Movies That Were Probably Made By a Spasm of Six Year-Olds on Acid: The Top 75 Action Films Poll Results Thread

Frank"a" not "e" oops

x-post - lol me too

SHE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO DIE, OKAY? SHE DOESN'T DIE. She's a Canadian economist who is SMARTER than half of the CIA and she and Bourne/Webb cooperative put the pieces of his life back together and SHE'S THE ONLY WAY THAT THAT HAPPENS.

well, clearly she isn't the only way that happens since they did it in the movies via Julia Stiles' character, and also in the movies she was a German hobo and not a Canadian economist

she was still pretty damned smart though, just massively unlucky

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/bourneulll.png

#30

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM

Paul Greengrass
2007
United States
(315 points, 11 votes)

That thing ran like a well-oiled machine. The fight scene with Desh particularly stood out, insofar as it recalled some of the fight scenes from Batman Begins in its "the camera is barely sufficient to fully capture the swift and brutal fervor of hardcore slugfests" approach, except that the Bourne fight was wholly coherent despite the blinding pace. Nolan should be taking notes.

― Deric W. Haircare

I totally agree with this. I have a really low tolerance for fast-cut close-up fight scenes (I know this is turning into a bit of a "use other criticisms of action films please" thing, but it's TRUE!). This was fast and close-up as you like, but you could totally follow what was going on, physically. Great editing.

― Alba

I've seen the last one already and think it was the greatest of 3. i liked last 2 also but ULTIMATUM was a rock. I loved the part when he called that guy and asked him where he was, and then after that guy told Damon that he was in the office Damon replied: If you were in the office we would have this conversation face to face. Funny guy. I liked it! recommend to everyone

― RJG

The Bourne Ultimatum

I think the Bourne trilogy is, collectively, my favorite straight-up action movie. Most of the rest of my favorites probably wouldn't stand up to Tuomas's rigid action movie definition.

her death was pretty women in refrigerators-y, though dramatically effective. always left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth

SHE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO DIE, OKAY? SHE DOESN'T DIE. She's a Canadian economist who is SMARTER than half of the CIA and she and Bourne/Webb cooperative put the pieces of his life back together and SHE'S THE ONLY WAY THAT THAT HAPPENS.

Lola is Laurel's Goose

ultimatum's set pieces are incredible. the moroccan foot chase culminating in the best, most brutal fight in the series, is remarkable. that fight blows me away. but as a movie it pisses me off a little, especially compared to how compelling supremacy was. i think its kind of lazy crap, to be honest. and the new york car chase always left me wanting

just remembered that Bourne swept this poll i did a while back: best blockbuster multi-movie franchise of the 2000's

her death was pretty women in refrigerators-y, though dramatically effective. always left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth

Oh I despised her death! Especially since it happened right at the beginning of the movie, which always strikes me as dramatically unimaginative; I always appreciate it more when a long-term character suddenly buys it 20 minutes before the movie's climax because it's usually a total blindsiding (see: Serenity).

This exchange was worth the price of admission alone, sadly can't find it on Youtube.

CIA Agent: Uh, sir he drove off the roof.
Noah Vosen: What?
CIA Agent: He drove off the roof!

paddy considine's death in ultimatum is pretty funny though.

the worst modern offender for 'women in refrigerators' syndrome was probably '24', which was kind of bourne-y in an amazingly stupid way.

I started to read the first Bourne novel and thought it was sub-Clive Cussler/Dirk Pitt, tbh. The dialogue was clumsy and it didn't have any of the bad-assedness of the movies.

back up a second, holy lol @ "he just didn't"

sooo, can the vampires in blade be read as a metonym for the IRS?

for a sec i was trying to figure out what "Pretty Woman in refrigerators" could mean

I don't recall any sci-fi content in Chain Reaction, but it was so forgettable I can't say. Like JMnemonic, it grossed about $20M domestically, so it's hard to get "fatigue" from something you never saw.

well-oiled machines vs thrill rides vs cinema

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well-made_play

when the first Bourne movie came out, my brother called it "a stair-driving tour de force," and that's still the phrase that pops into my head when i think about those movies

i think i've seen them all but they've honestly left zero impression on me, for some reason idgaf about the whole thing

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/bournesupp.jpg

#29

THE BOURNE SUPREMACY

Paul Greengrass
2004
United States
(325 points, 14 votes)

aside from its untradtional narrative (task rather then charchter based), its short cut, dark colour, murkly light, paranoid pacing and almost manic editing. it also did not have the hollywood endings, the geewhiz spy shit was kept to a bare minimum and the acting was first rate (joan allen and matt damon)
the interesting thing was how much of it was a current meaphor of intellgenice, w. allen tying to find the truth about governments secerts and another, ugly, fat, white, bad suited, (obv. republican) agent got money from russian oil, said things like i am a patroit and wanted to "liquidate" the assisan because he might have know things about said dirty deals.

the actor looked like dick cheney with hair, and the oil company was called pukev (shades of yukov--sp)

the ethical nature of the cia, what they did to bourne and the implications of that was not approached in the movie directly, but hinted at thru the obv. ptsd amensia that bourne had, and julia stiles having a line about the mental health effects of the work.

