand how to this, directors including John McTeigue and Gareth Evans are a couple of examples. John McTeigue is responsible for many different classic action films from the 80’s and 90’s, the two main examples would Die Hard and Predator. Both films are considered classics, both have excellent action scenes that have been directed with care and attention to the detail about how the action will look in the final cut of the film. Die Hard is a film which has some excellent action. The reason for this is because each shot that has been put into the action sequences has been done to make sure that the director communicates with the audience and wants them to see the action onscreen. Another director which is good at Camera placement would be Gareth Evans, he is a director which hasn’t directed a big budget Hollywood film yet, but he is responsible for both Raid films which came out in 2011 and 2014. Evans is an excellent action director because he knows how to make an action sequence work and this is because he plans the action in his head when he is on set.

However, while there are some excellent directors of action and they understand how they want their action sequences wanting to look, there are some directors which are very bad at doing this. The two directors which come to mind when looking at their action films would be Olivier Megaton and Simon West. Both directors have films that are well-known, Olivier Megaton has directed films like Taken 2 and Taken 3 and Simon West is known for directing films like The Expendables 2 and The Mechanic. Both directors have issues with their director style and this is because both directors have something in common and this is because neither of these directors understand how to construct an action sequences. Both understand how to pace the action scene, but neither understand anything about camera placement and this can be shown because of the editing which will be addressed below and this is because camera placement. Camera placement is one of the most important thing for this reason because often directors use one or more camera and just try find a camera angle which looks good for the final cut of the film.  

Action films rely heavily on the directors and how they direct action sequences, however there is also another aspect to action sequences. A big part of any action film is the casting choices for the characters, this is often one of the first things that is decided in the pre-production but the actors that are used are throughout the production of the film. There are many action stars out there, over the past decade the action genre has evolved and now there is more hand-to-hand combat sequences, these sequences depend more on the star in the film. If an actor is willing to perform some or all stunts, this helps the directors and makes the overall final look in the film and the final cut looks. There are a few actors which perform their own stunts, actors such as Keanu Reeves and Tom Cruise when he was making the Indiana Jones films. Keanu Reeves is an actor which is one of best action stars working in Hollywood because in his films he has done a lot stunts. Take for example the most recent films that he has made, John Wick and John Wick: Chapter 2. These films have excellent stunt work in the action sequences and you can sense that he enjoys performing these stunts. While Reeves isn’t the best dramatic actor he is someone who commits to the stunts and people should appreciate his stunt work.

The other actor mentioned is Tom Cruise, he is also one of only few action stars to perform his own stunts. Tom Cruise is known for insane stunts and most of them are in the Mission: Impossible series. Tom Cruise has performed some amazing stunts such as climbing the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, people think that the stunt is fake and they used CGI to recreate the environment, but this is not the case because the stunt is real and the only usage of CGI here is remove anything like the support cables and the camera itself from a distance. This is not the only stunt which he has done because in Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation, Tom Cruise decided to make a stunt where he hangs from the side of the plane. This is just a small number of stunts which he has done since he became an action star. This is quite important aspect to making an action film for one important reason, this is due to the factor that the more an actor decides to commit to the stunts in an action film the director doesn’t have as many restrictions when it comes to making an action scenes and therefore the director doesn’t have to cut and change the camera angles as much as this means that the editing when done in post-production and this creates a much better action film overall.

The stunt work is very important aspect of any action films, there is another aspect to an action film which is quite important, this being Shaky Cam. Shaky Cam is an action filmmaking style which has been used in many different films over the past decade, and it arguably started with The Bourne Supremacy which was released in 2004 and was directed by Paul Greengrass. Paul Greengrass uses Shaky Cam no matter the film that he has directed, he has used this in films from The Bourne Supremacy, Green Zone and United 93. Greengrass is director which knows and understands how to make a scene with Shaky Cam look comprehensible and much easier to follow and an example of this would be the fight between Desh and Bourne in The Bourne Ultimatum. The fight scene is littered with Shaky Cam and this helps the experience of the action sequence, because what Greengrass does during the action scene is that he often cuts to a wide shot and this is so that you as an audience can see what is happening in the action sequence and this is something which he does quite a lot so you can always see the action. Greengrass is excellent for using this directing style, but for some reason other directors have decided to use this directing technique but they don’t know how to use the directing style in the same way. A film which uses Shaky Cam but doesn’t use the technique as well as Greengrass is Quantum of Solace. Quantum of Solace is the sequel to Casino Royale. Quantum of Solace is not a good film and this might be due to fact that the entire production was rushed from start to finish and this is because the studio wanted to capitalise on the success on Casino Royale. Quantum of Solace is filled with Shaky Cam and the action is very difficult to follow because of the technique, the main difference between the way that Marc Forester uses it and the way Paul Greengrass uses Shaky Cam and this is because of the shot layout and how the action sequences are edited together.

