Bring Back The Action Star!

So I finally broke down and went to see The Expendables. I hesitated for a long time because I couldn’t help the nagging feeling that beside a great premise the movie was going to fall very short of my childhood dream of seeing the ultimate action movie. Surprisingly the movie wasn’t nearly as terrible as I expected. The film embraces the gimmick of collecting most of our favorite 80s and 90s action stars and has fun with it. It’s had a great opening weekend and has stayed at number one in the box office 2 weeks running.

So why did this movie depress the hell out of me? Well, I’ll tell you! Walking out of the theatre the first thing that crossed my mind was… how dare JCVD and Steven Seagal turn down parts in this movie. They should be slobbering at Stallone’s boots for an opportunity to be in an actual blockbuster film that actually makes money, instead of going straight to the DVD bargain bin. The second and much more profound thing that occurred to me is that the 80s and early 90s were as good as it’s going to get for the action genre.

If they wanted to make The Expendables 2 in 15 years, who would be in it? Leonardo DiCaprio? Jude Law? Keanu Reeves? Robert Downey Jr? Think about it. Who are our modern day action stars? They are pretty boys better suited for brooding and romancing than breaking spines and shooting up drug cartels. In the 80s we had Arnold in Predator and who do we have now? Adrien Brody. And that’s the difference: we went to see Predator because it was an Arnold movie. We see Predators because we want to see the Predators make mince meat out of nameless jobbers. The latter formula can work with a small or big budget and are a dime a dozen. The former requires an icon like Arnold, Stallone, etc.

Jackie Chan has moved on from making the best fight scenes to making terrible kids movies. Yes, Jason Statham still has a few movies in him, but let’s face it: the run is over. The action movie has been replaced by chick flicks and 3D animated family crap. Men, how did we let this happen? How in the world did we go from Harrison Ford to Shia LaBeouf? We went from Lost Boys to Twilight, from Willow to Harry Potter, from They Live to… well, I don’t even know.

There’s a certain part of my brain that’s reserved for remembering one liners from great action movies, but it has atrophied to near nothing because I haven’t had any use for it in the last decade. It’s not just that films no longer have one liners, but there’s also no one capable of delivering them with the required conviction.

Who’s the modern day Clint Eastwood? I’ll tell you who, it’s still Clint Eastwood. At 80 years old he’s still more of a badass than any modern day action star. I’ll take Patrick Swayze in Road House over Will Smith in ANYTHING he’s ever been in. No wonder Mel Gibson is a drunk, raving lunatic. He had to go from being in movies like Mad Max and Lethal Weapon to What Women Want, with Helen Hunt as his love interest. Bleh.

It’s like some big conspiracy to make men more effeminate. I used to look up to these guys as a kid. Hell, I still worship Arnold like a god. Old school action stars used to be manly, and it was cool. You could drop a burning building on them and they would walk out of the rubble puffing on a cigar. Unlike the modern action star who’s likely to come out bleeding after being pushed into a stack of papers.

I want Hollywood to bring back the action star, with giant muscles, big guns, and awesome one liners. Make Dwayne Johnson do action movies instead of Disney movies. And for god’s sake get the money together and put Daniel Craig back to work on a new Bond film. I don’t think that’s asking too much. Do you?

Do your part! Go see The Expendables. Show Hollywood execs that old school action needs to make a comeback.