I’ll grant you the first part is a plot hole, but had Jones not gotten to Marion at all, the Nazi’s would’ve had the amulet, would’ve translated it properly and would’ve gotten the Ark.
Nope. Toht followed Jones to Marion Ravenwood (you see him on the Sea Clipper, reading a newspaper); they were apparently unaware of Marion’s location or the fact that she retained the amulet. (Perhaps that’s why Abner stuck her tending a bar in the middle of nowhere.) And even if they had recovered the amulet, properly transcribed it, found the Well of Souls, and opened it up…they still would have been vaporized by their lack of humility. Whether the (evil cartoon) Nazis recover the Ark or not is immaterial; they still couldn’t have used it against the Allied Forces. Jones could have stayed home, sipping herbal tea and reading King Solomon’s Mines, and the world would have been just as safe. However, we would have been out a two-hour roller coaster ride of a movie, and the doubly classic ending (paying homage to Citizen Kane and recognizing Jones’ futility): “We have top men working on it…top…men.”
Then there’s Goldfinger, the Bond movie in which Bond does absolutely nothing worthwhile. It’s a great, iconic movie, but even a superficial analysis shows that the entire plot could have essentially transpired without Bond…unless you accept the implication that Bond ‘converted’ Pussy Galore from being a man-hating lesbian into a passionate heterosexual willing to betray her conspirator and collaborate with the U.S. Government. (Personally, I think she saw her opportunity to get out of the increasingly untenable scheme bourne of Auric Goldfinger’s malignant narcissism and jumped at the chance.)
As for Hard Boiled–sure, there’s a lot of action, but essentially no story. I don’t know about you, but I find that pretty tiresome after thirty minutes of nonstop bloodshed. One of the marvels about Die Hard is the pacing. McClane isn’t some invulnerable bulletproof superhero; he’s a guy that doesn’t really want to be there, scared for his life, would be perfectly happy to step aside and let the authorities do something if they’d only do something worthwhile, and when he gets into a fight he gets seriously bloodied and beaten. It’s actually possible to suspend disbelief and accept that wisecracking Bruce Willis–an intolerable personality in most films–is actually scared for his life and that of his estranged wife, and only doing crazy shit like jumping off of a building with a fire hose wrapped around his waist because the alternative is credibly more risky. McClane gets to rest once in a while–usually while picking glass out of his feet, or checking what was up with “the man upstairs”–and those interludes gives the viewer time to relax and see McClane as a human being rather than a cartoon figurine.
I’d have to agree that Predator has a great testosterone level, and more B-grade actors than you can pack into a two hours, plus two then-future state governors in the cast, and lines like, “I ain’t got time to bleed!” and “If it bleeds, we can kill it.” The final act was somewhat silly, though. We’re supposed to believe that the Predator can’t see Duke’s infrared signiture because of a little bit of mud? This was Schwartzneggger’s last heyday; after this, his films were mostly self-parody, even good ones like Terminator 2 and True Lies.
Stranger
Of all of those, only Zulu might qualify as a true action movie, and even then it’s also a historical piece; one might as equally argue for Buster Keaton’s The General (which has some awesome action scenes, all done without optical effects or safies). The Wild Bunch has some great action scenes, to be sure, but there is a lot more depth to the movie than that; the final bloodbath inside the fort isn’t supposed to be some kind of joyous bloodletting, but a sad recognition by the Bunch that their time is past, and they can’t go off into retirement, if at all, with Angel’s death unavenged. As for The Great Escape, there’s far too much downtime to call it an action movie; the only real action is after the escape, and most of that was Steve McQueen’s attempt to hop into Switzerland. (I’m always rooting for him to make it, every time, though…)
The less said about Saving Private Ryan the better. It is the culimation of Steven Speilberg’s experience in pushing audiences’ buttons. The first half hour of the beach landing was utterly brutal and cinematically definitive (look at all the films that have since copied the techniques used) but other than that, it’s a mawkish, manipulative story that makes little sense.
Stranger
Nitpick: It was Jesse “The Governor” Ventura’s chaingun.
And I love the Hard Boiled trivia Max Torque brought up (though my vote’s still for Shoot 'Em Up 
). Time to go hit IMDB and see what else there is to see…
I worry about myself when I agree with you. 
Stranger On A Train: Snap, I stand corrected.
You’d think so, but nope. Not me. 
Speaking of which, who do you think the next Predator governor is going to be? I say Carl Weathers.
