How would Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood relate to the genre? IIRC, some of the stunts were ridiculously impossible. No giant bazongas that I remember. And it’s not set in modern times. But does the impossibility of the action sequences make it kissing cousins or something?
I don’t think it is new. I think it’s very old but disappeared when film got good enough to demand realistic special effects. Now (and for quite a while), the SFX are realistic so fantasy can return
I was thinking about older movies like that, and I think they’re definitely on the same family tree, but I think this genre we’re trying to identify is definitely post-Bond, and for some reason really coming into its own in the last few years, starting with movies like Bad Boys II and Transporter.
Now, trying to think of war movies that might fit–war movies being about as macho as you can get–the only one that springs immediately to mind is* Inglourious Basterds*. Again, a newer title.
I have quarrel with anybody who puts Taken on the same shelf as Transporter or Crank in terms of realism.
The only really unrealistic thing in the movie was the “computer, enhance!” digital photo kiosk.
Well, personally, I found each logical leap along the way to be entirely outside the realm of likelihood. But as I said above, I can certainly compromise on this one. 
What about Rambo? No, not the 2008 one, the original Rambo, with the subtitle First Blood Part II. Isn’t that the archetypical movie where a man goes nuts and blows everything up real good while making reality his bitch?
I guess my question is, where’s the line between “plain old action movies” and MAN FANTASY?
There are no lines involved. That’s not how genre descriptions work. There are very, very few movies that exist cleanly, unequivocally within a single genre’s “lines.”
This is a descriptive vocabulary, not a prescriptive one: no in is claiming to have discovered a secret rulebook of the Directors’ Guild.
I have Mantasia: Director’s Guide to Mantasy on my desk!
Kayfabe!
In A Better Tomorrow II one of the heroes (Ken?) runs out of ammo and takes out more than a dozen gunmen with a samurai sword. Also, Hard Boiled featured lots of guys diving through the air with heavy handguns (.45s?) in both hands, hitting every one of their targets while not getting a scratch themselves. In fact, I’d say Woo at his most extreme far surpassed Besson or (ugh) Bay in the unreality of his gun combat.
Off topic, but Woo’s utter failure to make a good movie in the states is one of my deepest movie related dissapointments.
Then again, what makes these movies different from regular old action movies? Because I don’t see it.
Why do you think this genre is post Bond? The OP pretty much exactly describes every Bond movie from the first. The only distinction I can draw is the Bond occasionally had a night off to screw the girl, while newer movies try to fit in the screwing during a chase scene.
I would like to add another couple of characteristics to the list for the genre.
- Injuries to the hero are essentially healed (except for some scratches or bruises) in no more than 2 minutes.
- The hero never pays a penalty for an adrenaline rush. They do the superhuman thing, take a couple of deep breaths while hiding behind a wall or something, and start the next mad dash to wherever.
Oh, and did anyone mention the super strength, and extraordinary tailors, these guys must have to carry around the tons of ammunition clips they need? Really, the entire interior of their suit coats must be lined with rows of clips, yet they look remarkably trim.
I think the essence is the over-the-top comic bookish style. Kind of like making all the heroes like Superman, but without the suit. They maybe can’t fly, but they can all outrun explosions.
Again, Bruce Willis outjumped a fireball in the first Die Hard. Action movies have never been realistic and while a certain style of action movie may be popular now, it’s hardly unique to this time period and they don’t really stand out from regular action movies enough to be considered a subgenre all their own.
Then we really don’t have a disagreement, because I would include Die Hard among the genre defined in the OP. Regular old action films, to me, were things of the 50s and 60s, starring guys like Robert Mitchum and Clint Eastwood. (Ok, Clint was superhumanly fast with a gun, but otherwise a pretty normal guy).
Curious you would say that because, back then, virtually all stunts were actually, well, real. Maybe a periodic stunt double, but digital assists and trick photography were more bothersome (if not impossible) than simply putting some shlub’s life on the line.
It’s a progenitor.
If I might draw an analogy, it’s like comparing the work of Jules Verne to modern steampunk. Verne’s work is within the basic laws of physics, kinda. (I’m thinking about 20,000 Leagues and From the Earth to the Moon in particular.) The modern steampunk genre might not exist without Verne’s work, and draws heavily on it. But steampunk pretty well ignores physics when it’s inconvenient, while Verne at least made an attempt to explain it.
Die Hard is on the spectrum, but in and of itself not enough to identify a genre; just a highly shall we say refined example of the Action genre. Its leaps beyond physics weren’t glaringly so; it’s possible for the majority of the audience to take them in their stride unless you really stop to analyze.
The “speciation,” so to speak, into a new genre, I think happened when the attitude of the filmmaker changed from “We can probably get away with that; most moviegoers aren’t physicists” to “Physics? We don’t need no stinkeen physics!” No longer a relatively subtle skirting of physics; an utter disdain for it: “Physics BAAD!”
And as far as being post-Bond, I meant that to be largely inclusive: post-[the creation of]-Bond. Still, there’s a distinct quantum jump from Bond to Transporter.
Anyway, my entire point in calling this a new genre was not necessarily to suggest that it’s a huge leap away from Action movies; obviously there’s an almost total overlap.
My main goal here was to point out that these movies are fantasies: they have as much in common with *LOTR *as they do with classic Action films; they’re fantasies in macho drag, so tough guys can have their fantasies too while their girlfriends are watching Practical Magic. To poke the slim-jim chomping dude in his beer gut and go, “You’re watching a *fantasy *film bruh.”
Years ago I read a comparison that I really like, and I think you’ll like too. Action movies are a lot like musicals. They tell a narrative, interrupted by highly-choreographed, totally unrealistic sequences of characters jumping around a lot, and in the good ones, these totally unrealistic sequences move the narrative forward.