This the final part to the production aspect of creating an action film, the final thing to mention about the production of action film is the fact that the action itself and how it is choreographed. Alongside how the action sequence is shot in a film, the action also needs to have some tight choreography because this gives the audience the suspension of disbelief and make the action have a sense of realism. There are fight sequences from many different films which look excellent onscreen, some of the best fight scenes in films have some excellent choreography because of the crew that have made the action sequences. Talented people like Woo-Ping Yuen, Yuen has done some excellent fight choreography over the years and has made choreography for many different films. The list of films which he has worked over the years include The Matrix, Kill Bill and Unleashed alongside his other films that he has worked on from Hong Kong cinema. A good action scene has excellent and tight choreography because each fight scenes from the films listed above have all got great action sequences and each of them stand out for one reason or other. Take The Matrix for example this has many excellent action scenes but the one that people often reference would be the fight between Neo and Agent Smith. This fight scene is excellent for many different reasons, but the focus on would-be the fight and how smooth the action happens onscreen and this how a good fight scene is completed.

Post-production

There are many different fight scenes in action films, The Matrix has some good action scenes for this reason because of smoothness and quality of the action and how it looks cinematic. For every good action sequence, there is an equally bad action sequence which is put to film. Take for example London Has Fallen, this is a film which came out in 2016 and compared to the previous film in the series the action is very poorly directed but the hand-to-hand combat action sequence between Mike Banning and Kamran. This is fight scene which is poorly constructed because there is a lack of smoothness in the fight scene and it looks like the action hasn’t been choreographed and this is one of the biggest issues with the action in London Has Fallen because nobody has taken the time to choreographed it. An action sequence that hasn’t been properly choreographed is like having a film that has dance sequences and not having the dance sequences choreographed and this looks terrible onscreen. You can see where the comparison goes with other genres of films, there is something else which should be added to this point. Some action films these days are made with the action sequences already created ahead of the script and this is because the people behind the current action films only care about spectacle, and while this might not be bad thing because this gives the stunt crew enough time plan the action; however, the action is created and because of this the action is lacking one key element. The action doesn’t have the same amount of tension as other films because the characters are not being advanced through the action here and therefore pre-planning the action sequences is something which needs happen less because the characters should come first in an action film and not the action sequences.

The production aspect is just as important as the pre-production because all three stages of the of a film production are key to success in an action film. The post-production is also very important to the success to the action film and this is because there are two main important aspects which need to be discussed about when talking about action films. The two main aspects which action films need to be talked about include the editing and the special effects. The editing in an action film is the main area where a director fails and this is because the director doesn’t understand how to take the footage that they have filmed and this is either because the directors can construct the action. There are many excellent edited action sequences, and a film which has some excellent action would-be Kingsman: The Secret Service which was directed by Matthew Vaughn. The action in this film is excellent and Vaughn is a director which does something unique which no other director does with the action. In his action sequences, Vaughn takes frames out to make the action more impactful, and this is done for a couple reasons. The first reason is too cover up the fact that the actors can’t perform stunts as well and the second is to increase the impact of the hits and kicks onscreen. This tight editing in the action scenes is some of the best editing that has been put into a large budget action film. Vaughn is someone who has good eye for action sequences because he knows how to take footage and make the action look good in post-production.

However, there are many different films which have poor editing, there are many poorly edited action films and there are different films to choose from and while Taken 3 is quite an easy target there is one film which has poor editing which everyone seems to love, this film being Captain America: Civil War. Taken 3 is quite easy to target because of how bad the overall quality of the film, but many people don’t understand how bad the editing in some of the action sequences are in Captain America: Civil War. Overall this is a solid film because the film has good acting and there is some good action in this film, but the most important thing to take about would be the hand-to-hand combat action sequences that don’t use as much CGI as the sequences that happen later. The action sequences at the beginning of the film and the sequence where Black Panther is introduced and fights the Winter Soldier. This scene has some CGI, and due to suit that the Black Panther uses has something on set the filmmakers don’t have keep the camera still like in the later action sequence. The scene with Blank Panther and the Winter Soldier is one of the worst edited action scenes in a big budget film that has ever been filmed. There is one aspect of the fight where Panther jumps off a part of building and lands on top of The Winter Soldier. This small part of the action scene uses four camera angles and four cuts and like the scene where Bryan Mills jumps the fence in Taken 3. This scene in Civil War doesn’t need so many cuts because it can be confusing and very difficult to follow and this is what a bad action sequence. Civil War doesn’t contain the worst action, but compared to the other films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe the action is a let-down. The action scenes which contain more CGI are much better because it is more stable camerawork with less cuts and this is because CGI is harder to incorporate into to footage in post-production and therefore the action is more stable.

