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.
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.
Submerged (2005)
Action Film/Mind Control
Steven Seagal submarine action where he tackles a terrorist who has perfected mind control techniques
Spectre (2015)
James Bond Film
The fourth Daniel Craig James Bond film welcomely resurrects one of the great nemeses from the series past – only to fall flat on its face. This is a Bond film severely hampered by a director unattuned to the classical elements of the series and the need to cripple everything by giving Bond backstory and character development
Prototype X29A (1992)
Post-Holocaust Cyborg Wars
This is a standard 90s direct-to-video SF/action film about warring cyborgs in a burned-out future. This has borrowed most of its moves from other films. Not a lot happens
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)
Videogame Adaptation
Sequel to the 1994 Street Fighter film based on the videogame, this provides the wall-to-wall action that the first film needed but falls down with a wimpily miscast heroine
Mutant Chronicles (2008)
Future War With the Mutants
Long-planned project that creates an interesting future scenario, epic action, an array of Dirty Dozen characters but emerges as surprisingly trivial
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
Steel Dawn (1987)
Post-Holocaust Action
Patrick Swayze vehicle that uncreditedly relocates the Western Shane into a post-holocaust setting
Stealth (2005)
Artifically Intelligent Fighter Plane Amok
Action film about an artificially intelligent fighter plane that goes amok. Rob Cohen directs in all the cliches of the genre and the seeming need to have something spectacular happening every few minutes
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
James Bond Film
The tenth of the James Bond films, the third for Roger Moore. This determines to be spectacular in terms of international locales, effects and sets. It was also the point where the Moore Bond films started to become giant cartoon spectacles of the absurd
Split Second (1992)
Satanic Alien Serial Killer
A mishmash of Alien copy and supernatural serial killer film set in a drowned future London with a script that makes no real sense. The film’s buddy cop relationship starring Rutger Hauer does have its amusements.
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
The Running Man (1987)
Action/Future Televised Gladiatorial Combat
This adapts one of Stephen King’s Richard Bachman novels but the book is sidelined to become an Arnold Schwarzenegger action comic-book on the oft-used theme of a future where people compete in televised gladiatorial games
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
Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins (2021)
Martial Arts/Action Film
Part of the attempt to reboot the G.I. Joe film series into a shared universe, this is a kinetically driven martial arts film
Silent Rage (1982)
Action Film/Resurrected Psycho
A Chuck Norris horror film! One of his earlier films where Chuck is pitted against a psycho who is resurrected from the dead and becomes a near-invincible killing machine
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 Sector (2016)
Alternate World Criminal
Variant on the alternate world hopping theme where a bounty hunter finds the person he is pursuing is an alternate world criminal. The film’s budget is way too low to do any justice to either the theme or the setting after the collapse of civilisation
The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption (2012)
Sword and Sorcery
The best of an otherwise lightweight, throwaway series. Roel Reiné directs some good action scenes, even if the hackneyed plotting never lets the show rise to anything more than average
The Scorpion King (2002)
Sword and Sorcery
Back when Dwayne Johnson was a wrestler billing himself as The Rock, this was a forgettable sword and sorcery effort spun off from his appearance in The Mummy Returns. This led to a surprising number of sequels
Night Hunter (1996)
Action/Vampire Hunter
Low-budget action film with Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson hunting vampires. Routine as both action and vampire film.
