2. OVERVIEW
In this film genre one or more heroes have to face a variety of challenges that
require crazy fights and intense chases. There is usually an evil villain and lots
of life threatening situations. The hero has to face incredible odds and after
lots of violence and physically effort by the hero involving guns, death and
explosions the hero is usually victorious, and defeats the villain. Action has
been a major success since the early twentieth century.
3. EXAMPLES OF ACTION MOVIES
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Terminator
The Matrix
Rambo
Wolverine
The Expendables
James Bond
Robocop
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
300
4. ACTION FILMS THROUGH
HISTORY
During the 1920s and 1930s action based films were often also adventure
films, in the 40s and 50s this developed into war and western films. An
example of this is ‘Run for Cover’, a western film that was released in 1955.
As the 50s progressed the spy-adventure genre started to get popular and in
the 60s ‘James Bond’ easily dominated all other action films of the era. In the
1970s ‘James Bond’ had competition when films such as ‘Dirty Harry’ were
released. ‘Dirty Harry’ signaled the end of cowboy western films. The 1980s
was a big era for the genre when famous actors such as Arnold
Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis started appearing in films. In the 90s films
budgets increased dramatically and by the 21 st century films such as ‘Sherlock
Holmes’ and ‘Casino Royale’ were released.
5. PROPS IN ACTION
Typical props in action films consist of –
• Guns
• Hand grenades
• Knives
• Axes
• Cars
• Planes
• Boats
6. LOCATIONS
Typical locations in action films consist of –
• Military Bases
• Motorways
• Car Parks
• Cities
• Banks
• Sky scrapers
• Office Blocks
