Let's Make Fun Action Movies Fun Again

or, let's stop making the movie version of an NBA all-star game

I’m a pretty big NBA fan. I grew up watching the SuperSonics — from the Downtown Freddy Brown and Jack Sikma era through the great Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp days. But the Sonics don’t exist anymore, so I switched over to the Lakers after moving to LA.

For the last decade or so, it seems like the NBA has been trying to solve a glaring problem: no one gives a shit about the midseason All-Star game. I don’t remember it being a problem during the Bird and Magic years, or the Jordan years, or the prime Kobe years. Having the East vs West superstars face-off was interesting because the players were competitive enough to keep it interesting.

But for awhile now, it seems like the NBA has been openly struggling to make this game matter. They tried having LeBron and some other superstar draft the teams. They tried changing the scoring system. They tried having teams play for charity with the potential recipients of said charities literally sitting courtside cheering the players on. Recently, they renamed the All-Star MVP trophy after Kobe Bryant, hoping to conjure up his hyper-competitive Mamba mentality for a game that’s turned into a goof off joke fest.

But none of the changes have really altered the main problem: the players don’t give a shit. There seems to be an unspoken agreement among them to not really play defense or try that hard. The superstars laugh and joke around and show off their skills with alley oops and logo three pointers. And every year, it seems that fewer and fewer people tune in because it all gets so boring after about fifteen minutes.

There’s no rooting interest. And without a rooting interest, it’s all a bunch of activity without any meaningful action.

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For some reason, we’re currently in an era where Hollywood is mass-producing Fun Action Movies that have all the intensity and rooting interest of an NBA all-star game.

I have a theory about this. After the success of the John Wick and Mission Impossible and Fast & Furious franchises — not to mention the quippy Marvel films — studios and producers have decided that audiences want Fun Action Movies.

But I think there’s a pretty big disconnect between audiences and studios in terms of what being a Fun Action Movie actually means. I think a lot of studio execs and producers don’t actually dig action movies — not really — so they think a Fun Action Movie means recognizable, charismatic stars joking around and not taking the story too seriously, ideally while looking nice and clean and frankly very rich, all while galivanting about in photogenic settings.

To me, that’s the action equivalent of an art heist movie. I’d argue that no one who actually digs crime movies — whether it’s Rififi or Heat or The Town or Point Break or Dog Day Afternoon — really wants to see a movie full of faux-sophisticated pretty boys and girls stealing vintage works of art for low emotional stakes.

But weirdly, Hollywood keeps producing these faux-sophisticated art heist movies anyway, despite the fact that just about none of them — outside of maybe the two Thomas Crown Affair films — really seem to land. Why do they do this? My theory: most Hollywood insider types generally look down on crime movies as a genre. But the art heist movie is a way for them to do an “elevated” version of a crime movie while not muddying themselves with a low-status type of story.

An art thief movie is the kind of crime movie an Ivy Leaguer can be involved with and still hold their head kinda high while discussing it at a dinner party.

Same thing with this whole big run of “let’s not take this too seriously” Fun Action Movies lately. If you look down on action movies, this trend is a good way to indulge in the action genre without muddying your own personal brand. It’s resulted in a run of sorta-action, sorta-comedy films, but ones that don’t really deliver much in terms of either action or jokes (or fun). It’s more like they offer the pale simulacrum of a movie you’ve seen before — something like True Lies, a movie I don’t really like, seems to be the Platonic ideal for this kind of film — but without James Cameron’s insane level of commitment.

To me, they’re like a two hour version of a light beer commercial. Blandly pretty settings, blandly pretty people, and just enough bland irreverance to signify “hey! we’re having fun here!” without ever actually committing fully to anything, really.

You know, like an NBA all-star game. But watching beautiful people goof off isn’t really all that much fun, unless the jokes really land or the chemistry is very special, like in the 21 Jump Street or Bad Boys films.

Which is just to say: I think there’s a big lane open right now. That lane is this: action films by people who actually love action films and that are made for people who actually love watching action films. Because right now, I think there’s a lot of Fun Action Movies from people who actually kinda look down on action films. These new Fun Action Movies are seemingly aimed at placating people who don’t actually love watching action films but who do like Ryan Reynolds or Gal Gadot or art museums or summers in Paris or whatever.

Semi-respectable background action movies, maybe. Nothing to take seriously because taking action movies seriously is for the unsophisticated.

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When I think about actual Fun Action Movies, my mind goes to Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan and Gordon Liu. Indiana Jones. John Wick. Mad Max: Fury Road. Die Hard. Lethal Weapon. Kill Bill. The Fugitive. Hell, even Wrath of Man and Den of Thieves.