The Last Chase (1981)
Car Chase in a Dystopian Future
Dystopian action film that could have only been made during the late 70s Oil Crisis where Lee Majors defies a totalitarian system where vehicles are banned by setting out in his racing car
The Lair (2022)
Unearthed Soviet Monsters
Neil Marshall was a highly promising genre name a few years ago on the basis of The Descent. Here he returns with a film about soldiers facing alien hybrid monsters in Afghanistan
Death Race (2008)
Future Prison/Gladiatorial Road Races
Paul W.S. Anderson’s remake of Death Race 2000 strips the satire from the original and turns it into a modern action movie – a to-the-death car chase film set in a near-future prison
Bridge of the Doomed (2022)
Zombie Film
This is in essence a zombie film version of the classic historical film Zulu with a small group of soldiers tasked with protecting a bridge against a zombie horde
Cabal (2020)
Hitman vs Hulking Backwoods Killer
Film from low-budget director Rene Perez where a hitman who wears a beaten steel mask is pitted up against a hulking backwoods killer
The Driver (2019)
Car Ride Through the Zombie Apocalypse
Zombie action film that features Mark Dacascos driving through the post-apocalyptic landscape in a luxury car looking for a home for his daughter
Eagle Eye (2008)
Surveillance Thriller/A.I. Amok
Shia LaBeouf ends up on the run from the FBI in a conspiracy involving an A.I. A thriller about the surveillance society that, despite much sound and fury, finds almost nothing to say about its subject
Endgame (1983)
Post-Holocaust Action
Joe D’Amato directs one of the numerous 80s Italian Mad Max 2 copies. One of the very first films to depict televised human bloodsports later popularised by the likes of The Running Man and The Hunger Games
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
Bronx Warriors II (1983)
Future Gang Warfare
Enzo G. Castellari’s sequel to his Escape from New York ripoff 1990: The Bronx Warriors and a most more polished and entertaining B action movie
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
The Exterminator (1980)
Ultra-Violent Vigilante Film
Vigilante film with a cult reputation that was banned in places because of its ultra-violence. The film is a mix of Taxi Driver and Death Wish, mostly centred around a series of gory despatches
The Exterminators of the Year 3000 (1983)
Post-Holocaust Action
An Italian exploitation film that blatantly copies the plot of Mad Max 2. It offers the benefit of some vigorous action scenes and English-language dubbing that is out of this world
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
Bridge of Dragons (1999)
Action Film/Atemporal Kingdom Setting
A Dolph Lundgren starring action film about a coup in a kingdom that exists as an oddly atemporal mix of clashing historical periods
The Cat (1992)
Cop vs Aliens/Hong Kong Action
This is a completely demented Hong Kong film about alien body snatchers who are hiding in an apartment building on Earth
Brick Mansions (2014)
Near Future Action/Walled-Off Ghetto
The English-language remake of the Luc Besson-produced Banlieue 13. The electrifying parkour scenes of the original now seem routine and the film’s social set-up so thinly sketched as to be negligible as science-fiction
The Bourne Legacy (2012)
Spy Action Film
A reboot of the Jason Bourne series with Jeremy Renner replacing Matt Damon. The exhiliratingly kinetic action scenes are watered down, while the plot lacks the same focus. The first of the series to enter genre territory however
Borderlands (2024)
Videogame Adaptation/Planetary Adventure
Eli Roth adapts the popular videogame and corrals a surprisingly high-profile cast in a knockabout planetary adventure. Alas, that met a very mixed reception and was widely regarded as a bad movie
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
Cross (2011)
Action Film/Mystical Artifacts
A copy of The Expendables (albeit with the addition of fantasy elements) that brings together a line-up of B-action movie actors as a team. While some of the actors shine, the feel is of a cheaper effort earnestly trying to copy its betters
The Book of Eli (2010)
Post-Holocaust Action
Denzel Washington as an enigmatic Man With No Name wandering the post-holocaust apocalyptic landscape. This follows the cliches of the genre before it bizarrely morphs into a Biblical allegory partway through
Bloodshot (2020)
Augmented Super-Soldier/Comic-Book Adaptation
That starts out seeming a standard mindless action film in which Vin Diesel is resurrected as an augmented super-soldier only for everything we assume to get turned on its head in interesting ways
