HOW TO FIX ACTION MOVIES (like the Gray Man and other Netflix garbage)

Action movies. They used to be the cornerstone of Hollywood. Now the only genre that seems to get worse every year. It really struck me when watching The Gray Man on Netflix. This movie has everything good ish writers and directors, brilliant actors, big budgets, cool locations. So why then does it feel so incredibly eh And this video of cut it down to three main points, which I feel The Gray Man and so many other new action films completely miss. Or I might just be a nostalgic asshole. F

ight me. The points are. Overall, you see that this category is dedicated to moments of something absolutely spectacular happening, like Jackie Chan almost dying, jumping off a six storey shopping market. I think I'm going to die. Yeah, I just. Oh. First, I'd like to mention the newly released prey. The plot is basically the predator. But in the 1700s, and we follow a young Comanche hunter looking to prove herself. But it's not really until the second half of the film when they've earned

it, that the slaughter really starts happening. And, oh, boy, is it good. I'd say about one third of the kills make you go, Oh, either because of cool spectacle or extreme violence. And yes, I know you're thinking this is extremely obvious and it is, but they still keep getting it wrong, mainly because studios seem to think that we won't notice when what is supposed to be a crazy cool moment instead looks like a video game cut scene. I'm not telling you to make channels real, but police cr

ashing vehicles zero-G blanks and squibs will always look better. And it's not like you don't have the money. Also, extreme violence is cool. Oh, God. I'm on some kind of watchlist now, aren't I. You are watching an action movie. It's about violence. Just embrace it. Look at Starship Troopers. Why did Verhoeven spend so much of the budget getting incredible amounts of insanely realistic, torn to shreds corpses? Just a stirr about. Was it part of a critique of the logical end point of the

death cult of fascism? Yes. But also, you should look at that guy. That's crazy. What the fuck is the medic going do? Scoop his brains back in. God, I love this movie. Which leads me to the abhorrent use of CGI in the Great Ormond and other new action films. You barely notice it, and it's just so utterly unnecessary. You know what I think of every time I see a little dust kick up like this? Nerds on YouTube having shootouts with crappy after effects filters in 2010. And what about these cop

s here? I'm not asking for Rambo for chopping people in half here, but give me something. This looks like the guy started shooting, and then they all had a synchronized stroke. But consider this scene from John Woo's 1992 masterpiece, Hard Boiled. Everything is exploding all the time and everyone's doing crazy parkour and really fast. It's hectic and it's the main point of action in your film is shooting guns. Then I'd rather watch those guns to an absurd amount of non CGI damage rather th

an some poofs and CGI bullet holes. You have hundreds of millions of dollars. Why can't you use some squibs and banks? I don't want to watch someone hanging out of a stupid CGI plane. I want the real shit. Action. CGI has become so normalized I don't think people even see it anymore. Do you know who sees it? Tom Cruise sees it. He's not going in the CGI plane except for that one time. But even then, it was shot in a real plane and did 64 takes rotating zero GS. And in Mission Impossible f

ive, he's actually on the outside of the plane. God bless you, Tom. Or see new. Bless you, I guess. Meanwhile, the green screen brothers with the big rig for Grey Man. They also have the philosophy that faster cutting means faster action. Almost like they think that's like editing incomprehensibly fast. No one will actually notice that what you're making isn't really that good. This guy has a good video on the specifics, if you're interested. And enough with the drone cameras. Oh, my God. Ok

ay, Next point. The Gray Man is based on a novel by her dad's favorite spy thriller writer, which makes sense since the Russos had their first big success making The Winter Soldier, which is basically a spy thriller and probably the smartest Marvel film. But that's like writing The Smartest Barney the Dinosaur Episode Sierra six as a criminal hired by the CIA to do real bad shit. Or, as I like to call it, completely normal CIA things. But then the CIA has a new boss who is a dick man. Sier

ra sex finds the evidence and bad CIA boss hires incompetent stepdad Chris Evans to kill Ciara. But he's really bad at it. So he kidnaps six CIA dads and kills a CIA mom. And there's a big shootout in Prague. A CIA dad has a daughter, but she's sick. And like Ryan Grey, man has a bond with her because both their lives depend on this spook. And it's like a whole thing. Her. The Russos wanted this movie. If you're going to do something like that, you want something like prank where Jason Sta

