Food for Thought: Action Scenes

First of all, I want to say that while I’m not movie critic, I am very critical of the films I watch. The difference is that official movie critics get paid and they know what their talking about. I’m just super opinionated and share it with everyone. But I’m not going to judge a particular movie right now. Rather, I’m going to comment on a certain aspect of many films: The action sequence.

I was sitting in a movie theater last summer watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I think the film was up to its third action scene and I found myself getting a little bit bored. I love a good super hero action fight as much as the next guy, but by the third one in about an hour, I was feeling a little exasperated. I was right in the middle of criticizing the movie for its predictability and overemphasis on explosions, when I realized something: The fight was really cool.

I found myself hypnotized by the amazing choreography, the rising suspense, the fast paced music and even the impossible explosions. Not all movies have to be, or try to be for that matter, amazingly emotional or deep. They don’t all aspire to have moving character development and a sensible plot. Some films have impossible heroes doing incredible things just because they can. The fight scenes are meant to be captivating and enjoyable, and don’t have to be written off entirely just for it being the third or fourth in a single film. I realized that it takes so many people to create a good action sequence and I felt bad for slamming their hard work, even if it was just in my head. So when does it become too much?

Many films have been railed on for having too many battle or fight scenes. I would point to the Transformers series as an example. Michael Bay as a director is constantly satirized for his overuse of bombs and action. When the action becomes the main aspect of the film, and the characters have no other purpose but to react to or to be apart of that action, it’s okay say the film is bad as a whole and claim it’s too much.

However, in an age where the visual effect is almost as important as the storyline, I think the individual pieces of a movie should be looked at, out of respect of the people to worked hard to put them together for the enjoyment of the audience. Such as with Captain America: The Winter Soldier. While I wasn’t necessarily loving the fact that it was another fight scene in too short of a time, I think that the fight scene itself was brilliant. Perhaps in Transformers or a different film, there are scenes that are great all by themselves and visually stunning, but don’t automatically add anything to the films their apart of. I think they deserve a little more credit than what they get now.