It is my esteemed pleasure to introduce a new guest writer- Emma Hydleman- who will be adding her two cents periodically. Let us know what you think…
Maybe it is because I’m an adult now (and therefore despise all of the ‘youth of today’), but I am finding myself increasingly embittered by the fact that the 20-something plus age group really isn’t catered for in the Action market. Yes, I’m a girl who is scared by Horrors and offended by patronising so-called ‘Chick Flicks’. My name is Emma and I’m an Action movie Junkie.
As I sat in the cinema, waiting for the lights to dim and the trailers to start, I got that old familiar feeling of low expectations for Terminator Salvation that has been such a frequent but unwelcome date to most of my cinematic trips to action/ Sci-Fi franchises and one-off action films in recent years. This isn’t necessarily because of the fact that they are simply re-hashing an already fully flogged horse corpse, but more the fact that the film they inevitably produce falls far short of its full potential.
I was outraged to see that Salvation was classified in the UK as a 12A. A 12A!!! That is a certificate that should never be allowed to be on this particular movie; it had so much promise to be as dark as the original too (I know that Rise of the Machines was a 12 but that only proves my point about low certificate Action films being inherently rubbish! And, let’s face it, that movie acted as more of a bridge to one we were expecting to be so much cooler. Yes, I enjoyed Salvation, but it can only be described as an Action ‘romp’, not butt-bleedingly scary.
The ‘80s & ‘90s Action films were classics because they catered to the adult market – the bread-winners, the frustrated hard-workers, the people stuck in crappy jobs trying to beat the oppression of Capitalism gone wrong in the form of the Recession. They were written by people sick of ‘Da Man’ and sought to show what would inevtiably happen to the world if we let greed take over. Look at Running Man, Demolition Man, Terminator 1 & 2: full of dark psychotics, killing in cold blood and all because they can. And at night. Now that’s scary!
A good friend of mine made a very good point as we discussed my disappointment in new Action films; he noted that there is nothing thrilling about these films anymore. When you’re a kid, part of the appeal of that particular brand of action movie was that they were a taboo, because they were inherently adult: films like the first Terminator would guarantee nightmares and were all the more thrilling for it. It was a window into an unattainable adult world- shifting the moral compass of those genres fundamentally compromises the appeal of them. This only seems to link to Pornography nowadays - and even that has had to keep pushing the ‘gross’ bar higher so that it retains people’s interest.
Even family-oriented Action films such as Indiana Jones have taken a massive nose-dive with the fourth film. Yes, they were always far fetched and ridiculous, but it is easier to forgive that idea when the films still had darker scenes – the face melting, the skulls impaled on spikes, the crazy man trying to rip out Jones’s heart with his bare hands. It’s been said before-but crystal aliens? Really? And the temple being made out of their spacecraft which we then see fly away? Please! Come on! There were no children hypnotised to murder adults, there was no being buried alive with snakes, there wasn’t even a hint of a face melt! And it’s all because families complain that there are no good films for adults and children to enjoy together.
And another thing, I know it’s a 12A, but I don’t expect to have my view of Indiana Jones 4 disrupted by a family who decided to take their 8 year olds to see a 2 hour film at 8.40pm and then have them complain all the way through the they are tired. Take them on a Saturday.
Action films, on the whole, have pretty much lost their cool edge and thus their appeal now. They unfortunately form an overly-easily marketable genre, are far more appealing to the masses and have become unfortunate and predicatble shadows of their former selves for it. Audiences expect the protagonist to struggle with some form of mental demons, fall in love with someone within the first act (not beforea little sexually loaded friction of course), and defeat the bad guy by getting him arrested because he was very mean to everyone. The traditional credentials are becoming increasingly scarce within the biggest tentpole Hollywood Actioner releases.
Liam Neeson’s Taken is one fantastic example of how Action movies should still play out. Okay, so critical reception wasnt particularly good, but that is perhaps because everyone is used to judging the genre against the model created by this new idea of sanitised action movies. I loved Taken because of its more traditional, high-octane credentials, which suspended the twee moral code that has seeped into newer generic additions, and a straw-poll among my friends and associates confirmed a united feeling that there should be more films like this in the world.
There have only been a handful of great 15(+) Action/ Sci-Fi/ Graphic Novel movies that I can think of in recent times:
- Watchmen – an 18 mainly due to the fact that Dr Manhattan wanders around naked, and there is one quite vanilla sex scene.
- Sin City – absolutely fantastic. Dark, evil, stuff of nightmares in some places, a well deserved 18 certificate.
- Crank – sheer outrageous fun! Swearing, bad one-liners, drugs, sex and an old-school helicopter fight scene.
- 300 – imagine how good it would have been if it was an 18 instead of a 15.
