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
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.
Paycheck (2003)
Precognition/Action Film/Philip K. Dick Adaptation
This Philip K. Dick adaptation has a great premise – Ben Affleck is an engineer with a blanked memory blanked only to find he has left himself clues from the future of things that are starting to come true. Alas, this is reduced to an action vehicle in the hands of John Woo
Peacemaker (1990)
Alien Cop and Criminal Fight on Earth
Entertaining B-budget variant on The Hidden with a woman caught between an alien aw enforcement officer and fugitive criminal both of whom offer contradictory stories
Peninsula (2020)
Train to Busan Sequel/Zombie Film
Yeon Sang-ho makes a sequel to his international breakout zombie film hit of Train to Busan, appropriating the basics of Escape to New York to good ends
The Perfect Weapon (2016)
Action Film/Dystopian Future
Steven Seagal makes an SF film. Even more bizarrely, Seagal plays the villain for one of the few times in his career, namely the dictator of a dystopian future. An overweight and aging Seagal has a handful of scenes philosophising, while the bulk of the film is a super-soldier plot carried by others
Predator (1987)
Action/Humans Hunted by Alien Sportsman
This takes the previous year’s big hit of Aliens and fuses it with The Most Dangerous Game, swapping that story’s bored aristocratic hunter for an alien hunting Arnold Schwarzenegger and a team of soldiers in the jungles of South America
The Predator (2018)
Alien Huntsman Comes to Earth
Shane Black, a writer-director with a reasonable cult following, makes the sixth Predator film (he also appeared as an actor in the original). Black shakes the series up, introduces a number of new ideas and makes an okay entry
Predator 2 (1990)
Action/Humans Hunted by Alien Sportsman
Predator was one of the better Alien/Aliens copies of the 1980s. This sequel does little more than serve the same up all over again bar the substitution of a near-future L.A. for the jungle but manages to generate a reasonably intensive ride out of the action
Predator: Killer of Killers (2025)
Predator Animation Anthology
The Predator series continues. Dan Trachtenberg, the director of Prey, makes an animated offering that tells three stories of encounters between human and Predator in different eras of history
Predators (2010)
Action/Humans Hunted by Alien Sportsmen
Despite being hamstrung with Adrien Brody in Action Hero mode, this is a hard-edged film that goes some way to rescue the Predator franchise from its novelty crossovers with Alien(s)
Prey (2022)
Native Americans Hunted by Alien Sportsman
The seventh film in the Predator franchise. This received some of the best reviews of any film in the series and comes with the unique idea of pitting Native Americans up against a Predator
The Prize of Peril (1983)
Future Human Hunting TV Gameshow
French film about a tv gameshow where contestants are pursued by armed hunters. Much of this was copied by the subsequent The Running Man but this conducted the idea first and better
Project: Shadowchaser (1992)
Android Terrorist
Completely ridiculous mix of The Terminator and Die Hard where, for no clear reason, an android terrorist decides to take hostages in an office building and the FBI’s only hope is a cryogenically unfrozen football player
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
Project Shadowchaser III (1995)
Shapechanging Killer Android
Third in the series about android terrorists, this is now about an amok android on a spaceship
Project Wolf Hunting (2022)
Monster Amok Aboard a Prison Ship
The most violent, brutal, blood-drenched films one has seen in recent memory, a South Korean entry about a monster loose aboard a prison ship
Prophet (1999)
Action/Psychic Powers
Fred Olen Ray and Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson combine forces on a low-budget action film about psychic powers. The action scenes are competent but the film lacking in the script department
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
The Punisher (1990)
Comic-Book Vigilante
Dolph Lundgren’s The Punisher is minus his trademark t-shirt and the film takes considerable liberties with the source material but this is a hugely entertaining action comic-book of a film with hilariously tongue-in-cheek dialogue
The Punisher (2004)
Comic-Book Vigilante
Amid the huge surge of Marvel Comics adaptations in the early 2000s, there came this version of The Punisher. Cast with Thomas Jane, the film is tepid and singularly lacking in the grim, dark avenging violence of the comic-book
Punisher: War Zone (2008)
Comic-Book Vigilante
The Punisher (2004) with Thomas Jane was a dud among the 2000s Marvel Comics adaptations. Here the role is recast with Ray Stevenson and director Lexi Alexander gets the dark, violent tone of the comic-book right
R.O.T.O.R. (1988)
Android Cop Amok
An astoundingly bad low-budget RoboCop copy about an android motorcycle cop that goes amok
Redcon-1 (2018)
Zombie Action Film
An action film about soldiers on an expedition into a zombie-filled quarantine zone. This comes with a furious pace that feels more as though you are watching a videogame than a film
Reign in Darkness (2002)
Vampire Action
Australian vampire action that feels like a single pose that has been inspired by too many watchings of The Matrix
Replicant (2001)
Cloned Serial Killer
Halfway reasonable Jean-Claude Van Damme film in which he plays the clone of a serial killer who is brought to life in attempt to track down the original
Repo Men (2010)
Future Organ Repossession
SF film set in a future where agents are sent to repossess artificial organs when the owner’s fall behind on payments. Sort of Sicko by way of Logan’s Run but lacking the necessary sense of black humour to work
Resident Evil (2002)
Videogame Adaptation/Lab Complex of Zombies
Based on the survival horror videogame, this was the first in a surprisingly popular series of films. It also presaged a major return of the zombie film during the 2000s/10s, even if this only treads where George Romero went better before
Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)
Videogame Adaptation/Post-Holocaust Zombies
Four films in and clear evidence that the Resident Evil series needs to be retired. This consists of tediously borrowed action moves now presented in 3D and a plot of random dead ends that make little sense
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)
Videogame Adaptation/City of Zombies
The first of the Resident Evil sequels and a better film than its predecessor, getting in a series of spectacular, if at times ridiculously silly, action sequences
Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
Videogame Adaptation/Post-Holocaust Zombies