Bloodrayne: Deliverance (2007)
Videogame Adaptation/Vampire Western
The second in Uwe Boll’s trilogy adapted from the videogame, this plays out as a mix of Western and vampire hunter film and is marginally better than Boll’s usual standards
Fortress 2: Re-Entry (2000)
Prison in Orbit
Sequel to the Christopher Lambert starring future prison film, this relocates the action to an orbiting space station. Less brainless than its predecessor if in the end no more than average
Fountain of Youth (2025)
Quest for the Fountain of Youth/Adventure Film
Guy Ritchie makes an adventure film that pays homage to Indiana Jones and a host of other works concerning the quest for the Fountain of Youth. A superficial film killed by its constantly distracting flip banter
Blood: The Last Vampire (2009)
Vampire Battles Demons/Action
Live-action English-language remake of the anime short about a demon-hunting vampire girl. The original is reduced to no more than a series of slick by-the-numbers action poses
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Comic-Book Superhero
Captain America’s second solo outing feels more like a Mission: Impossible film or an episode of 24 than a superhero film. Lots of Marvel continuity and fanservice and you are taken aback at how political it is prepared to be
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
Future Force (1989)
Near Future Bounty Hunter
1990s VHS SF/action with David Carradine as a future cyborg bounty hunter on the run with a wrongly convicted girl while hunted by his own side
Dead or Alive: Final (2002)
Cyberpunk Dystopia/Androids
The third of Takashi Miike’s Dead or Alive trilogy. While the previous entries are Yakuza films, this is an action film about androids set in Blade Runner-homaging Cyberpunk future
Criminal (2016)
Transplanted Memories/Action Film
Everything indicates this should have been a hit – an impressive star line-up, big polished action sequences – only it tanked. Much has been assembled in the service of a hackneyed idea where the memories of an FBI agent are implanted into criminal Kevin Costner
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
Crime Zone (1989)
Dystopian Future
A low-budget SF-action film produced by Roger Corman with David Carradine as a police chief in a dystopian future who becomes wound up in the lives of two young lovers on the run
The Condemned (2007)
Barehands Survivalism/Deadly Reality TV Show
An action movie where the toughest criminals are forced into a barehanded survivalism competition against one another while this is livestreamed. As the hero, wrestler Steve Austin has zero charisma
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
The Colony (2013)
Grim Survival in a Frozen Future
This creates a fascinatingly different future – a world of grim survivalism amid a new Ice Age in the aftermath of Global Warming. The look of the film is fantastic, only to fritter it on an action focus and Mad Max cliches
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
Cyborg X (2016)
Post-Holocaust Cyborg Wars
From Arrowstorm Entertainment, a low-budget company that make highly professional films. Here they have even roped Danny Trejo into playing a role in a passable attempt to replicate a 1990s Albert Pyun post-holocaust cyborg film
Cyclone (1987)
Hi-Tech Motorcycle
B-budget hackmeister Fred Olen Ray makes a hi-tech vehicle fantasies that reads as a cheap attempt to do Blue Thunder with a motorcycle instead of a helicopter. Cheap action but what an amazing cast line-up
Chrome Angels (2009)
Biker Girls vs Killer Androids
Hearkening back to the spirit of 1980s B budget killer cyborg/android movie, an entertainingly preposterous film in which a girl biker gang are pitted against a mad scientist and his army of killer androids
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
Dead Zone (2022)
Zombie Film
Not to be confused with the Stephen King novel/film. A zombie film with a military focus that appropriates the basics of Escape from New York as a tactical unit is sent into an infestation zone to retrieve an antidote
Diplomatic Siege (1999)
Action Film/Nuclear Threat
One of the numerous action films to use a variant on the Die Hard scenario (with an added nuclear threat). For once, this has an okay script and a sense of humour but is killed by a fatal miscasting of its two leads
Deadly Prey (1987)
Human Hunting for Sport/Action
Another variant on The Most Dangerous Game with an unarmed man on the run against armed hunter(s). This was made just after Rambo came out so it becomes one lone man fighting an entire army with his bare hands.