Other than maybe the Jackie Chan films, in all of these movies, the characters take their situations seriously. In fact, it’s because the characters take their situations seriously that the movies are so fun.

(And I’d argue that Jackie Chan’s own insane commitment to the stunt gags in his films is what allows his characters to be pretty noncommital at times to the emotional stakes. He’s doing his version of Buster Keaton and part of the enjoyment is that he’s fairly emotionally untouched.)

Die Hard has amazing funny one-liners. But it’s also about an ordinary cop trying to reconcile with his estranged wife, only to arrive as her company is being taken hostage by a group of killers. He’s being funny to help himself cope with his situation, not to signify to the audience that he’s an acceptably zany guy who doesn’t take all of this too seriously.

Kill Bill is a blast. But it’s also about a deeply traumatized woman who survived being executed on her wedding day, who had her daughter ripped from her womb, and who is dead serious about getting revenge. Tarantino created a pastiche gauntlet of ‘70s exploitation type of situations for The Bride, but the film only really works because Uma Thurman so fully commits to the character’s emotional reality.

John Wick rightly kicked off an entire new phase of action films. And while I fully admit I first checked out the film after seeing the following hilarious headline for a review: “An Idiot Killed His Puppy and Now Everyone Must Die” — the movie itself doesn’t take Wick’s grief or his loss of the dog lightly in the slightest. Which makes his subsequent killing spree so cathartic.

The filmmakers and the stars involved in these actual Fun Action Movies know what they’re doing. They aren’t aiming for academy awards and they aren’t trying to make politically important statements. They’re going out of their way to make fun kickass action films for the people.

In these films, the characters and situations being offered to us are bigger than life, often bordering on the absurd. But the characters themselves don’t realize that they’re in a Fun Action Movie. And that’s the key difference between these films and this new breed of “fun” action movies that seem to be taking over streaming in particular.

Mad Max: Fury Road is about as fun as an action movie can be. But the characters don’t go grinning and winking and fucking about like they’re half-assing their way through an all-star exhibition game. The characters act like they’re in game seven of the goddamn NBA finals — a finals in which, if they lose, everything they love will die.

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Lately, I’ve been working a bit with Chad Stahelski, the director of the John Wick films. There’s a shit ton I’m learning about how he approaches action storytelling. If I was to boil down the John Wick approach to a single word, it’d probably be this: “commitment.”

It’s the stunt team and production and Keanu Reeves’ commitment to developing the stunt and camera choreography that allows the long, unbroken takes of high-level action.

It’s also a commitment to the pleasures of action movies. That means not merely approximating the current norms of an action movie like the many Wick wannabe films that have been coming out lately. It’s more about conceiving a love letter to specific action movies — in Wick’s case, samurai films, Spaghetti Westerns, kung fu films, Hong Kong action films, ‘70s crime films — while also seeking ways to contribute something new to this self-chosen tradition.

Stahelski has a great extended interview with Priscilla Page, my favorite contemporary film writer. One thing he talks about is focusing his storytelling energies:

“The reason an action movie is your favorite is because of the guy or the girl or the cast member doing it. If you love Bruce Willis, you will love Die Hard. If you love Hiroyuki Sanada and Donnie Yen and Keanu Reeves, you will like John Wick. You have to love the individual. You have to love the character. You love the character — I can have him do a spinning hook kick or hit you with a toothpick, and you're gonna love it…You have to make the audience fall in love with the person doing the action.”

We love Michael Jordan not because he pulled off some cool moves in a low-stakes exhibition game, we love him because of the flu game in the NBA finals. Or we love Kobe because he’d show up in his pajamas at four in the morning to practice left-handed foul shots when his right hand was broken. Or we love LeBron because he led the Cavs back from a 3-1 deficit to beat the unbeatable Warriors in seven games.

We love these athletes because of how they responded when they were most heavily tested. It’s a fundamental element of sports — without an athlete being tested at the highest level, what they do doesn’t truly matter. Without the pressure of the highest stakes, it may as well be an exhibition.

It’s the same way with action movies. Elsewhere in the Stahelski and Page conversation, they begin talking about how well Kill Bill works and how Tarantino took inspiration from Lady Snowblood. In doing so, they boil down what makes an action movie work:

Priscilla: Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't call [Kill Bill] an exact remake of Lady Snowblood. It just really feels like he took the spirit of that film and —

Chad: Oh yeah he took the fun part of it, he took the intensity.

