Action Movies

I had a choice between writing a retrospective on David Lynch’s haunting Lost Highway, or this embarrassing 1992 comedy starring Sylvester Stallone and Estelle Getty. Every reasonable cineaste would naturally choose the former. One movie…

It’s safe to say that no American filmmaker working today is quite as polarizing as Zack Snyder. Detractors renounce the Watchmen, 300, Man of Steel et al. director as the hack creator of one dour,…

Fatman is an R-rated action movie starring Mel Gibson as Santa Claus… I can already feel many people shaking their heads. But, if you’re more like me, you might think this has the potential to…

Netflix’s record with original Hollywood action movies is patchy at best. When the so-so Extraction is among the finer examples of their big-name blockbusters, there’s something not working. With The Old Guard, though, they might hopefully…

Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg have been inseparable since first teaming up for 2013’s Lone Survivor. In the years since, they’ve become Hollywood’s leading providers of robust, forgettable action thrillers with weirdly conservative politics. They’re…

The Fast and Furious franchise may not be everyone’s favorite, but there’s no debating that it still has a massive built-in fan base and has continued to gross stupid amounts of money at the box…

Not only is Endgame on the horizon, but so is the rest of the blockbuster season. The late spring/summer movie season is when studios have their largest money-makers…or their worst bombs. Either way, it’s a…

Last week I reviewed Dragged Across Concrete, which co-starred Michael Jai White. Coincidentally, Triple Threat also co-stars Michael Jai White — he’s a lot nicer in DAC. Both films are also exceptionally violent. The similarities…

There’s too many goddamn movies out there. My head spins just looking at all the movies getting a theatrical release every week, let alone the plethora of films going straight to streaming and VOD. I…

“Franchise.” That’s the magic word that causes all Hollywood execs to start comically drooling like Homer Simpson looking at a pink frosted donut. I imagine that anyone green-lighting movies is hoping to strike gold on…

Last week, Walter Hill’s street-fighting gang adventure The Warriors celebrated its 40th anniversary. Hill’s film, while initially poorly received by critics, has in the decades since its release garnered a massive cult following. But the big…

Witnessing Netflix’s transformation from humble video-rental to gigantic streaming behemoth (bestreamoth?) has been disorienting at best. Whereas the release of a new Netflix original movie was once a momentous occasion, the platform nowadays churns out an…

Netflix is quietly putting together an array of hyper-violent, stunt-driven action films from around the world, and I’m so happy to see this happen. We live in a time where the standard action film is…

With Bumblebee out and about, it’s time to look back at the entire Transformers franchise. It’s been quite the checkered history for the franchise with some of its entries ranking as some of the worst…

There are some actors that can play a wide variety of characters. Tom Hanks, for example, can play anything from a starving man on a deserted island to a newspaper executive to a talking cowboy…

Well, Mission: Impossible – Fallout was pretty great. Not only is shaping up to become a box office success, but it’s a serious critic success as well. As it currently stands, Fallout holds a 97% critic score on Rotten…

By the sixth movie in the franchise, a property is normally faced with an identity crisis: adapt or succumb or growing disinterest that results in waning box office numbers. But for Mission: Impossible – Fallout, salvation actually…

Mission: Impossible is one of the longest running franchises in Hollywood that hasn’t been rebooted. Since the original film’s debut in 1996, Hollywood has given us four different iterations of Batman, three of Spider-Man, and…

Heat (1995), the famous first pairing of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, was so well made, with such high quality on both sides of the camera, that it was too good

If The Equalizer 2 (2018) seems familiar, let’s figure out why.  A fun game to play is to see how many other films you can identify in this movie — and there’s a lot of…

What’s up, MovieBabble followers? It’s your girl Kali back at you with another article comparing Classic and Modern Hollywood. Last time, we compared Tom Hanks and James Stewart — two well-respected, lovable actors who personified…

Skyscraper, or, considering its familiar setup and story, Sky Hard — or maybe even Rock Hard if sexual innuendos are your bread and butter — is the latest action vehicle for The Rock to show off his rippling body as he…

Die Hard (1988) is 30 years old.  Imagine that.  Three decades represent solid proof that it has passed the test of time as an enduring action movie classic.  Thank you, Die Hard, for so many…

Happy Father’s Day everyone! As I did for my mother, I would like to dedicate this article to my wonderful Dad. He has been a shining light in my life since the day I was…

It’s no secret that mega-budgeted films are dominating the film industry and the conversation around it at the moment.  Thankfully, there’s still always room for a little throwback film that operates as an elevated B-movie.…

Some movies receive tons of press and hype before their premiere and ultimately live up to their lofty expectations. However, some, like the following movies, really flop at the box office and with fans despite…

In age where the “movie star” seems all but dead, one — very swoll — actor is still raking in the dough as a leading man, forcing studios to pay him top dollar to star…

On April 13th, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will star in Rampage (2018), an absurd movie about giant raging gorillas who terrorize America. Admit it: that sounds a lot like King Kong, only with a lot more gorillas and an…

Tomb Raider could also be called “white woman’s burden.” It mirrors social progress in some ways, and in others shows how far we still have to go. I haven’t seen the original Angelina Jolie version of…

On May 2nd, YouTube Red will release Cobra Kai, a spin-off series based on the famous dojo in The Karate Kid. Just like every other franchise or production company monopoly nowadays, this franchise decided it couldn’t just let a…