Raiders Of The Lost Ark: 10 Things That Still Hold Up Today
A lot about Marion Ravenwood’s role in Raiders hasn’t aged well, from Indy dating her as a teenager to the fact that she’s a damsel in distress in most of her scenes (except, notably, the plane set piece when she knocks out the pilot and saves Indy from the strapping mechanic beating him to a pu
Raiders can almost be interpreted as a revenge fantasy. Indy punches his way through legions of Nazis and a bunch of them are gruesomely killed by divine intervention when the Ark is opened, positioning Raiders as a staunchly anti-fascist mo
When James Cameron was hired to write and direct a sequel to Ridley Scott’s masterfully crafted sci-fi chiller Alien , he knew he couldn’t make a horror movie that would come close to matching the greatness of Scott’s masterpie
With explosive cinematography and action-driven storytelling and characters who never have to worry about reloading, John Woo has become arguably the most revered action filmmaker in the world. After making a few movies that glorified gangsters, Woo decided to make a movie that glorified the pol
In the Bible, the Lost Ark updates is passed down to the Jewish people by God, so the Nazis’ theft of it can be seen as a metaphor for the anti-Semitic atrocities of World War II, which Spielberg later explored in more depth in Schindler’s Li
John McTiernan’s Die Hard is the perfect action movie. Bruce Willis’ everyman underdog portrayal of John McClane makes for the quintessential action hero , while Alan Rickman’s delightfully theatrical performance as Hans Gruber makes for the quintessential action movie vill
After the first Mad Max movie presented a bleak dystopia in a somewhat recognizable near-future, the second one dived head-first into a barren post-apocalyptic wasteland ruled by gas-guzzling villainy. Mel Gibson returns to the role of Max, tearing across the desert in his V8 Interceptor, looking for a fight worth fight
However, adventure movies have been playing on screens since the advent of filmmaking, with contributions from some of cinema’s finest directors, so there’s plenty of tough competition for the genre’s top s
It's no secret that the age-difference inferred in the movie between Indy and Marion is problematic . Arguably more problematic, however, are the thought processes the writers had when coming up with the storyl
Every fight scene in Kill Bill , especially the House of Blue Leaves massacre in Volume 1 , was meticulously crafted. Tarantino choreographed the fight scenes and all the mid-action cuts on the page before shoot
Park Chan-wook’s neo-noir revenge thriller Oldboy is a must-see for fans of fight choreography for its iconic hallway sequence alone. The story at large follows a falsely imprisoned man’s attempts to figure out who got him locked up, but in one particularly brutal scene, he takes on a legion of henchmen alone in a hall
Bruce Lee starred in a ton of classic action movies, from Fist of Fury to Game of Death to The Way of the Dragon , but arguably his most iconic work is the final movie he completed before his untimely passing: Enter the Drag
It has everything a Bond fan could hope for : globetrotting action sequences, quippy one-liners, crazy gadgets, a megalomaniacal villain with a ridiculous plan, and a distinctive quirk — Goldfinger is the quintessential James Bond mo
One of the most renowned and influential works of world cinema, Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is notable for its delightfully unrealistic fight choreography. The movie’s gloriously cinematic fight scenes have martial artists floating through trees with the lightness of a baller
There are a bunch of different ways to choreograph a fight scene – like Bruce Lee’s real-life martial arts prowess or Quentin Tarantino’s in-camera editing – and these action movies exemplify the very best of on-screen fisticu
What helps ground the action is that the sequences are well-edited and expertly paced, especially compared to contemporary films. In nearly every scene, with the possible exception of the Nepalese bar fight, it's simple to follow the characters and know exactly where they are in relation to one another and the objects around t
However, that's not to say that it's perfect. There are several issues with the film that even the most avid fans would love to change, especially when there are several racial concepts and predatory behaviors glossed over. With this in mind, since 2021 marks the 40th anniversary of the action/adventure epic, we'll take a look at how the film has aged culturally and cinematica
Modern movies tend to lean heavier into comedic dialogue and would've thrown in a few jokes or visual gags. What elevates Indy's adventure is that it's played straight. His introduction in the Peruvian jungle uses no words, only a head tilt, a flash of his whip, and a slow walk into the light. Similarly, the movie's humor is found through circumstance, not gags, such as when the vine Indiana's clinging to begins to slip, or the snake suddenly appears in his lap on the pl