- Die Hard 4.0– a great 15c film with highly unlikely scenes – the jet on the flyover springs to mind – all an integral part of a good action movie, one of the few that has stuck 2 fingers up to the new template.
- Taken – an 18 on DVD in the UK, and a fantastic unashamed Action/ Thriller movie.
Too few.
I don’t care that people are worried that children are cutting their childhoods short and ‘growing up too fast’: I care that they are stealing the adults fun and that the film industries are yielding to it for sheer greed reasons- the family dollar goes a lot further than the single action fan’s pocket change.
Let kids have their Pixar & Aardman family movies, and if adults want to go watch the films as well, fair play to them- they are after all fantastic. But don’t bring children to an evening showing of films like Terminator Salvation. You shouldn’t bring them at all. That is Adult Town. If you have kids and you want to watch the film, get a baby sitter, and stop polluting an inherently Adult market with your moral arguments and outrage.
22 Comments
Great, great, great article Emma. And so fucking true.
Looking forward to read more of your stuff!
I’m going to start using ‘This is Adult Town’ as a put-down to idiots from now on, I just know it…
Well needed point of view here. I agree completely as I’ve been always telling my friends the same thing (though they think that an inteligent person can’t enjoy death wish, crank, showdown in little tokyo etc.).
Totally agree. However I hate to be the voice of reason (not like me at all) but you have to consider the financial aspects of cinema and the impact this has on not just the whole industry but in particular the movie-making process.
Its all about what studio executives want, and what they think WE want. They take that and see how they can make money from it. Terminator Salvation is a great example: remember the shots of the future war in each Terminator film? A lot of people (myself included) wanted to expand on these scenes. To do so on the scale required to make it work effectively costs a great deal of money (the budget was around the $200 million mark). How do you recoup that outlay? You market the hell out of it. Which is why it could not be (and sadly never was going to be) an 18, a restrictive certificate in a marketing sense, and had to be 12A. You can’t have a tie-in with Pizza Hut and be an 18…
This links in with the choice of director which also plays a part: the execs need a yes-man. Someone like James Cameron is arguably to powerful in Hollywood to be told how to make his movie, where as someone like McG, desperate for a shot at credibility and seeing a Terminator film as his chance, will do whatever he is told. In this case, to make a movie that can be marketed to the 12-18 demographic, where all the money is
So is it really familes running movies or are studio execs to blame?
(And by the way, I liked Terminator 3: Rise of The Machines. Give it a chance, try and see what they were trying to do and realise the part it plays in the series)
The Punisher: War Zone, Rambo and Taken are the only great action films of recent times. Only The Expendables looks like adding to this list.
The days of the action classics are gone. Not just with regards to your Commandos, but minor masterpieces like Stone Cold.
Kids should not be going to see Terminator or Predator films! these movies should be 18 cert and full of violence the way they are meant to be.
It’s all down to fucking stupid asshole film execs wanting toy lines from everything out there and making an extra buck.
There is no cool adult films anymore, it’s all gone tits up!
Nice article by the way.
Barn, mate- Punisher and Rambo?! I just plain dont get the appeal of either of them. There are far better examples of brainless actioners out there (so dont go saying I dont get it again)- personally I adore Condemned with Stone Cold Steve Austin and Vinnie Jones for the nuts-out idiocy and adult flavours of it. But Punisher is irredeemable! And Rambo is like an old person trying to break dance- wrong and painfully mismatched culturally.
You’ll love Sly’s post-’Expendables’ role in ‘Breakdance 3: Electric Fiddle-di-dee’, then…*
This stuff about people bringing kids to action movies reminds me of the time me and M went to see the last Bourne film – it was ruined by the constant crying of a baby – an actual BABY – a few rows back from us. Eventually an usher arrived and told the lady with the kid to go, and this woman went off on a rant about how everyone was being prejudiced AGAINST HER! What I couldn’t get was (a) her blatant contempt for the moviegoing experience of others and also (b) what possessed her to take her kid to see a Bourne film in the first place? The thing is packed full of explosions and brutal violence. No wonder the kid was crying.
* Yes, I know it’s a pretty bad title, but it’s all I can manage off-the-cuff…
Simon I knew you didn’t like Punisher but Rambo?!? This really is too much!
I don’t consider the Bourne films and comic book movies action films in the true Arnie/Stallone/Seagal/JCVD sense, the mindless 80s flicks minimal on style and substance but high on body counts and violence.
Yeah man, that’s what I’m talking about! I’m all about the 80s/90s style where everyone even remotely swarthy is obviously recognisable as expendable! I didnt actually mind Rambo that much, I just didnt feel like a fourth was necessary, and it just played to a stereotype of the films getting more brutal each time.
