Commando.
Pure awesomeness. The action movie by which I measure all action movies.
He smells them coming!
For me the quintessential Action movie would have nothing BUT action.
The movies already mentioned have plots, bringing them dangerously close to the Drama section.
The Rundown was chock-full of awesome.
The 1981 Chuck Norris vehicle An Eye for an Eye is effing canonical, man! Don’t recall any nudity, but otherwise it’s got all the genre elements in perfect measure – drug-dealer villains, dirty cops, and a martial-artist hero (who somehow usually manages to avoid gunplay and fight the way he’s good at) with a washed-up braggart sensei. But, being made that early, it plays it all straight without descending into self-parody like so many later action films (including practically every one of Schwarzenegger’s).
Aliens had gorillas? It WAS the perfect action movie!
I nominate The Road Warrior, AKA Mad Max 2.
Purest action movie ever made, realism need not apply. Hell, even the obligatory sex scene was during a gunfight.
For me, the gold standard is Hong Kong era John Woo. Particularly Hard Boiled. Operatic in scale and not even remotely believable (Nobody reloads. Ever.) but it still has some of the most spectacular action sequences and gunplay in movie history. Meets 1 thru 3 of your criteria.
Another vote for Die Hard. I remember coming out of the theater and the front of my shirt was soaking wet because I’d been wiping my sweaty hands on it through the entire movie. No other action movie has ever done that to me.
Based on my criteria of “Had an entire theater full of people gasping the whole time” I’ll add another vote for “Aliens” and throw in Jackie Chan’s “Drunken Master 2” (the actual HK version, not the cut, redubbed, retitled American release of same).
And you know what, I’m going to put “Speed” out there. It’s not a good movie. It’s got tons of plot holes. However when I watched it it kept things moving fast enough that I didn’t have time to stop and think about all those problems until I was walking out of the theater. Doesn’t hold up well to repeat viewing because of that.
Big Trouble In Little China is supposed to be stupid; it’s a send-up of Chuck Norris/Billy Jack-type movies, only Jack Burton (the character played by Kurt Russell) is actually the comic relief sidekick to Wang Chi rather than the other way around that is typical for Hollywood flics.
A big “Bzzzt!” on The Transporter or Crank. A real action movie should have, you know, real action; not a bunch of CGI-enhanced impossible stunts. Jason Statham is a good stand-in for Jean Claude van Damme, but you don’t want him to talk much.
True Lies is a good one, too, but it’s really a parody of action/Bond movies (note the beginning scene that pays homage to Goldfinger), and it does have some downtime while they sidetrack onto Harry and Helen’s marital problems before reintegrating that into the main plot. A great satire, but I wouldn’t class it as a pure action movie.
I have to agree with carnivorousplant and pravnik respectively; Die Hard has this neat precision clockwork of a plot, where everything comes together just so, everything that occurs has a reason (like the upturned photograph on Holly’s desk, or the Rolex watch that Ellis gave her), and it ends up with the right balance of action, suspense, menace, and humor. Alan Rickman never comes off as fatuous, even when he has to carry off lines like “I wanted this to be professional, efficient, adult, cooperative. Not a lot to ask. Alas, your Mr. Takagi did not see it that way…so he won’t be joining us for the rest of his life. We can go any way you want it. You can either walk out of here, or be carried out.” Alexander Godunov balances him as a totally out-of-control thug, and William Atherton brings his inimitable brand of on-screen assholishness that ends up putting Holly in danger.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a distillation of Saturday matinee cliffhangers, and never pauses to let you catch your breath, or ponder some of the implasibilities (like a large German Army contingent in British-controlled Egypt, or the fact that if Indiana had just stayed home and graded papers the Ark would have likely remained safe, buried under the ruins of Tanis). Steven Spielberg wishes he could make another movie this good, and this is arguably John Williams’ best score ever. Harrison Ford is iconic, though, but as successive movies have shown, without a tough female lead to challenge him, he comes off looking like a bit of a boob; this may be the only film that Karen Allen can be said to have carried, but without her combination of tomboyness and allure it would have been lacking.