tham has been poisoned that only has an hour to live unless he keeps the adrenaline coursing through his body while he searches for an antidote. But no, this is a spy thriller, remember? Instead, we go meandering around, trying to figure out the mystery. And what's the payoff? No, the CIA is bad. If you want balls to the wall action, then your script should be well, crank or the beautifully elegant. Mission Impossible two. I know what you're thinking. That movie is stupid. He's being ironi

c. And you're not wrong. Except. Wait. Yeah, you are. It's basically the Metal Gear Racing revengers of the series. It's James Bond turned up to 11. Who is that? Sir Anthony Hopkins Zimmer's score to the movie. How did that get the double crosses? Cheesy romance. Slo mo pigeons and motorcycle chases never end. And who wrote this incredibly stupid script? Oh, that's right. The same guy who wrote Chinatown. You know, the greatest screenplay of all time. The plot is absurdly simple. Big Pharma

has made a scary virus they are going to unleash so they can sell people the cure and become rich heroes. The only way to stop them is to send in Tom Cruise's crush, a.k.a. the bad guys Ex-girlfriend. To be undercover cook Tom Cruise and find out their plans. Now, the turn of the story is Tom Cruise finds out the CIA is bad. Oh, just kidding. His girlfriend infects herself with the virus instead of letting the bad guys have it. You infected yourself with the virus? I've had worse. What are

you going to do, shoot me? I was looking really forward to sharing that zucchini. Something, something easily reproducible meme material to be quoted by nerds for fucking ever. That's all I have to say about Marvel banter. But yeah. Mission Impossible two as the one that always gets blown off as just a stupid, cheesy movie. It's the point. Mission impossible to. The Gray Man has a mediocre writer trying to write a smart action film. And Mission Impossible two has a genius writer writing

the dumbest movie of all time. Side note on this, I'm going to make a really controversial statement. Taking another person's life is a big deal. The fact that the solution in so many films is to pick up a gun and go fucking ballistic is a worrying. And honestly, if you're going to have a movie with an emotionless killing machine, murdering a boatload of people, then the least you could do is have a good reason. I mean, if not, then it's just a boring guy killing boring people boringly. W

hich leads us all to the next big points. The stakes should be rising to a climax before it seems like the hero has failed. But then he somehow prevails. That's the classic formula. Plus minus, some twists and turns and exploding motorcycles. Now let's look at some stakes in popular movies, shall we? If Brian Gossman fails, the CIA dickhead gets away with doing atrocities and Chris Evans is going to pop CIA dad and his daughter, who kind of ghoul John Wick doesn't even have stakes. He's just

angry. But it gets a pass because dog the Tomorrow War. Red notice. I honestly don't remember a second of this movie, and I watched it like yesterday. The hunt for revenge on rich people. Oh, God is right behind me. Disney. Everything. In 2019. 1996. The Rock. A bunch of cool, neglected spec ups, guys under the command of Ed Harris betrays the United States Steel's nerve gas missiles and takes over Alcatraz prison. They demand to get what they are owed by the states. They are going to lau

nch the missiles into San Francisco. So the FBI gets Nicolas Cage, who is the super poison expert, and the only one who can disarm the nerve gas missiles, as well as Sean Connery, an imprisoned superspy and the only man to escape Alcatraz Island when the Navy SEALs escorting them all get marked. It's up to Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery to stop all the coup as black ops guys or Ed Harris will gas all of San Francisco and Cage's pregnant wife. It's a it's it's die hard. It's super die har

d. The last time you tell your men to safety their weapons, drop them on the deck and not give that order. Well, I'm not going to repeat that. I will not give that order. The hell is wrong with you, man. You are. You have to secure the ones. Ah. Ah. You must never have. To shut the door. I need you, Baxter. You're either with us or against us. What was I talking about ? Right. I don't really hate the Gray Man because it's painfully mediocre, mostly because it cost $200 million. That's 35 mil

lion more than fucking done. It's the same amount as Tenet. You know where Nolan crashed an actual jumbo jet? I mean, the plot there sucks, too, but at least it's a fucking spectacle. You could also make Mad Max Fury Road for Dredd or 45, The Raid two. So what I'm saying here is just make your film an easy to follow ultraviolent soap opera with as many practical effects as possible. And you are going to have a good time. Okay. I'm ending the video now because I hate it and it basically bro

ke me. The next one will be much better, I swear. You still like it somehow. Please consider subscribing there. Thank you very, very much to my beautiful, beautiful, talented, sexy patrons. See you next time. And also probably the. Likeliest of the worst imaginable.