By Aaron 4/16/2008
Where have all the action heroes gone? We’re not talking biopics, epics, fantasy flicks, just explosions, blood and villains who talk too much. Some of the classic action heroes are going back to their classic movies – trying to cash in before Alzheimers sets in and they forget how to talk the talk, Indiana Jones, Die Hard, Rambo, Rocky. Unfortunately the genre is dieing because there’s no NEW blood. There are typecast male action heroes, and there are the unbelievable ones.Who will lead us back to the golden age of action movies?In honor of one of the most talked about action pairings of all time – Jackie Chan and Jet Li, here is my list of the seven main action archetypes.
The tank
Was: Arnold and Dolph
Now: Vin Diesel, John Cena, The Rock
Favorite: Terminator 2 (or anything Arnold)
You have to start with the tank – etched into our memories forever with the Terminator’s cold, rigid killing in 
Terminator and his naked ass kicking in the opening of Terminator 2. The tank is an action power force. A dude who just kicks ass in traditional fashion and is usually really big. No fancy gunwork or ninjitsu, just brute force. To be a tank you have to catch a break – Arnold had James Cameron and a small bit of personality to carry him, while his European counterpart Dolph Lundgren had none of those and was relegated to B-Movie DVD’s. After Arnold hung up his leather jacket for the governor’s suit, Vin Diesel tried to seize his throne with Cameron-wannabes like The Chronicles of Riddick, but failed to cement his power. John Cena tried to start a movie career after dominating in the ring, and The Marine, would have been campy if it had been a direct to DVD special. My favorite for the heir to Arnold’s throne is Dwane “The Rock” Johnson. Movies like The Rundown showed me The Rock has the personality, the flare, and the sheer strength to take his place atop Arnold’s throne. Unfortunately we might never see if The Rock takes Arnold’s throne because the guy is too busy pumping out farce comedies and Disney movies.
The kickboxer
Was: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, Steven Segal, Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee
Now: Jet Li, Tony Jaa
Favorite: Enter the Dragon
Following up the beast with the slight of feet contrasts the bludgeoning tactics of the tank with the finesse of the 
kickboxer. Jean-Claude Van Damme, made a bajillion movies where he uses his kicking to rise to the top of the tournament heap, from Bloodsport to Kickboxer, to my favorite, The Quest (with a great cameo by Roger Moore). It’s hard to mention kicking without Chuck Norris who’s roundhouse kick jokes have conquered the world, but just like Segal, Norris’ acting is hard to watch, lacks personality, and his style is boring. You know it’s bad when Segal and Norris make Van Damme seem exciting and colorful. The real greats of this genre are Jackie Chan and more classically, Bruce Lee. Making quality movies with interesting fighting styles and better plots, the two of them are really the face of the genre. Who can replace them? Jet Li burst onto the American scene with a role in Lethal Weapon 4 and followed it up with a bunch of movies with rappers (never a good formula). Jet Li is past his prime and looking to move away from the genre, so who can be the new face? Tony Jaa, who’s movie, The Protector, inspired this article. That movie is simply an action gem – lots of fighting, simple plot and lots of Jaa-fighting-originality. All he needs to do is make more American movies to reach commercial success.
The spy
Was: Sean Connery
Now: Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Daniel Craig
Favorite: Goldfinger
Espionage is a completely different mentality than the two barfighters discussed above, we never grow tired of super 
agents saving the world. How can you even breathe on spies without discussing THE spy, James Bond? Or THE James Bond, Sean Connery? Smooth, suave, slick, smart, stealthy, Connery is the spitting image of the perfect spy. He’s smooth even in old age – The Rock is one of my favorites. It is pretty hard to fill the void created by a screen legend. However, there are three actors I like who are competing for Connery’s chair. The first is Matt Damon, whose Bourne movies revolutionized and modernized the genre. Combining slick, fast-paced action and a chase-pace, his intelligent Bourne movies made Bond reinvent himself and inspired pretenders like The Shooter. The Shooter’s Wahlberg was great in that role, bringing his own personality to the save-the-world-spy. Starting with Connery and mentioning the reinvention of the Bond franchise mandates mentioning Craig, who slipped into Connery’s tux and saved Bond. Not to be entirely typecast, Craig was also great in the spy-like L4yer Cake by Matthew Vaughn. Of the three I am already growing weary of Damon, am yet to be truly impressed by Wahlberg, and am most excited for Craig’s future films.