As much as I like Ronin (and I do like it very, very much) I can’t really class it as a pure action movie. For one, it’s directed by the late John Frankenheimer; a great director who can do action very well (as shown in the awesome car chase scenes) but doesn’t just do pure action in anything. It’s also script doctored (arguably almost completely rewritten) by David Mamet, and so the script brings in a lot of nuance and of course Mamet’s characteristic style of dialogue. (It also demonstrates that Mamet’s scripts are usually better when directed by someone else.) In some ways it’s actually a cynical parody of action films; in his commentary (well worth listening to, as he basically explains how to set up and shoot an intelligent action-thriller) Frankenheimer talks about how he wants to show bystanders getting hit by cars or gunfire, because when you discharge a weapon in a crowd someone is going to get hurt.
I can’t end without bringing up Casino Royale, either. It can’t qualify as a perfect action movie owing to the extended poker sequence and the odd, faux ending structure leading into the story’s fourth act, but the action sequences (the free-running sequence near the beginning, the airport chase in the middle, and the stairwell fight in the middle of the second act) are just phenomenal pieces of action choreography and editing, all the moreso because none of it is CGI/optical effects (except some safety wire removal and the backdrop of the plane). If you know anything about how stuntwork is actually done you’ll realize that what was done on this film was outstanding. Plus, I love the car wreck; they set the viewer up to think this is going to be some big action sequence, and then Bond rolls his car (a world record 7 1/2 times). It’s out of the novel, of course, but it’s still genre-bending.
Stranger
Star Wars III Revenge of the Sith
It doesn’t have car chases, but it makes up for that in some pretty sweet space-battle action. The action is non-stop almost from beginning to end.
My first instinct was to go with Return of the Jedi because of Leia in her metal bikini, but the slow parts of that film really slow it down. I’m talking about bumbling around in the woods with Ewoks and Luke chatting it up with decrepit Jedi Masters yawn.
Not very realistic, I forgot about that criteria of yours until now.
Gladiator. Again suffers from lack of naked chicks.
Sin City. Violent, non-stop, fast paced, nudity, but lacking in the realism department.
This is a good question. I can’t think of a single movie that perfectly fits all your criteria.
When I saw the thread title two movies came to mind: “Die Hard” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Both already mentioned, and well explained.
I think “action movie,” as a defined genre, excludes any SF in a non-contemporary space-opera setting such as Star Wars (but can include contemporary-setting SF like Terminator). It also excludes historical dramas such as Gladiator. A filmed graphic novel like Sin City or Batman is a closer call.
Kill Bill Volume I is pretty much nonstop asskicking… with swords.
Also vote for True Lies, The Rock, and anything old school Jackie Chan.
True Lies. The perfect action movie has to have humor, and Jamie Lee Curtis’ strip-tease comes close enough to nudity for jazz.
Personally, I would add the following criteria:
- Oneliners - No matter what the circumstance, the hero has to have a sharp wit about him
- Internally consistant realism - In the world of the Schwarzineggarian action films, Arnold is consistantly over the top while everyone else is mildly to blatantly incompetant
- Charismatic villain - The bad guy has to be a guy you just love to hate
- Action packed thrill ride - It has to be FUN filled with unbelievable stunts you believe can actually work!
- Rewatchability - can it stand up to repeated viewings?
- Maybe a comically mismatched buddy paring
So my finalists for most perfect action movies ever:
The Rock
Terminator / Terminator 2
Die Hard / Die Hard With A Vengence
Lethal Weapon / Leathal Weapon 2
Predator
Big Trouble in Little China
The Last Boy Scout
True Lies
Bad Boys / Bad Boys II
Raiders of the Lost Ark / Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Commando
Point Break
Speed
Armegeddon
Con Air
I intentionally excluded sci-fi like The Matrix or Starship Troopers as well as Tarantino / Guy Ritchie crime action dramas as they are in their own category of awesomeness.
With a strong sci-fi bias:
Aliens (part 2)
True Lies
Fifth Element (nobody had mentioned this?)
All Bournes
Starship Troopers
One of my favourites has already been mentioned - Hard Boiled.
I really think that Die Hard and Die Hard: With a Vengeance were both good action flicks.
I used to think that Speed was pretty close to a perfect action movie.
Seconded.
If it wasn’t action, a cool line, or something involving breasts, it was not in this movie. Hands down, the highest T&A (tits and action)-to-running-time ratio I’ve ever seen.