I'm not sure what an action film is anymore. Can I say Gunga Din? My favourite adventure film of all time is the one Woody mentioned Adventures of Robin Hood.
Yes,
Gunga Din is an action film. The difference between the older action films and the current generation is that the older films didn't have to be constant action; they were able to take their time to establish character and motivation.
I guess it's easy to say that the MTV videos changed all that, with the visual editing style becoming rapid and "shocking." But
Raiders of the Lost Ark was released prior to the real MTV revolution, so blaming MTV doesn't really work.
On the other hand, compare
Raiders with Spielberg's earlier
Jaws, which was much more leisurely in establishing it's premise and tone. Is
Jaws an action film? Absolutely. But it follows a different set of rules. So does the original
Star Wars, which gave us time to understand Luke before plunging him in a race across the galaxy.
This is also why, with the exception of
Goldeneye, I included no sequels in my original list of favorites. Sequels cheat, even when they don't mean to, because they don't
have to take the time setting up their stories. (All right,
T2 is a sequel, but it fortunately takes it's time in establishing the kid at the front of the film, a rarity for the form.)
The storytelling suffers when the director and screenwriter are instructed to "cut to the chase" from the very beginning of the film. Without establishing an environment for the action, the action makes little sense. And is it any wonder that so many of the current action films have more than one screenwriter? How can any one writer be expected to come up with a plethora of ideas for action set-pieces? Easier, by far, to harvest the ideas from a field of writers, and then bale them together, hoping it will all make sense to the audience.
I haven't seen the film, but I understand this year's
Hellboy took an interesting slant on creating an action film. What was released to the theaters was the producer version, with quick-cutting to the chase. The DVD release, I've heard, will include sequences that explain how the characters get from one chase to the next, provicing more detail and motivation. If this is true, I hope the DVD release becomes a major success. Maybe it will help pave the way for a return to those ancient storytelling devices.