The gunfighter
Was: Clint Eastwood, Chow Yun-Fat
Now: Milla Jovovich, Kate Beckinsale
Favorite: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Jumping back to killers, the gunfighter is a battle-hardened loner who uses intelligence and fast hands to clear his path. The golden age of Hollywood’s sword fighting extravaganzas with Errol Flynn was replaced by quick draws 
and machine guns. THE gunfighter is Clint Eastwood, whose The Man With No Name-Sergio Leone movies are the crowning bookend of the western genre, the origin of the gunfighter. Chalk up the Dirty Hairy movies and Clint has few peers who cover so many periods and characters we picture as the gunfighter. The image we have of the man with a magnum in his hand, staring down a villain and our mouth curling into, “you feelin’ lucky, punk?” Bringing a little bit of new flare is Chow Yun-Fat whose John Woo movies and intense, gritty gun-play inspired Quentin and the Wackowskis. In the modern action-movie genre with The Matrix’s bullet time leave few actors who ARE the gunfighter, or embody the role as well as Clint did. My closest favorites (I bet I will get some backlash from this) are two women: Milla Jovovich and Kate Beckinsale. Milla has made a bunch of fast paced, gun-toting actioners from The Fifth Element to the Resident Evil movies. With her intensity and speed, she plays the part well. The only problem is her movies are often a small step above B-Movie flicks. Kate has only made a few films that put her in this category, the Underworld pics, but they showed elements of a great shooter underneath Kate’s beautiful exterior. It helps that they both look great too.
The adventurer
Was: Harrison Ford
Now: Michael McConnaghy, Shia LeBeuf, Paul Walker
Favorite: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Take a step back, lighten things up, stir in some humor, and save the world. Akin to the spy, the adventurer does all of the same things, usually in a little bit lighter vein and does not have the ‘coolness factor’ of belonging to a 
super-secret-government-agency. What they lose in coolness, the adventurer makes up for in charm and badassery. The epitome of this is Harrison Ford who manages to win us over in this capacity twice, in Star Wars and Indiana Jones. In different galaxies, in different times, Ford has that cavalier charm we love, while fighting the stormtroopers of the Evil Empire or the stormtroopers of the Nazis. Adventure movies are pretty popular, the default action movie formula, but it takes a lot of little things to make a good movie. Michael McConnaghy’s Sahara was pretty much a modern reinvention of Indiana – complete with archaeological leanings and magnetic appeal. But that franchise was stopped in its tracks by mediocre box office and Clive Cussler’s pigheaded lawsuit that deep-sixxed any attempt at more movies. Shia LeBeuf seems to have an edge to take over Ford’s market share here considering he had a big hit with Transformers and is in Indiana 4. My favorite is Paul Walker, whose Running Scared belongs more in a different category, yet showed that Walker had the chops and the personality to make a great film. If he can ratchet up his adventurers from Into the Blue quality to Running Scared quality, he could be a great adventure hero. And YES, I know he made those cheesy Fast and the Furious movies, but a guy has to make money when he’s starting out.
The hard-ass
Was: Bruce Willis
Now: Jason Statham
Favorite: Die Hard with a Vengeance
A hard-boiled twist on the adventurer is the hard-ass – a tough as nails character who has the force of the world 
against him but rises to the occasion to defeat the bad guys with the weight of the world on their shoulders. Someone who overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds is John McClane, Bruce Willis’ Die Hard legend. Whether it is saving a building full of people or innocents kept circling an airport in planes McClane gets the job done. Sure, it’s not pretty and McClane gets wrung through the grinder, but at the end of the day, you can better believe we owe McClane some thanks. Nowadays Hollywood is more worried about slick and smooth than they are about grit, but the one who comes close to echoing McClane’s sentiment is Jason Statham. In The Transporter movies Statham tackles terrorists and criminals in the same group as McClane and uses similar tactics, moves, and lines to show the world that he’s more than just a hard-ass, he’s also a bad-ass. Now if only Statham would stop making piss pour movies that seem to be The One, over and over again.
The buddy
Was: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover
Now: Chris Tucker, Owen Wilson, Sean William Scott and Steve Zahn
Favorite: Lethal Weapon 4
Last but not least, not quite the action hero, but the main component to a fun action movie. Not just a side kick, but something more. Where would cop movies have gone without the straight experienced cop and the young gun 
funnyman? We’re talking 48 Hours, Beverly Hills Cop, and Lethal Weapon. Lethal Weapon became the template of the serious older cop played by Danny Glover and the charming, off-the-cuff new guy, Mel Gibson. These movies are a lot of fun and cram in plenty of action – most of which is kept together by comic chemistry between the two cops. Recently the buddy comic relief has teamed up with Jackie Chan in the form of Chris Tucker (who never stopped talking) and Owen Wilson (who stopped talking sometimes). Those movies would have been impossible without their forerunners discussed above. What do new actors have to offer? Sean William Scott seems to offer a slightly sharper take on Owen Wilson’s beach boy comedy with a hysterical do-nothing-right role in movies like The Rundown where Scott turns in a good performance as a guy on the run who ends up teaming with The Rock. My favorite though is Steve Zahn who was buddy-buddy with Martin Lawrence in National Security, a campy buddy-cop film, and much better in Sahara as the comic presence next to McConnaughy’s rough and tough action charmer.
Why seven? Perhaps it was a random number. Or maybe I just ran out of steam. Either way, despite the action hero being pushed to the brink of death, it seems the villain has begun to gloat - the time is now for the action hero to regain his hold! It could be you! If you want to be an action hero, this is worth a read. If you don't want to be an action hero (why not!?!) well, I don't know what to tell you.
~ Read other articles in our Fanboys series ~
FANBOYS #3: Graphic Novels – about the best movies based on graphic novels
FANBOYS #2: Hidden Comic Gems – about the underrated comic book movies you probably have not seen.