Charlie’s Angels (2019)
TV Series Remake/Action Film
The second big screen revival of the hit 1970s tv series. Essentially a Girl Power version of one of the Mission: Impossible films, which turns what was originally a girl-fronted detective show into a spy caper featuring SF gadgetry
Death Dimension (1978)
Action Film/Weather Control Device
One of the film from legendary bad movie maker Al Adamson. While it has some SF elements, this is mostly an action film where Adamson has set out to mine the burgeoning Blaxploitation and kung fu genres of the day
Death Kiss (2018)
Vigilante Film
A mockbuster copy of Death Wish that gains its novelty from the casting of Robert Kovacs, an actor who could be a dead ringer for the late Charles Bronson, who is naturally cast as a lone man with a gun cleaning up the streets of scumbags
Death Race 2 (2010)
Future Prison/Gladiatorial Road Races
The first of three sequels (actually a prequel) to Paul W.S. Anderson’s Death Race, this gives the origins of Frankenstein and the Death Race. This rehashes much of the first film as generic direct-to-dvd fodder
Lara Croft, Tomb Raider (2001)
Videogame Adaptation
The first film adaptation of the popular videogame is a film largely premised around the personality of Angelina Jolie. Outside of that, the film is a half-baked series of plot ends and action scenes taken from better films
Death Race: Beyond Anarchy (2018)
Future Prison/Gladiatorial Road Races
The third sequel to Death Race and the most interesting of the series. This sets up an Escape from New York scenario and has fun with bad-ass posturing in depicting the interior of the prison as a open air biker bar
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
The Chain Reaction (1980)
Nuclear Accident Action Thriller
An Australian film from many of the people behind Mad Max about the cover-up of a nuclear accident. Essentially The China Syndrome with the addition of car chases
Deja Vu (2006)
Time Travel
Tony Scott directed time travel film with Denzel Washington viewing and then entering into events of the past in an effort to stop a terrorist bombing. Action driven as you might expect with Jerry Bruckheimer as producer
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
Bleeding Steel (2017)
SF Action Film
Jackie Chan starring action film that reads like an earthbound Star Wars with he up against a villain in black and his army of super-soldiers
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
Ignition (2001)
Action Thriller
An action film set against the backdrop of a new Moon mission where Bill Pullman plays a US marshal assigned to protect judge Lena Olin whose life is under threat
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
Alex Cross (2012)
Serial Killer Thriller
Reboot of James Patterson’s criminal profiler books makes the mistake of hiring an action director. Tyler Perry lacks the genius mental agility Morgan Freeman previously brought to the role but Matthew Fox does crazy well
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
Axcellerator (2020)
Teleportation Device
Lightweight action in which a young carjacker gains possession of a teleportation device and is pursued by government agents
Jiu Jitsu (2020)
Action Film/Alien-Human Combat
The action film has largely died off in the 2010s. This is very much a throwback with a set-up reminiscent of Predator about an action team fighting an alien in the jungle
I Am Omega (2007)
Last Man on Earth vs Zombies
A mockbuster from The Asylum that was intended to capitalise on the release of I Am Legend and in fact gets much more of the essence of the original Richard Matheson novel than the official film did
The Horde (2016)
Backwoods Brutality
A Backwoods Brutality film that becomes quite gore-drenched. Written by its leading man Paul Logan who casts himself as a perfect action hero wading in to kick hillbilly ass
The Assignment (2016)
Hitman Seeks Revenge After Enforced Gender Reassignment Surgery
From Walter Hill, one of the legendary action directors, comes what is either the most edgy or tasteless concepts for a revenge film – Michelle Rodriguez is a hitman who seeks revenge after having gender reassignment surgery forced on him
Against the Dark (2009)
Zombie Action Film
Steven Seagal tries to extend his career by taking on the zombie film. However, this is routine on all levels, although to its advantage Seagal is not on screen much
Kill and Kill Again (1981)
Martial Arts Film/Mind Control Drug
From they heyday of the 1970s martial arts film, karate champion James Ryan must reunite the old gang to take on a super-villain who wants to enslave the world with a mind control drug derived from potatoes
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
Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991)
Cyberpunk/Biker Movie
The novelty of a Cyberpunk biker film, this is an efficient actioner and assemblage of paper-thin cliches and poses with almost nothing of substance beneath them
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
Aeon Flux (2005)
Dystopian Future/TV Series Remake
Disappointingly watered down live-action adaptation of the cult animated series. Karyn Kusama creates some interesting visuals but eventually everything lapses to Hollywood formula
The King of the Kickboxers (1991)
Martial Arts/Snuff Film-Making
VHS era martial arts film with Loren Avedon as a US detective who is sent undercover to infiltrate the kickboxing tournaments held in Thailand by snuff movie-makers
Kite (2014)
Live-Action Anime Adaptation/Teenage Girl Vigilante
English language adaptation of an anime. The original was controversial for its copious sex and violence; here we get an anodyne action movie that is no more than The Punisher cast with a teenage girl
Jackpot! (2024)
Legalised Death Lottery Comedy
This comes out like a comedy version of The Purge almost, where a future California lottery awards the winner millions if they can avoid every other person trying to kill them
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
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
G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra (2009)
Futuristic Military Action Team
Stephen Sommers make a film based on the popular action toy line. Barring one exhilarating sequence in the middle, this consists of lots of sound and CGI fury amounting to very little at all
G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)
Futuristic Military Action Team
You can’t complain that this is not exactly what you expect it to be – two hours of cartoonish action during which the brain singularly fails to engage. This is less unapologetic about being a military fantasy than the first film