Tuesday, 4 October 2016
Action Films: The Top Ten Cliches
There are many different types of action film, from classic beat-down gun violence to ninja martial arts to medieval and 11th Century battles. They all have similar cliches with some difference for example, in a martial arts action film you would see people jumping from wall to wall, which you wouldn't see in 11th Century battles.
1. Action films generally contain a group of assassins (usually Navy Seals or mercenaries) who come together to complete one last dangerous mission before retiring. Some of the men usually don't want to get involved and one of them will eventually enter to save his friends and ultimately die in the process. The leader will try to preserve his unit by telling them to leave but they most certainly will not. The leader will, most often than not, have a backstory of a mission in which he 'lost his soul' and is struggling to redeem any dignity from it.
2. Action heroes generally have extreme upper body musculature. This usually attributes to the shirtless scenes that always seem to occur in action films. These heroes generally go up against a villain or a rival who do not have the same level of muscularity as the protagonist.
3. The action heroes are commonly stabbed in the back by rivals from their organisation or the government or somebody they used to know etc. This is used as the basis for the 'Rambo' movies as well as 'The A-Team', 'Iron Man', 'The Losers' and '300'.
4. The women in action films are usually one of two things. They are either passive femmes fatales or crusading rebels. However, they never get to drive or use any kind of hidden nuclear weapon. This shows that there is very little use for women in action films.
5. The antagonists are usually heavily accented and foreign - usually Russian, Serbian or from another eastern European country - stemming from 'Taken', 'Eastern Promises' and 'xXx'. Another stereotype of villains is that they are cigar-smoking thugs from across the border, untrustworthy Arabs or bureaucrats from Washington or London. Most commonly, a psycho with an eye patch works well.
6. Another convention of action films is the eventual need for impromptu surgery after a dangerous fall or heroic event of some kind. The surgery is usually done self-administered by the hero in a remote location ready to fight the villain once again.
7. There are no cars whatsoever in action films. These are traded for helicopters and assault vehicles instead. These are more useful for battering buildings down etc. Usually, the helicopter ends up in a big crash and a fiery inferno throughout one of the initial or major scenes.
8. Action films, without a doubt, contain enough violence to last a lifetime. From a stream of guns blaring from every angle to assault vehicles and trucks smashing into each other to fires and explosions burning all around.
9. Both the villains and the heroes all end up with a cliched line that it said over and over and is eventually what the film - and the character - is known for. These lines become iconic in the film industry, no matter how cliched the audience think they are.
10. Slow motion features heavily in action films as it creates more tension and more drama in the scene. Slow motion scenes are usually when the hero makes a giant leap for something, or when a woman gets punched in the face, or when the villain gets a bullet through the skull or even when the hero gets, literally, stabbed in the back.
An example of a cliched action film is 'The Expendables'. The trailer is below.
1. Action films generally contain a group of assassins (usually Navy Seals or mercenaries) who come together to complete one last dangerous mission before retiring. Some of the men usually don't want to get involved and one of them will eventually enter to save his friends and ultimately die in the process. The leader will try to preserve his unit by telling them to leave but they most certainly will not. The leader will, most often than not, have a backstory of a mission in which he 'lost his soul' and is struggling to redeem any dignity from it.
2. Action heroes generally have extreme upper body musculature. This usually attributes to the shirtless scenes that always seem to occur in action films. These heroes generally go up against a villain or a rival who do not have the same level of muscularity as the protagonist.
3. The action heroes are commonly stabbed in the back by rivals from their organisation or the government or somebody they used to know etc. This is used as the basis for the 'Rambo' movies as well as 'The A-Team', 'Iron Man', 'The Losers' and '300'.
4. The women in action films are usually one of two things. They are either passive femmes fatales or crusading rebels. However, they never get to drive or use any kind of hidden nuclear weapon. This shows that there is very little use for women in action films.
5. The antagonists are usually heavily accented and foreign - usually Russian, Serbian or from another eastern European country - stemming from 'Taken', 'Eastern Promises' and 'xXx'. Another stereotype of villains is that they are cigar-smoking thugs from across the border, untrustworthy Arabs or bureaucrats from Washington or London. Most commonly, a psycho with an eye patch works well.
6. Another convention of action films is the eventual need for impromptu surgery after a dangerous fall or heroic event of some kind. The surgery is usually done self-administered by the hero in a remote location ready to fight the villain once again.
7. There are no cars whatsoever in action films. These are traded for helicopters and assault vehicles instead. These are more useful for battering buildings down etc. Usually, the helicopter ends up in a big crash and a fiery inferno throughout one of the initial or major scenes.
8. Action films, without a doubt, contain enough violence to last a lifetime. From a stream of guns blaring from every angle to assault vehicles and trucks smashing into each other to fires and explosions burning all around.
9. Both the villains and the heroes all end up with a cliched line that it said over and over and is eventually what the film - and the character - is known for. These lines become iconic in the film industry, no matter how cliched the audience think they are.
10. Slow motion features heavily in action films as it creates more tension and more drama in the scene. Slow motion scenes are usually when the hero makes a giant leap for something, or when a woman gets punched in the face, or when the villain gets a bullet through the skull or even when the hero gets, literally, stabbed in the back.
An example of a cliched action film is 'The Expendables'. The trailer is below.
'Barney Ross leads the 'Expendables', a
band of highly skilled mercenaries including knife enthusiast Lee
Christmas, martial arts expert Yin Yang, heavy weapons specialist Hale Caesar,
demolitionist Toll Road and loose-cannon sniper Gunner Jensen. When the group
is commissioned by the mysterious Mr. Church to assassinate the merciless
dictator of a small South American island, Barney and Lee head to the remote
locale to scout out their opposition. Once there, they met with local rebel
Sandra and discover the true nature of the conflict engulfing the city. When
they escape the island and Sandra stays behind, Ross must choose to either walk
away and save his own life - or attempt a suicidal rescue mission that might
just save his soul.'
(IMDb, Written by The Massie Twins)
Shown primarily as a rip off of Sam
Peckinpah's 1969 classic, 'The Wild Bunch', 'The Expendables' is about
"over-the-hill gunslingers" who aim to defeat their Spanish enemies.
They risk their lives to save the one Spanish person they like whilst being
tracked by one of their former teammates. They eventually succumb to a crisis
of conscience which makes them return to "finish the job". The film
is completed with a cast of former matinee idols. These things are all the same
as in 'The Wild Bunch', making the two films very easy to compare and
criticise.
'Jeepers Creepers' Analysis: Chase-Scene
The scene then cuts back and forth from the teenagers to the house, making it faster paced, creating a sense of danger and further entices the audience. The panning around the mysterious man as the trees block our view, make us feel like we are again in the car with them and makes us feel the sense of urgency and danger that the couple are feeling in that moment. The shaky camera shots as the truck comes up behind them again, shows a sense of danger and makes it more fast paced as we again cut back and forth from the truck to the couple in the car.
During the cutting back and forth, there is non-diegetic sound of some orchestral music, mainly consisting of violins and a deep drum - sort of like the sound motif in 'Jaws'. This comes in and out of the scene at more of the tense moments to create a larger sense of urgency and danger for the audience. This type of music is conventional in a horror film. This music turns slightly adventurous yet still urgent as the scene cuts, again, quicken between the teenagers and the truck. The close-ups of the teenagers' faces throughout show their fear and their dread about what will happen next. This makes the audience feel the same way and encourages them to keep watching.
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