Greetings from Canada, a country where we get all the American movies and even the occasional Canadian one, so it's the best of both worlds... although Canada hasn't put out a really great action movie in... ever. We're kind of stuck in "movies that make us think," for some odd reason. Relax, I'm working on it.
Anyway, since we're all a bunch of adrenaline starved males here, best movie fight scenes:
1. THE HUNTED. Bonham and Hallam's first clash in the forest. The fight told a story in a way that I have rarely seen before. All the history of two perfectly matched warriors came bursting out in a fight that was initially extremely controlled and patient, then gets progressively angrier. I cannot watch the movie without rewinding that scene at least twice. Art as is rarely seen in action films. The fact that Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro did all their own stuntwork in the fights makes it even more impressive.
2. UNBREAKABLE. Okay, I may get some flack for this one, but hear me out. A cloaked Bruce Willis grabs a janitor from behind, and chokes him out with a forearm. That's it. The orange-suited baddie thrashes around and slams Bruce into walls until he finally asphyxiates. To me, the simplicity of their struggle makes it all the more powerful, impassioned, and brutal. Gives me chills every time, as does the wonderful musical score by the great James Newton Howard. Intense, poetic, and the epitome of justice.
3. STAR WARS, EPISODE ONE. True, the final battle with Darth Maul was the only saving point of this overdue yet overdrawn film, but what a saving point! The fact that Darth Maul was played by a stuntman rather than an actor ensured that he would have no lines and no depth of character, but his contractually obligated silence made him so much more menacing than Darth Vader or even the lovably cheesy Christopher Lee. Fast, flashy, tragic, and triumphant. Thumbs up to Ewan McGregor, too. I confess that I rolled my eyes when I first heard he was filling Obi-Wan's shoes, but he carried it well in all three films.
4. THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RINGS. Saruman vs. Gandalf! The ultimate example of creative liscense souped up the movie in ways that even the impressive acting and graphics could not. The aforementioned Christopher Lee and Ian McKellon blasting each other across the room without ever actually touching one another, and it's still absolutely brutal. Grandpa's Deathmatch 2000, what more could you ask for? The faceoff with the Balrog can barely even be called a fight scene, but gets marks for being one of the most powerful depictions of good vs. evil to ever be seen in a film. Incredible.
5. FAMILY GUY. Peter's life or death battle with the chicken who gave him a bad coupon. Hysterical, brutal, and even shows ominous hints of a sequel....
6. THE MERCY OF WOLVES. Operatives Chester Wolf and Vance Cougar have such a tragic past between them, it is almost heartbreaking when they finally realize that they have no choice but to kill each other. Only one can live, but they have so much more that needs to be said. Believably, the most lethal men alive. (If you haven't seen it, it's the one good action flick that truly is Canadian. Read the novel, too.)
7. COLLATERAL. A random chance gunfight, won by pure luck. No hand-to-hand (That just would have been too painfully one-sided) but Jamie Foxx firing with his eyes closed is priceless, and Tom Cruise should have got an Oscar nod just for the way he yells "I do this for a living!" Drama in the midst of action, and it works.
8. ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY. The death or glory street battle of the San Diego newsteams is the funniest and most cringingly brutal thing I have ever watched. It escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand fast... Steve Carrell with a hand grenade also provides the best line in the movie, when asked how he acquired it. "I don't know," is a perfectly logical, no-nonsense answer in Brick's simple mind.
9. THE MATRIX. Neo and Morpheus in the training center. Has any fight scene been so instantly immortalized, or endlessly parodied in everything from "Scary Movie," to "Hoodwinked?"
10. THE TRANSPORTER. Brits don't usually get the best martial arts roles, but Jason Statham establishes himself as the coolest man on the planet from the moment he comes flying through the peep-hole on the front door. Again, extra marks for doing all his own stuntwork. Impressive, and extremely cool.
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ma_marcil
19 years ago
Nice picks Discodaggett. And since we evolved to gunfights in this message board, well I will just start with what I consider the best, or at least one of the best gunfights I have ever seen in movies,and that is the climatic bloody showdown at the end of "The Wild Bunch". I have to go now,but I'll come back to talk about my favorite gunfights ever... Nice to see there are still more people who are coming to this thread.
And by the way, waldosanmiguel,I'm extremely happy that I could finally ask for "The Big Man" on DVD. I'll probably receive it in a month or so.
The Cook: It's not what the pussy can do for you, it's what you can do for the pussy
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ma_marcil
19 years ago
So,since we're now talking about gunfights,here's some of my favorites apart from the amazing one in "The Wild Bunch" that I already talked about in my last post:
-the train station gunfight in "The Untouchables"
-the climatic and bloody shootout at the end of "Scarface" (the DePalma version)
-the metro station gunfight at the end of "Carlito's Way" (DePalma is definetely gifted in terms of climatic gunfight sequences)
-most gunfight sequences in "Face/Off"
-most gunfight sequences in pretty much all of the chinese movies John Woo made with Chow-Yun Fat (it's been a while since I saw them,but I remember some pretty hardcore gunfight sequences in "The Killer" and "Hard Boiled")
-the climatic final showdown at the end of "Unforgiven"
-the O.K. Corrall shootout in "Tombstone"
-the amazing gunfight sequence following the bank heist in "Heat"
Oh, and let me just add another awesome fight sequence I forgot, and that is the amazingly brutal and realistic brawl at the end of "Straw Dogs",if we can consider it a fight sequence(which it is,in a way,I think,since it is a fight for survival).
The Cook: It's not what the pussy can do for you, it's what you can do for the pussy
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mister12
19 years ago
the gunfight at The Victory Motel at the end of "LA Confidential" was good too
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imdb_bob-4
18 years ago
Lord of the Rings....hahaha. You've got to be kidding.
About as realistic action as an Atari 2600 video game.
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