The intensity is the fun part. That’s exactly it. And that’s what this newest wave of Fun Action Movies is missing. If the characters are too self-aware that they’re in a Fun Action Movie — or a Fun Horror Movie, or a Fun Western — then it steals the fun from the audience. You don’t want your character to remark with a giddy sudden realization “oh shit, this is a classic wild west showdown.” You want your character to be focused on whatever his immediate vendetta or goal happens to be. Instead, you want your audience to giddily suddenly realize that this is a classic wild west showdown. Or, even better, you just want them to be so invested in the vendetta that they’re not even aware of the genre.

Too much character self-awareness turns the audience into mere passive spectators, as opposed to being active participants with a rooting interest. As a writer, it may make you feel smart to let your reader know that you’re in on the joke. But it also likely means that your reader is having less fun than you are.

I truly think commitment is the key. It’s why Jimmy Fallon was such a chore to watch on most SNL sketches, while say recent hosts like Adam Driver or Emma Stone are so transcendent. Fallon would constantly crack up. Every sketch he was in would end up having just the same thin joke over and over again — “Jimmy finds this funny.” It’s the equivalent of watching a jock laugh his way through a sketch in a high school pep rally. The jokes themselves never have a chance to develop, let alone land. The only source of humor is that the popuar guy performing the sketch finds it funny that he’s in a sketch. Yawn.

But real performers like Driver and Stone fully commit to their characters and to the insane logic of their sketches. And since they never laugh at their characters or the situations, we have room to laugh instead. The sketches can go to wild, weird, unexpected places because the performers are playing it straight.

A great action character or performer functions the same way. They’re fun not because they signal to us that they know they’re in a fun action movie. They’re fun because they’ve committed fully and completely to the action movie’s own unique inner logic, however insane it may be.

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Inevitably, this current wave of sorta action, sorta comedy films is going to play itself out. Something will take its place in the action movie space.

I’m guessing it’ll be something sort of anime or manga inspired. Where the plots and situations and characters are operatic and over-the-top, but the emotions are presented with utmost sincerity.

If I was advising a writer trying to break through with an action script in 2024, I’d probably advise the following:

1. Try to create a main protagonist we haven’t seen before. Give them some single definable trait or handicap or hang-up or power that will make them intriguing the moment you see them on a poster or in a trailer. Think Furiosa. Or Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Once. Or Donnie Yen’s blind assassin in John Wick 4. Because the ordinary-seeming-person-who-is-secretly-a-killer trope is way overplayed right now.

2. Come up with a truly original, compelling antagonist. Someone who you both love to watch but who you also desperately want to see defeated. Give us a real rooting interest and something to truly worry about.

3. Give the main protagonist a motivation other than avenging a dead spouse or child. (This is also played out.) A lesser version of John Wick would’ve had the mob boss’s idiot son kill Wick’s wife. But having him kill Wick’s dead wife’s last gift to Wick — a puppy — was genius. It presented us with a fresh emotional connection to the story. There’s a great movie from the 1950s called Bad Day at Black Rock, featuring a one-armed Spencer Tracy arriving in a remote Western town to deliver a war medal to the father of a Japanese-American soldier who saved Tracy’s life in battle. Tracy is an underdog on a very specific quest. What’s the modern version of this?

4. Come up with one new element you’d be adding to the action movie canon. Some unique skill set. Or unique back story. Or unique motivation. Just one special thing — having to do with the action itself — that we haven’t seen before, or that we haven’t seen in years. Not just a unique set-piece, but a unique underlying precept to the action. Taken had the old guy with a particular set of skills. The Zatoichi films had the blind swordsman and Lone Wolf & Cub had the traveling killer and his cute kid. The Bourne movies had the guy who can’t remember why he’s so good at violence. Find a new angle to the action and then the set-pieces — and maybe probably also the story itself — will by necessity be fresh and different.

But most of all, I’d advise this: please oh please don’t give us a joky, half-assed NBA all-star game. Give us the fourth quarter of a game seven.

One of the best moviegoing experiences I’ve ever had was watching Mission Impossible: Fallout with my family at home. At the action climax, while Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill were fighting on the edge of the cliff, one of my sons — he must’ve been about ten — literally got up from the couch and reached out at the TV to grab the transponder thing to try and help Tom Cruise stop an explosion from happening. He was so immersed in the story that the artifice slipped away.

It’s that kind of immersiveness that results in the kind of Fun Action Movie that gets us coming back to the cinema. And it’s that kind of immersiveness and sincerity that action movies have been shying away from lately. This won’t last forever. Someone will turn the tide in the other (better) direction. Selfishly, I hope it’s me. But my next preferred option would probably be you.