CGI and special effects have come a very long way since Jurassic Park, and this is because CGI has been developed and making it look much better in the films. CGI is now at the point where we can recreate people into the films say for example if the person has died during the production like the case for Fast & Furious 7 and the tragic incident that happened with Paul Walker and the filmmakers used CGI to recreate his face in a natural manner. Then there is the CGI from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, this uses CGI to recreate both Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher and the CGI doesn’t look very good because it looks like the CGI hasn’t been rendered correctly. CGI is an excellent tool to use to enhance the visuals which we are seeing, there are films which have excellent CGI in the action sequences. An action film has some excellent CGI would be Terminator 2: Judgement Day, this is arguably one of the best action films of all time. The reason isn’t because the film contains a bit of CGI but because of the characters, and the characters are the most important aspects to the film. However, more modern films contain a lot of CGI, and now it feels more like filmmakers decide to include more CGI and the characters take a backseat to the effects instead of the characters being more important. An example of a film which uses quite a lot of CGI and uses this more than developing the characters is Terminator Genisys. This is a film which is part of the same franchise as Terminator 2: Judgement Day but in Genisys the special effects seem more important that the narrative and the characters and this is one reason why Genisys is regarded as the worst film in the series. CGI isn’t taking over films in general but there are certain films which could do with use less CGI and more characters because this is what the audience are going to sympathise with more because the characters are an integral to the narrative. CGI should not be over used and the CGI should be used whenever necessary and when it is needed.

The final aspect of Post-production that is quite important that is often forgotten about is sound, now sound is something which is a mixture of production and post-production because there are sounds which are recorded on the set and then there are sounds which are added in post-production, and considering that most sound is added in to the film after the production this means sound is technically a post-production aspect to a film. Where to begin with sound? Well, sound is very important aspect that makes up are daily lives because we hear different sounds, the next time that you are out in public, listen to the different sounds that are around you. There will be a mixture of sounds, this can be reflexed in films because simple sound design will have a mixture of sounds. Good sound in an action scene is something which will make an action sequence and this is what will suspend are disbelief and make the action scene believable. There are many different action sequences to reference here, but there is one action sequence which stands out. This would be the opening action sequence from Watchmen, Zack Snyder is a very mediocre director because of many different problems with his films and this is understandable. Watchmen has one of his best opening action sequences, the action has had some tight choreography but the best aspect to this fight scene is the fact that the sound is excellent throughout the scene. This is because the sound design in this sequence has been enhanced to make the sound engross the audience into the sequence. Things like the sound of leather gloves, the glass shattering and more of the sound as the hits and kicks are traded back and for between these characters. The sound makes these elements more brutal because of the sound.

However, while Watchmen has excellent sound design there are some fight scenes that have poor sound, there are so many different action sequences that have poor sound, if it weren’t the fact that London Has Fallen has already be mentioned this would-be a perfect example. However, there are other films which have just as bad action sequences and one that should be mentioned would-be Hitman: Agent 47, this is a film which is quite poor as a film because it has no tension with the action, the fight which has poor sound is the final fight between Agent 47 and John Smith. There are many different problems with the action in this film, however the sound editing is quite bad because the sound in this film is off putting because it doesn’t help with the visuals. There is nothing with the sound that stands out, and rather than having the sound take center stage they also use some generic music alongside to the sound design and this shows that the filmmakers haven’t paid enough attention to the sound. With the fight in Watchmen, you feel ever punch and every kick that is being thrown between the characters, in Hitman: Agent 47 the sound doesn’t do this because of the lack of attention paid to the whole sound design. Filmmakers often forget about sound and while it doesn’t define the imagine it exists alongside the visuals and shouldn’t be forgotten because the even though Zack Snyder is not a great a director, more filmmakers should take note from the fight scene at the beginning of Watchmen because this uses sound to high standard and is one of the best examples of sound in a fight scene.

Conclusion

Modern action films have come a long way since their predecessors that were released in 80’s and 90’s with the advancement of technology and excellent characters. However, in the recent couple of years there has been a slight decline in the overall quality in action films and this is the reason for this article and why it exists because for every good example in the action genre there is an equally poor example in the genre. There are numerous aspects which can be altered to create better action films, and these points discussed in this article should be noted because these points will help make them better. In the last couple of years there have been some good examples which have come through, films like John Wick and John Wick: Chapter 2, this are both films with excellent characters and action and hopefully the upcoming Atomic Blonde which is coming out this summer will show that the low budget action film will do well enough with the critics because more actions films like John Wick and Atomic Blonde will hopefully influence the big budget action films will follow suit because the big budget films are suffering from bad scripts, bad action sequences and the action being over edited and this is only a few aspects which actions are suffering. Action films are not bad, but filmmakers aren’t making the actions films that they could make and not to standard which could make each of them great. Action films are an excellent piece of cinema because of the visual elements and how entertaining they can be and this is something which people don’t understand. Studios should get directors and other crew members which understand how to make an solid action film and this is because of filmmakers understand this. There are plenty of talented action directors which can make good action films like Antoine Fuqua, Paul Greengrass and many more directors. Studios should pick filmmakers who understand how to make a solid and decent action films and therefore we would end up with less of the terrible action films that we have been getting lately.