Sonny Landham (Billy) and Richard Chaves (Poncho) have both run, unsuccessfully, for public office. As far as I know, Carl Weathers has never displayed any political ambitions, but I think he’d make an awesome governor, or barring that, some kind of U.S. Cabinet member. He could show the people of the United States how to economize and make soup from a leftover bone.
Don’t we all?
Stranger
Sonny Landham tried to run for governor of Kentucky, so we could’ve had 3 Predator governors.
Carl Weathers might make a good governor. He could really manage a budget - the man knows how to get a stew on.
Edit: Gah, this is why you refresh before posting. I opened this window a while ago, replied, and then noticed that Stranger had posted pretty much the exact same thing.
These are technically historical war movies, not in the spirit of the over the top action genre.
Additional nitpick: It was a gatling gun, not a chaingun.
Ong-bak starts off with a lot of fast-paced ass-kicking action (the trailers kept emphasizing “No doubles, No wires, No CG!”). As a bonus, the plot is laughably minimal (an old monk simply tells the hero “The village’s religious artifact was stolen. Go git it!”). Unfortunately, it peters out toward the end.
Versus is a fantastic one in my opinion: starts off with a prison break, then turns into one long free-for-all in the woods between multiple factions of yakuza, arms dealers and assorted thugs. Plus a few people interested in a gateway to hell. There’s swordfighting, gunfighting, kung-fu, and plain old fistfighting, plus a supergun. Oh, and zombies. Hundreds and hundreds of zombies. Best line (after the first guy killed comes back to life): “isn’t this forest where we buried all the bodies?”
Minus: No nudity, although there is one cute chick. Also, the plot returns and drags the movie to a halt in the last 15 minutes or so.
How about something from the “hunting the most dangerous game” genre:
Hard Target (John Woo film staring Van Damne and Lance Henriksen)
No Escape (staring Ray Liotta, Lance Henriksen , Ernie Hudson and Kevin “Johnny Drama” Dillon)
Surviving the Game (Ice T, Gary Busey, Rutger Hauer, John C McGinley)
Battle Royale (classic Japanese import)
I haven’t seen **The Condemned ** but I’m sure it sucks about as bad as The Marine.
No votes for The Dirty Dozen? Chock full of action stars, including a former professional football player, John Cassavetes, and Charles Fucking Bronson, starts out with a hanging, ends with a truck knocking a Nazi tank off a bridge, and in between, it’s got Lee Marvin teaching a bunch of cons courage, self-respect, and honor by beating the ever-living shit out of them plus an attack on a Nazi fortress where the heroes shoot, stab, and blow up a bunch of Nazi generals and their wives!!!
I’d have to say that The Dirty Dozen is hard to top.
Speed. Non stop action every minute. Wasted no time. had Dennis Hopper as a villian.
I watched Shoot Em Up tonight. Good lord is that an action flick! Insane body count. Tons of guns. A car chase. Jumping out of a plane. Crazy shit I would never even thought of. But most of it completely unbelievable too. At least they reload occasionally. Overall I’d say it was a great “pure action” movie except for one frustrating thing. Why did Monica Bellucci not do nudity? They were teasing us the whole way and even though we get lots of cleavage and side boobs during the “gunfight while fucking” scene, no actual nudity. Weird. She has nude pics, and I know did nudity in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (she was one of the female vamps that seduce Keanu Reeves in Dracula’s Castle.)
It was also very weird to see Paul Giamatti in his villan role after seeing him as Santa Claus in Fred Claus.
True Lies. My absolute favorite movie of. all. time. Guns, explosions, Harrier Jets crushing police cars, terrorist being shot through a building to explode a helicopter, Jamie Lee Curtis strip tease, car chases, Aaaaaanuld, goofy love story, comedy, and the tango!
Additional additional nitpick: it was actually a minigun (designed specially for the movie iirc) and whilst it was Jesse Venturas’ gun, he was dead at the time so it was being fired by Mac who was in Commando with Arnie as well.
For me Predator or Aliens are definately the two best action movies out there, with Die Hard a close third.
I have high hopes for AVP:R that’s coming out on Christmas day, it looks like it’ll take the best bits out of the two movies and combine them for some actiony goodness.
Possible nitpick of your additional additional nitpick:
The US Army attempted to develop a 5.56x45 version of the minigun, the xm-214. It was impractical. They may have been using one of the prototypes for the movie - some sites mention it like that’s the case but none look authoritative.
He’s considered it - any state would do.
Speaking of chainsaws to the balls, Running Man wasn’t bad.
How about:
Equillibrium (Christian Bale)
and
Kiss of the Dragon (Jet Li)