(speaking of stiles--there was a scene w. him and stiles in a train utility room, which looked standard man beating up standard women, action movie misogyny, until he loses it, on the cusp of sanity, and you have no which way to tell how he will react)

car chase in moscow that ends the movie, catastrophic and true, no fancy balachine with buicks, just a hard death to the end of a hard movie)

― anthony

i luvved it, maybe more than the first (it's been awhile since i've seen the first), no clive owens this time round though so probably not. not an ounce of fat on it, the narrative was trad spyflick 101 - not quite sure what you're on about there anthony - with any deviations from a->b->c being when it focused on character. damon plays it lean, comes a helluva lot closer to being delon here than he did in ripley, joan allen is good, brian cox actually somewhat disappointing - less interesting replay of william stryker, i kept waiting for anna paquin and iceman to pop up during the confrontation scene. julia stiles gorgeous per usual, but when she was terrified (and that scene was kinda harrowing cuz it did seem very possible bourne would off her) she looked like an angry baby. the deaths actually felt like they mattered, i'd rathered it'd ended with him walking away in the snow in moscow after asking the girl to forgive him instead to the relatively glib ending that tacked on, but i guess they felt this made the better dooropener for the sequel (which i will see).

― cinniblount

I'm a total playa-hata when it comes to high-speed editing, and while this could be seen as the case in BS, I think it's more the case of quirky hand-held cinematography and the lack of lengthy scene-setting and lengthy pace-making that makes the film feel as frenetic as it does.

and total props to Damon who's really growing into himself. There're an awful lot of close profiles of Jay Bourne, and the character - and actor - has a face that's at once doe-eyed and hard-edged. As Bourne drives through Berlin at night, the traffic lights refracting off the raindrops on the car's windshield glance against the prep-school impertinancy of his cheekbones, and the shadows gouge deep ruts into his cheeks and offset the funny hardness at the end of his nose. It's easy to imagine Damon evolving into a Cagney-type.

And Brian Cox is, again, absolutely amazing.

― j e r e m y

you need to see the bourne supremecy right now...like right fucking now

the Bourne movies just are really not based on the books, theyre a diff style of thing, the screenwriter has said that he actively dislikes the books fwiw

hah, wow

lol are these really one right after the other? ha.

x-post

kind of surprised that none of the bournes is going to be in the higher reaches of this poll. but lol at coming grouped.

should've been higher

...it was a simple twist of fate that i'm not dressing up in Neo suits at every Comic-Con in the western hemisphere right now.

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Thursday, February 16, 2012 11:17 AM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's because you met a woman, right? And not some personality growth or w/e

"the actor looked like dick cheney with hair" resonates w/me

mad at myself for not at least voting giving bourses all the points they deserve better

man i used to drink and post a lot

Yeah, really disappointed Supremacy isn't higher.

It is by far the best of the lot. The fight in the kitchen, the improvised explosion... awesome.

I have a three-pack of them at home and have only watched the first one (and so, have been nursing an uninjured hand for 20 minutes) - I guess I should sort that out.

2 > 3 > 1

2>1>3

tbf, they're all excellent and it's probably more like 2 > 3/1

1

2-3-1, I think, but they're all pretty close

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/onceupon.png

#28

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST

Sergio Leone
1968
Italy/United States
(346 points, 10 votes)

The score sets it all off perfectly Julio - you do know that Morricone and Leone worked in tandem and the score was meticulously composed scene by scene, and was built around the complex plans that Leone had in his head, down to the personalities of the characters and the events that take place in the movie. Even Harmonica’s blowing is deliciously well conceived – I mean who plays a harmonica like that – nobody right, because it’s the sound of a dying man’s last breaths.

― @lex K

Harmonica's origin scene tho, that's some awe-inspiring superhero type shit.

― Daniel_Rf

Not a word on Jason Robards yet? A legend for his stage work, this is likely his best movie perf. Can you believe Paramount cut his last scene in '69??

I go back and forth between this and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly as SL's best, but I always choke up at the water-carrying finale.

Also, seeing at least a couple Ford films where Fonda is the hero should be a prerequisite for enjoying him fully in this; it was considered shocking casting.

"Keep yer lovin' brother happy."

― Dr Morbius

Enthuse over Once Upon A Time In The West please

why would you nurse an uninjured hand

Glad someone asked.

it's a euphemism

for milk

like when i told my wife i needed to unveil my poll

think that might just be european for "sucking my thumb" ?

Watching "Die Hard 3," and it's much better than I remembered. Thanks, ILX!

Oh, also, Leone rules.

OMAR!

man i fucking love the bourne supremacy. i gave it 44 points.

the chases in this movie are so good. i mentioned the american embassy scene from identity as being representative of the series, but for me the iconic bourne chase has always been the berlin hotel escape in supremacy. the way it refuses to arrive at a throw-up-its-hands-and-hit-the-'the hero wins'-button moment is stunning to me. the GSG chase bourne down like a ragged dog and he has to do everything he can think of just to stay a few inches ahead of them. it's not a movie that's satisfied with doing something ordinary, and as a viewer i have to appreciate that

i saw it with my dad when it came out, and afterwards he uncharacteristically commented that the moscow climax was one of the best car chases he'd ever seen. he's a pretty taciturn guy and also not necessarily into whiz-bang stuff, so i was surprised. but i tend to agree. amateurist pointed out at the time that every impact is shot within the car, which is cool. i love the lead-up to the chase too, lots of in-the-moment over the shoulder photography of bourne limping through russian supermarkets and scrapping to survive.

politically the movie still impresses me. as blount pointed out back then, how many american spy movies end with their cia trained killer apologizing to the family (played by the girl from moodysons Lilya 4-ever) of one of his hits? that scene always floors me.

and right after it is one of the most remarkable shots of greengrass' career - bourne exiting her apartment building, shot from above, the camera pans up to the building across the lot, and keeps panning up and up and it seems like the building never ends. the audience i was with collectively muttered 'damn' at that shot. the mise-en-scene of the russian sections is great, and with very little explanation you pick up so much about the hypercapitalist dystopia russia had become

2>1>3

― wolf kabob (ENBB), Thursday, February 16, 2012 12:17 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink