Live Wire (1992)
Human Bombs Thriller
Thriller with Pierce Brosnan as a bomb disposal expert who comes up against terrorists who have invented an explosive that can be drunken in a glass of water
Action Films
The action film is a popular subgenre of cinema where the emphasis is on action sequences – gunfights or unarmed combat, vehicular chases, stunts, frequent explosions and mass destruction – which are usually presented as serial set-pieces.
The action film emerged a distinct genre in the 1970s. Action films usually feature lone male (occasionally female) heroes who win out through muscular brawn or martial ability. In genre material, heroes often come with cyborg enhancements or occasional powers.
There have been numerous genre crossovers from action films set in dystopian and cyberpunk futures, featuring killer androids and cyborg heroes, time travel action films, others set in post-apocalyptic venues, or blends of action and horror featuring vampire and zombie-hunting action heroes, plus a good many others.
Universal Soldier (1992)
Undead Super-Soldiers/Action
The first studio film from Roland Emmerich, a loud, noisy action featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren as Vietnam Vets resurrected as super-soldiers
First Light (1992)
Action/Psychic Soldier
Dreary action film with Michael Paré as a soldier with the army’s psychic warfare unit who is sent on a mission to rescue a girl from the hands of terrorists
Karate Cop (1993)
Post-Holocaust Action
A really cheap and unconvincing post-apocalyptic action film starring forgotten martial arts star Ron Marchini as a lawman fighting off mutant crazies to obtain a power crystal
Striking Distance (1993)
Action/Psycho-Thriller
Action thriller with Bruce Willis as a river patrol detective hunting a serial killer
HellBound (1993)
Cop vs Satanic Avatar/Action
Hysterically bad film where Chuck Norris turns one-man fighting machine and goes all out to save the world from the Anti-Christ calling down the Armageddon
Knights (1993)
Post-Holocaust Kickboxing Cyborgs
Another of Albert Pyun’s post-apocalyptic kickboxing cyborg films. The film consists of almost nothing but action scenes as pint-size Kathy Long and a cyborg Kris Kristofferson battle warlord Lance Henriksen
Future Cops (1993)
Time-Travelling Superheroic Battle
Manically paced Hong Kong action comedy about a time-travelling action team purportedly inspired by the Street Fighter videogame. Imagine The Terminator as a manic slapstick comedy with martial arts sequences.
Hard Target (1993)
Human Hunting for Sport/Action
John Woo made his US debut with this Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle, which is essentially an urban version of The Most Dangerous Game. Woo’s stylised action set-ups give a slight script a dynamism that blows his contemporaries away
Fortress (1993)
Future Prison
Stuart Gordon, a cult director on the basis of Re-Animator, ventures into making an SF action film set in a futuristic prison. The film has a bone-headed script that feels like it is only rehashing cliches from every SF film
Forced to Kill (1993)
Action/Backwoods Brutality
A modestly effective action film written by/starring stuntman Corey Michael Eubanks where he is forced by backwoods hicks to compete in bare-knuckle fights
Demolition Man (1993)
Satirical Politically Correct Dystopia/Action
One of Sylvester Stallone’s better films, a satirically funny work where he plays a contemporary police officer unfrozen in a future overrun by Political Correctness to chase down criminal Wesley Snipes
Last Action Hero (1993)
Adventures Inside the Movie Screen/Action Movie Parody
A big flop but highly underrated Arnold Schwarzenegger film, a sophisticated meta-fiction that views the cinema screen as another dimension and wittily deflates action cliches
Nemesis (1993)
Cyberpunk/Cyborg Takeover
Albert Pyun’s finest film. It is another of his standard killer cyborg films but comes with an often hauntingly written gritty Cyberpunk edge that makes it quite unique
RoboCop 3 (1993)
Cyborg Cop
The third Robocop film killed the series off with a disastrous decision to go for a PG rating and pair Robocop with a cute kid
Death Ring (1993)
Action Film/Human Hunting for Sport
Another action movie variant on The Most Dangerous Game with Chuck Norris’s son Mike facing hunters on a remote island. Featuring a cast made up of the relatives of more famous actors
Cyborg2: Glass Shadow (1993)
Cyberpunk
Sequel that abandons that mindless chop suey of Albert Pyun’s Cyborg and reconstructs it into a halfway reasonable Cyberpunk film. A then unknown Angelina Jolie plays the cyborg
Cyborg Cop (1993)
Action/Killer Cyborg
A low-budget action copy of RoboCop starring David Bradley as a DEA agent up against drug lord John Rhys-Davies who has transformed his brother into a cyborg
Warlord 3000 (1993)
Post-Holocaust
Shabbily made copy of Mad Max 2 that plays out with minimal action
The Killing Machine (1994)
Action/Manufactured AIDS Virus Coverup
Action film with Jeff Wincott as a resurrected hitman who makes the discovery that AIDS has been artificially manufactured
Surviving the Game (1994)
Human Hunting for Sport
Blatant copy of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Hard Target and both in turn from The Most Dangerous Game. Here Ice-T is a homeless man forced to flee hunters and survive with his bare hands.
Class of 1999 II: The Substitute (1994)
Killer Android Schoolteacher
A sequel to the killer android school teacher film Class of 1999. The sequel was made on a far lesser budget and is wrecked by an absurd twist ending
Cyborg Cop II (1994)
Action/Killer Cyborgs
From the height of the 90s RoboCop copycat video release, a sequel that this time pits DEA agent David Bradley up against an army of rogue cyborgs
Monolith (1994)
Cops vs Body-Hopping Alien
Ridiculous action film produced at the peak of The X Files popularity about two detectives against a body-hopping alien and sinister government agency
Double Dragon (1994)
Videogame Adaptation/Future Martial Arts
Disappointing adaptation of the arcade videogame. The game is premised on mindless martial arts action but the film pitches everything down to pre-teen audiences and make the two brother protagonists into dorks
New Eden (1994)
Prison Planet
SF film with Stephen Baldwin sentenced to life on a prison planet where he becomes saviour to a small peaceful community
Highlander III: The Sorceror (1994)
Immortal Combat
The third Highlander film is better than the abysmal second one was. It comes with slick visuals but an often absurd plot that strains to spin the concept out any further
Apex (1994)
War with Robots/Alternate Timelines
Passable B-budget 1990s direct-to-video sf/action film about robots and humans warring across time that develops out an interesting plot about a changed timeline
Street Fighter (1994)
Videogame Adaptation/Action Team
Based on the popular videogame, you cannot complain that this is exactly what you expect – wall-to-wall action, comic-book heroes and villains. The complaint might be that the action is never particularly enervated and the film lacks anything beyond that
No Escape (1994)
Future Prison/Action
Big-budget action film that essentially rewrites Papillon in SF terms. Martin Campbell has a good eye for widescreen action but the film is only drawn in cliches.
Project Shadowchaser II (1994)
Android Terrorist
Sequel to the ridiculous Project Shadowchaser, which has another android terrorist this time take over a nuclear power plant
Human Timebomb (1994)
Action/Mind Control Chip
A mindless action film made for video as a copy of Universal Soldier in which FBI agent Bryan Genesse comes up against soldiers turned into programmed killers via implanted chips
Cyber Tracker (1994)
Action/Killer Law Enforcement Cyborg
Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson stars as a law enforcement officer pursued by killer androids in a blatant made-for-video action movie copy of the basics of The Terminator and RoboCop
Beyond Forgiveness (1994)
Action/Organ Harvesting
Action film with Thomas Ian Griffith tracking the killers of his brother to Poland and uncovering an organ harvesting scheme run by Rutger Hauer
Timecop (1994)
Time Police
Film featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme as a temporal police officer. While you expect another time travel action film, this has quite a deal more sophistication in the scripting department than you expect
Fist of the North Star (1995)
Post-Holocaust Martial Arts/Manga Adaptation
The live-action English-language adaptation of the Japanese manga/anime that comes off as a muddled post-holocaust action film that doesn’t know what it wants to be
Automatic (1995)
Action/Android Hero
Olivier Gruner plays an android who goes rogue after accidentally killing his boss. A dull action film with no greater ambition than to be an SF version of Die Hard
Savage (1995)
Alien-Altered Neanderthal Superman
Bizarrely incomprehensible film from Avi Nesher set in a Cyberpunk future in which Olivier Gruner is turned into a Neanderthal superhuman by aliens living in cyberspace
Suspect Device (1995)
Identity Bender/Action
What seems a routine low-budget action film is propelled into the decidedly watchable by a bizarre Philip K. Dick-ian twist that comes mid-film
Waterworld (1995)
Post-Holocaust Drowned Earth
The most expensive film ever made at the time, a Kevin Costner epic in which he is a lone mariner in a drowned world where survivors cling to shantytowns floating on the surface. Essentially a Mad Max film located on water.
Nemesis 2: Nebula (1995)
Time-Travelling Killer Cyborgs
The first of several sequels Albert Pyun made to Nemesis. This copies The Terminator with bodybuilder Sue Price being pursued through East Africa by killer androids
Nemesis 3: Time Lapse (1995)
Time-Travelling Killer Cyborgs
The third of Albert Pyun’s Nemesis films about time-travelling cyborgs – not much plot just action scenes and some moments of undeniable strangeness
Galaxis (1995)
Alien Warrior Woman
A really bad copy of The Terminator featuring an Amazonian Brigitte Nielsen as an alien come to Earth to stop an evil intergalactic warlord
Hologram Man (1995)
Holographic Villain/Action
SF/action film with a ludicrous premise about a future prison where criminals are turned into holograms. Joe Lara is one lone cop facing an escaped inmate in a hologram body
Project Shadowchaser III (1995)
Shapechanging Killer Android
Third in the series about android terrorists, this is now about an amok android on a spaceship
Virtual Combat (1995)
Virtual Characters Come to Life/Action
Completely ridiculous martial arts SF film with Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson as a future cop fighting a videogame character incarnated in the real world
Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995)
Action/Advanced Weaponry
Sequel to Under Siege in which Steven Seagal was a lone individual in a Die Hard scenario defending a battleship against a terrorist takeover; this is the same but with Seagal defending a train
Cyborg Cop III (1995)
Killer Android
A completely ridiculous action film (that features no cyborg cops) and instead concerns the attempts to create an army of cyborgs using insect DNA
Heatseeker (1995)
Cyborg Kickboxing Competition
Another of Albert Pyun’s cyborg films set around a kickboxing competition where Pyun seems to have cut costs by using real competition footage with dramatically dull results
Digital Man (1995)
Amok Android
Fairly average 90s SF/action video release about soldiers hunting an amok military android before realising the androids have also infiltrated their troupe
LunarCop (1995)
Post-Holocaust Action
Low-budget Mad Max copycat with Michael Paré as an officer from the lunar colony who comes down to Earth to take on the marauders of the post-apocalyptic wasteland
Star Hunter (1995)
Alien Sportsman Hunts Human Game
An incredibly cheap ripoff of Predator (and even more so that film’s real source The Most Dangerous Game) relocated to an urban area. Incredibly tatty and dull on all counts
Virtuosity (1995)
Android Serial Killer
Director Brett Leonard started the fascination with Virtual Reality off with The Lawnmower Man but shot himself in the foot with this absurd braindead follow-up in which Denzel Washington pursues a madly OTT Russell Crowe as an android serial killer
Dark Breed (1995)
Action Film/Alien Possession
An action movie inspired by tv’s The X Files involving space shuttle pilots returned to Earth possessed by aliens. The emphasis is more on action scenes than a coherent plot
Judge Dredd (1995)
Comic-Book Adaptation/Future Law Enforcement Officer
The film adaptation of the cult comic-book looks great in terms of design but misses the comic’s satiric sense of humour and simply becomes a thudding Sylvester Stallone action vehicle
Cybertracker 2 (1995)
Killer Androids
In this sequel to Cyber Tracker, Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson is a police officer fighting a criminal mastermind who is attempting to replace world leaders with android duplicates
Mortal Kombat (1995)
Interdimensional Combat/Videogame Adaptation
This film adaptation of the videogame is a lot of fun. The plot is a rehash of Enter the Dragon but the film offers up wall-to-wall action and exotic creatures. A directorial debut for Paul W.S. Anderson
Cyberjack (1995)
Action/Hi-Tech Terrorists
An absurd action movie copy of Die Hard where Michael Dudikoff tries to stop terrorist Brion James as he seek to steal an artificially intelligent computer virus
Cyber Zone (1995)
Android Bounty Hunter
B-budget director Fred Olen Ray makes a cyberpunk action film where the cut-price nature of the exercise is elevated by a tongue-in-cheek sense of humour
The Expert (1995)
Courtoom Serial Killer/Prison Break-In
Rather ridiculous action film where Jeff Speakman breaks into a prison to take revenge against a serial killer because he received too liberal a treatment from the justice system
Crying Freeman (1995)
Manga Adaptation/Mysterious Assassin
The first feature film from Christophe Gans is a live-action adaptation of a manga about an assassin. Gans turns out a film that dazzles with the flamboyance of his action sequences
GoldenEye (1995)
James Bond Film
The 17th James Bond film, the first featuring Pierce Brosnan who gives a dazzlingly ruthless performance. The series is rebooted and takes the opportunity to reconstruct the mythos in terms of modern politics in ways that often take you aback
Broken Arrow (1995)
Action/Nuclear Hijacking
John Woo’s second Hollywood film, an action film about nuclear hijacking. Woo’s unique stylistics promptly get buried under the machinery of big-budget action filmmaking
Black Mask (1996)
Masked Superhero/Hong Kong Action
A Jet Li vehicle that falls into the masked superhero genre where the show has taken a few leaves from the tv series The Green Hornet. Enjoyable fun with some exhilarating action sequences
Omega Doom (1996)
Post-Holocaust Cyborg War
Albert Pyun cheapie in which the plot of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo is relocated to a post-apocalyptic setting and cast with androids
Past Perfect (1996)
Assassins from the Future/Action
SF action film with Eric Roberts as a future cop travelling through time trying to stop kids before they become criminals
Dead Fire (1996)
Space Station Action
Action film set aboard a space station that houses cryogenically frozen survivors of a devastated Earth as C. Thomas Howell tries to stop a mad Matt Frewer
Adrenalin: Fear the Rush (1996)
Near Future Action/Cops Pursue Deadly Infectee
An Albert Pyun action film with police officers Christopher Lambert and Natasha Henstridge pursuing an infected man through the sewers of a future quarantine zone
The Demolitionist (1996)
Female Cyborg Cop
Nicole Eggert stars in this cheap and rather laughable copy of RoboCop, where she is a police officer killed in the line of duty who is resurrected as an avenging cyborg vigilante
Night Hunter (1996)
Action/Vampire Hunter
Low-budget action film with Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson hunting vampires. Routine as both action and vampire film.
Mars (1996)
Action on Mars
Action film with police officer Olivier Gruner investigating a murder on Mars. For a film that claims such a definitive title – that it is about the planet Mars – this lets all opportunities slip through its hands
Downdraft (1996)
Amok AI/Nuclear Threat/Action
Modest and conceptually packed B-budget action film in which a motley team are sent to break into a bunker that has been hijacked by a scientist who is threatening to fire nuclear missiles
Eraser (1996)
Action/Hi-Tech Weaponry
The publicity machine made a big effort to convince us we were a more serious Arnold Schwarzenegger film but it is business as usual. The spectacular action scenes are frequently undercut by their absurd improbability
Nemesis 4: Death Angel (1996)
Cyborg Action
Another of the string of cyborg action films that low-budget director Albert Pyun made in the 1990s. This has a head-scratching fascination, featuring very weird cyborg sex scenes, the unearthly bodybuilder heroine Sue Price and a series of strange philosophical ruminations
Escape from L.A. (1996)
Action/Los Angeles as a Future Prison
John Carpenter’s sequel to Escape from New York falls too much in the shadow of its predecessor, nevertheless has some effective moments of its own, with Carpenter in particular creating a satiric fundamentalist future
Judge and Jury (1996)
Executed Killer Returns
A ridiculous supernatural action film where a madly overacting David Keith plays an executed killer returned from the dead to seek revenge against cop Martin Kove
Solo (1996)
Android Becomes Self-Aware
Mario Van Peebles plays a military android who defies his programming to defend the villagers he is sent to kill
Warhead (1996)
Action/Nuclear Missile Silo Hijacking
Routine action film about the attempts to stop a rogue general who has hijacked a nuclear missile silo
The Outsider (1996)
Android Amusement Park Amok
Low-budget film that steals the premise of Westworld in the story of an amusement park that recreates the world of 1940s film noir with androids, which proceed to go amok
The Silencers (1996)
Action Film/Alien Invasion Conspiracy
Action film made at the height of the popularity of tv’s The X Files with Jack Scalia fighting off the Men in Black
The Sender (1997)
Alien Visitor/Psychic Powers/Action
Action film with Michael Madsen and a mystery alien woman fighting a government coverup of UFOs to retrieve his abducted daughter
Last Lives (1997)
Alternate World Criminal/Action
B-budget action film in which C. Thomas Howell is caught up in a chase when an escaped criminal from an alternate timeline abducts his wife.
Time Under Fire (1997)
Time Travel/Action
Unimaginative time travel/action film that plays out like
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
James Bond Film
Pierce Brosnan’s second outing as James Bond holds up fairly well, especially in the action department, although Jonathan Pryce seems miscast as a Rupert Murdoch-modeled super-villain
Full Metal Yakuza (1997)
Yakuza Cyborg
An early work from Takashi Miike, an ultra-violent comic-book variant on RoboCop about a Yazkuza enforcer who is incarnated in a cyborg body and goes seeking revenge
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)
Interdimensional Combat/Videogame Adaptation
Sequel to the Mortal Kombat film. While the first film was fun, here anything resembling plot has been stripped away to concentrate on fight scenes such that the film blurs into a single shapeless action sequence
DNA (1997)
Genetically-Engineered Monster
Another variant on Alien – a monster movie with Mark Dacascos as a doctor facing a genetically engineered insect monster in the jungles of Borneo
Face/Off (1997)
Action/Surgical Identity Exchange
A John Woo directed action film with the improbable premise where FBI agent John Travolta and terrorist Nicolas Cage end up surgically swapping faces and then taking over the other’s identity
The Fifth Element (1997)
Space Opera/Showdown Against Ultimate Evil
A big-budget space opera from Luc Besson. This offers a dazzlingly designed future but the plot is an inane hodgepodge of bad SF elements with a tone that flails between action and camp
Angel of the Night (1998)
Danish Vampire Film
Not very well made Danish vampire film that almost redeems itself by trying to conduct everything as a John Woo-styled action film
Armageddon (1998)
Asteroid on a Collision Course with Earth
A film that relentlessly celebrates its own brainlessness. Michael Bay directs an asteroid collision film amid plenty of loud noise, mass destruction, flag-waving patriotism and resolute heroism
Judgment Day (1998)
Oncoming Asteroid Collision/‘Hood Drama
Coming out the same year as Deep Impact and Armageddon, this was another oncoming asteroid collision film – one that has been bizarrely crosshatched with a ‘hood drama
Legion (1998)
Soldiers vs Alien Nasty
Well-made Alien copy that seems to have been conceived as a crosshatch between The Dirty Dozen and The Thing where the creature remains mostly psychological
Cold Harvest (1998)
Post-Holocaust Action
This is a competent but unremarkable action movie variation on the Mad Max film set in the aftermath of a plague as Gary Daniels must guide a group with an immunity through the wastelands
The Patriot (1998)
Action Film/Biowarfare Outbreak
Steven Seagal action film in which he plays a former virologist fighting a militia group threatening to unleash a deadly virus
Freedom Strike (1998)
Action Film/Advanced Weaponry
Michael Dudikoff-starring action film about the use of advanced technology during a Middle Eastern war as Syrian terrorists hijack and threaten to fire US nuclear missles
Deep Rising (1998)
Sea Monsters
Early Stephen Sommers film that feels like it has been mounted as Alien meets Titanic. Between the ridiculous one-dimensional writing and Sommers’ CGI overkill, this heads well into bad movie material
Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business (1998)
Undead Super-Soldiers/Action
he second of two cheap video-released sequels to the Jean-Claude Van Damme film. This has the novelty of featuring Burt Reynolds as the bad guy
Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms (1998)
Undead Super-Soldiers/Action
The first of two cheap Universal Soldier sequels made in Canada with Matt Battaglia inheriting Jean-Claude Van Damme’s role
The Minion (1998)
Body-Hopping Demon
Low-budget action film with Dolph Lundgren as a modern-day Knights Templar tasked with preventing The Devil returning to Earth at the millennium