re: M/TV Board Best Action Movie of All-Time Tournament - ELITE 8 - Voting Closed

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I can only speak for myself.

The John Wick films are cartoons or video games masquerading as live-action movies. They are well-done. They are pretty to look at. But they have zero SOUL. Everything is stylized. Nothing seems remotely REAL.

In this round, compare Lethal Weapon. It also has good acting, humor, human relationships and ... gasp ... a plot. But it DOES have less hand-to-hand combat and gunfire. I just don't think that you measure the "Best Action Film" by counting the number of rounds fired or punches thrown.

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I observed a few rounds ago that Wick is probably moving forward with the support of our ... younger ... members. (I will NOT call them "children with short attention spans.")

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This reads a lot like an old man screaming at clouds. I'm only saying that because of the young comment, which I am not "young."

Back to the actual discussion, it's funny you mention Lethal Weapon, maybe the best story left in the 8, but not Predator - which like Wick is more a pure action movie - or T2 which has a somewhat ridiculous story. So John Wick loses points for "lacking a soul," but T2 steams ahead despite us all giving it a pass for a ridiculous plot? let's be clear, most of the movies left rely on a quite a bit of ridiculousness, outside of maybe Lethal Weapon or Gladiator.

But Back to John Wick, I'd disagree on it lacking a soul anyway even if the plot is no thicker than Predator or the Raid or Jaws. It is a pure action movie, you're right on that, but so are a bunch of other great movies. And in terms of how it sets up its "rules," as a film, it doesn't really have a comparison. Is it highly choreographed, sure, but it's tightly constructed. It's not a Die Hard or Lethal Weapon, "real world," even if it looks like it takes place in one.

I think a few things are different though in that "how good is the thing this action movie does well in the realm of action movies," and while Wick might be the most slick movie left, it also does legitimately have better action sequences than anything but maybe T2. We all recognize that a single film can't really do everything - while Lethal Weapon is funny and might have the most interesting characters, it has the weakest action sequences of any of the films left.

I guess its in what you value, however, so I get that. But I don't think people are voting for John Wick because they are young or don't want a "Story," or don't value a story at all, or even have bad taste. It's simply how they weight those elements in greatest action film.