10 comments???? Man, the powers of a geek woman over geek men, never fails to amaze.
what are your thoughts on The Dark Knight? You have to admit this was very dark for a 12A…
good points… well made.
Well, Kev, I did enjoy Dark Knight, & the Batman Franchise has alays been aimed at the family film market – purely from the history of it. But, as you said, it was very dark ‘for a 12A’. It is still a 12A, & I have to say that it wasn’t particularly close to the original Batman comics. Be that as it may I did enjoy it but that’s mainly because I watched it on DVD in the peace & quiet of my own home, rather than facing the throngs of selfish parents & their bratty, spoiled, undisciplined offspring & having to destroy them all with my mighty rage-gun.
The real problem is money-grabbing producers who know they are losing out on millions by making R-rated movies. That Avi Lerner is suggesting The Expendables and even Rambo V will be PG-13 movies is evidence of this. I’ll just wait for the DVD unrated cuts thank you very much.
I urge you to watch “This Film Is Not Yet Rated” if you haven’t; it explores the market forces that dictate what would otherwise be artistic decisions and ultimately water-down films (it’s focused on the MPAA and film industry here in the states, but the concepts are not unique to this market).
As Barn points out, it’s not really the fault of families – those have always been around – it’s the marketing of action films TO families. The Terminator series started out with two (good and better) R (US) films and moved on to two crappy PG-13 (US) films because it’s possible to make more money that way. The parents are taking their kids to films in what WAS a violent and bloody franchise (had sex, too!) because the films are now targeted at families. The irony of your delightful rant is that the kids at the 8.40 showing of “Terminator: Salvation” weren’t out of place, crashing an adult film; YOU were out of place as an adult who dislikes children (”bratty, spoiled, undisciplined offspring”) at a family film, because it’s NOT “Adult Town” any more. Perhaps it should be, but PG-13 (or 12a) films are NOT “adult” (or “adult only”) films.
So vote with your dollars and don’t see family-friendly action films if you think there’s no place for them. Or don’t see bad family-friendly action films if you think that there are too many. Or support a socialist state that funds art for art’s sake, :-)
Oh, and for the editor: I vote to keep Emma as a guest writer.
John, I don’t believe I was out of place at a 8.40pm showing of an approx. 2 hour film (on a school night) that the children weren’t even old enough to see. I still have a problem with families monopolising the movie market. Yes, there are a lot of families spending ridiculous amounts of cash on nights out to the cinema with their offspring, but there are a lot more people who choose not to have a family & have a large amount of disposable income to spend on entertainment.
My main point I was raising was the fact that families are the reason that studios have destroyed potentially awesome movies by aiming them at the family market because a) it’s easier & b) it’s good for ridiculous over-saturated merchandising. The 12A children who are being taken to see ‘Salvation’ at the cinema still aren’t old enough to watch the original 2, & if their parents are letting them watch the 1st movies then they are clearly quite irresponsible, in which case they should have kept the film at at least a 15.
As you say, families have always been around, but it didn’t stop film-makers in the ’80s & ’90s making ‘R’ rated action movies. There was a specific line between great family action movies e.g “Last Action Hero” & great adult action movies, such as “Terminator”, why did it have to change, & why does it seem that any good action movies has to now be laced with highly ethical, moral & romantic undertones… AND be, at most, a 12A?
Besides, why should I get pushed out of the cinema simply because parents would rather take their already tired children to a late night showing of a movie on a weekday, rather than either going on a weekend or getting a bloody babysitter, it’s not my fult they decided to ruin their social lives, why should they be allowed to ruin mine??
“great family action movies” like Last Action Hero? You’ve clearly had some kind of blunt trauma to the head Hydleman!
Ok, it was the 1st family action movie that came into my head, ironically cult cool now….. But the rest of my point still stands,Gallagher!
@ Emma: As I said before, I agree with your post – but you have overseen something. R-Rated action movie are still in the making – Wanted, Shoot em Up, Running Scared, Bad Boys 2 and so on.
I guess the problem is that the film business has drastically changed in the past 15 years. The movie biz has created a monster and now that monster is hunting them. This monster is called cinema multiplex, 15 million dollar contracts,
The big studios are “only” producing 6, 7 big movies a year. Their entire core production and therefor their own survival lays in the hand of some sommer blockbusters who cost around 150 million bucks. Therefor they have to make compromises and have to aim the films to a broad audience. The problem: instead of inventing new franchises they a reanimating cult classics from the 80s. Die Hard, Terminator – I am just waitng for a pg-13 Lethal Weapon 5.
So, the problem is not that there are no hard action flicks anymore – the problem is that hard cult action franchises are reanimated and turned into summer blockbusters for a broad audience.
I hated Die Hard 4.0 but to each it’s own. Good points made on this article.