Comment

Comment by Gift of the Magi on May 29, 2012 at 10:28pm

Two key statements here: he mentions the days of 'male-pattern badness', and also that studios are trying to discourage the intelligent movie goer to show up.

On the second, I completely agree. Of late, studios have made a strong effort to discourage and trend away from anything smart or intellectually based, and focused heavily on the fun, dumb and easy. They have done whatever they can to lower the bar far enough down that they can put out a film that had very little thought but pretty and expect some returns. How many times have we been asked to 'turn our brains off' to enjoy a film?

But the first part...Sly, those film were EXACTLY the ones you claim Hollywood is using to dumb down the industry. Mindless, generic shoot-them-ups with over-muscled guys blazing away at generic ethnic foes. With rare except (such as the amazing First Blood), most of Sly's action films have been just what he thinks has driven away the smart movie-goer...including Expendables.

Comment by C.H. Gorog on May 29, 2012 at 10:27pm

Nope, Stallone is just bitter.

Comment by The Dubya on May 29, 2012 at 10:21pm

@Mattashell

This man is still going strong because he got smart about it and adapted accordingly. These other guys aren't because they haven't. Their excuses are running out...

Comment by Hi, My Name's Matty on May 29, 2012 at 10:03pm

Stallone can be very smart when he wants to be.  Most of the time he doesn't want to be.  

It seems that if you read between the lines, his complaint is that his glory days are behind him, and super heroes didn't take that away, aging did.  Super heroes are in vogue right now, but guys like Chris Helmsworth, Chris Evens and even middle aged Robert Downey would be making Hollywood rich by playing machine gun-toting meatheads if that was what the public wanted.  Super heroes ARE action heroes, and the same type of actors portray them, but you do eventually get too old to do it.

Comment by david chalker on May 29, 2012 at 10:01pm

i think it's abit of both, when stalone was on top i don't think he would have giving to shits about what anyone else was doing but now that he is being edged out he has the shits with it. also i think it's not so much just comic books but also action stars in general that have changed. in the 80's 90's other then james bond you had to be a super buff badass now with movies like limitless, drive, the crow, inception and the bourne series happened things are different. now a action start can be almost anyone if the script is good enough. overall while there is some truth in what stalone said i think it's more a bitterness that for anyone to give a real shit he has to have and avengers level team up with every other 80's 90's action star just to keep himself out there. finally the old action movies by todays standards are stupid b movies. case and point is expendables, it was mean to be the avengers of action movie stars but all they really did was get all these names a put them in a c rate script. it wasn't smart, it didn't do anything different. avengers on the other hand gave you exactly what you wanted, it was an amazing movie with all these big characters you love being badasses together.

Comment by Waylander on May 29, 2012 at 9:59pm

The expendables is the avengers of action hero movies. And they have basically become superheros, they can go into a room and kill everyone in it without breaking a sweat. "discourage intelligent, discerning people, FROM the theater" this makes no sense as nearly every movie he has made is a "leave your brain at the door" kind of movie.Plus Indiana Jones, and Han Solo sold tons of action figures. Now i love Sly (own most of his movies) but i think he is thinking to highly of himself here. I do however wish we had some more good 80s,90s style action hero movies but until then i will just watch the old ones on DVD.

Comment by The Dubya on May 29, 2012 at 9:41pm

The Expendables was lame as hell, and honestly most of those overly-macho-white-dudes-shooting-up-faceless-baddie movies guys like Sly and Arnie did were lame idealized-prepubescent bullshit too. Bringing in Chuck fucking Norris just reeks of utter desperation to force that mold again in a time where it really doesn't work anymore.

I mean really, the foreign action movies (particularly from Asia) have ALWAYS kicked the ever loving shit out of most our American action films anyways, and since they're so accesbile nowadays I can watch THEIR better films instead of settling like you would have to in the 80's. Guys like Van Damme, Arnie, Chuck Norris, Willis, Sly, Body-Builder #4199, the films they really matter in were the ones where they had good stories and characters written for them. Forget trying to blame superhero movies, Alien and Aliens were the real game changers in which not only did you have much smarter stories/characters with your actiony stuff, but you didn't HAVE to have the prototypical Herculean White Male as your main character. If anything those pair of movies really raised the bar and put folks like them on notice. And then with movies like The Matrix and Lord of The Rings and Harry Potter and the Marvel films, the same old Reagan Era Macho Man shit just ain't gonna cut it anymore. You better get creative or smarter or better choreographed and put together in order to stand out.

"When you look at modern action films, outside of comic book characters, who are our current heroes?"

You just said it. It's about the CHARACTERS moreso than the actor being in a bajillion different movies overexposing themselves. And that's the way it needs to be. Give me quality movies with lesser known actors that have good characters over quantity movies with supposed bigger name actors spamming the theaters with a bunch of pandering schlock in desperate attempts to stay relevant...

Comment by Ruben Baeza on May 29, 2012 at 8:46pm

Well they said that the western Genre has died out over the years and people have said it got replaced by sci-fi and buddy cop action films of the 80s. Then again, the true grit remake became a success in 2010 and despite being different it still followed the conventions of a western film. I don't think the traditional action movie genr is fading away, I still enjoy the gargantuan explosions, the amazing action sequences done by stunt teams and the overtly cheesy but well quotable one-liners. I still think a good action film can be made, it just that todays big guns like statham, the rock and vin diesel are not to the standards of willis, schwarzenegger and stallone. It really depends on the actor and the writer. I say this genre is just going to fade away for awhile until the audience starts craving for those snappy one-liners and brutal death scenes we love and enjoy so much. I still watch Die hard and Last Boy Scout religiously and would so look forward to those type of films again.

Staff Comment by Fungusmonkey on May 29, 2012 at 8:26pm

A film of one genre can't diminish a film of another genre (and superhero films are their own genre). For every Avengers, there's a Catwoman. What really brings out the crowds for an action film is good writing and good action. Maybe if The Expendables wasn't just your stock standard "super badasses have to rescue a damsel in distress from evil foreign dictator and/or smarmy corporation" mixed with a ton of 2-second-cuts fight choreography, maybe it would have been a bigger film. You know what you do when there is tough competition? You step up your game. You don't hate on something else's success just because you're not doing as well.

Comment by kyoshira71 on May 29, 2012 at 7:28pm

I think stallon has a point. I mean we are seeing less and less great action movies and more and more superhero movies. I love superhero movies but sometimes they just aren't a replacement for a good o'l action film.  Although I guess it is a sign of the times, since when Sly and Arnie were big there weren't many great superhero films if any. Nowadays however superhero movies are being made left and right while action films are dwindling.

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