Third of the Resident Evil films. This expands the scale of action to show the entire world destroyed by the virus but for all that and a decent budget, director Russell Mulcahy fails to push the elements to a suitable head of steam
Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)
Videogame Adaptation/Complex of Zombies and Mutants
Another unnecessary entry in a creativity-handicapped series, the continuing popularity of which is baffles. This shuffles through the familiar moves, brings back several familiar characters but only leaves me asking why I have invested some nine hours of time following this series
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)
Videogame Adaptation/Post-Holocaust Zombies
The Resident Evil films are designed for people who were introduced to drama via the Xbox, action sequences that can be assembled in random order and where it doesn’t matter what happens. I watched this, the sixth and final entry, with next-to-no enthusiasm but then quite unexpectedly it starts to work
Returner (2002)
Alien Invasion/Time Travel/Action
Japanese SF film that makes a rather enjoyable magpie collage out of a Terminator time travel action plot married to John Woo and Matrix action stylistics
RoboCop (1987)
Cyborg Cop
A popular hit that spins the cyborg cop theme through a Cyberpunk future, while director Paul Verhoeven piles on excesses of violence and black humour. A darkly funny satire of Reaganite America, this is an entertainingly slick comic-book of a movie
RoboCop (2014)
Cyborg Cop
I have to admit despite all the bad feeling for this, I liked it. While what went on in terms of the man inside the machine was cut and dried in the original, this has been shifted to give us a “the soul of Robocop” story . Moreover, the original’s biting satire of 1980s corporations and politics has been smartly updated to tackle some big 2010s issues
RoboCop 2 (1990)
Cyborg Cop
With a script co-written by Frank Miller, this sequel comes in as a leaner work that abandons the campier excesses of its predecessor while expanding on its ideas with considerable ingenuity
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
Roboforce (1988)
Hong Kong Android Comedy
A Hong Kong take on RoboCop with Sally Yeh as crimefighting android. Though produced by and also starring Tsui Hark, a very silly slapstick element comes to dominate what are otherwise imaginative action sequences
Robotrix (1991)
Female Cyborg Cops
Hong Kong-made copy of RoboCop where Amy Yip has her mind transferred into a cyborg body to track a mad scientist
Robowar (1988)
Amok Cyborg
From Italy, a blatant copy of Predator – only where instead of a military unit being hunted through the jungle by an alien, they are hunted by a copycat of RoboCop
Rollerball (1975)
Future Ultra-Violent Sport
Classic work of dystopian SF set in a future where an ultra-violent sport has been created to pacify the masses
Rollerball (2002)
Ultra-Violent Sport
Remade, the 1975 dystopian film about future sports is stripped of any of its big message (even of its future setting) and is turned into no more than a formulaic action film
Rome 2072 (1983)
Future Gladiatorial Combat
Lucio Fulci was a cult Italian horror director. This was the only occasion that Fulci visited the SF film, a low-budget ripoff of Rollerball by way of Mad Max featuring futuristic gladiatorial games
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
The Running Man (2025)
Future Televised Human Hunting
Edgar Wright conducts a remake of The Running Man and takes it more back to the original Stephen King book than the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film, while adding a level of biting modern commentary
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
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
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 4: Quest for Power (2015)
Sword and Sorcery
Fourth entry in the eminently forgettable sword-and-sorcery series, this heads down into bad movie stakes by writing a series of grating quips over everything, while the action scenes exist in the realm of unbelievability that show that nobody is treating anything with the slightest seriousness
The Scorpion King: Rise of a Warrior (2008)
Sword and Sorcery
Prequel to The Scorpion King. Unfortunately director Russell Mulcahy allows his broad hand with comedy free reign and the plot is overrun by glib character banter and constant flip modern one-liners
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 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
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
Marvel Comics Martial Arts Superhero
The Marvel onslaught continues with this resurrection of a martial artist superhero character from the 1970s. Amid the mostly ho-hum MCU offerings of the 2020s, this becomes an energised action vehicle
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
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 6th Day (2000)
Cloned Man/Action
Arnold Schwarzenegger revisits something of Total Recall in this modest and clever action film in which he discovers that a clone has stolen his life
Sleeping Dogs (1977)
New Zealand Dystopia
The cornerstone of the modern New Zealand film industry – the first film of both Sam Neill and Roger Donaldson – a vigorous dystopian action film that offers up a nightmare of sleepy parochial 1970s NZ being brutally overrun by the imagery of totalitarianism
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
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
Southern Comfort (1981)
Backwoods Brutality
A beautifully evocative Walter Hill film where National Guard soldiers on training manoeuvres are hunted through the Louisiana swamps after accidentally shooting at Cajun locals
Spacerage: Breakout on Prison Planet (1985)
Interstellar Prison Escape
SF action with Michael Paré convicted to a prison planet from which he attempts to organise the prisoners to make an escape. This is essentially a Western that takes place in SF terms
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
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.
The Spy Next Door (2010)
Spy Plays Babysitter Comedy
The further slide downwards of Jackie Chan’s career after being discovered by Hollywood. Here he is a spy left to look after a group of kids with excruciatingly unfunny results
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
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
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
Steel Dawn (1987)
Post-Holocaust Action
Patrick Swayze vehicle that uncreditedly relocates the Western Shane into a post-holocaust setting
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
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
Striking Distance (1993)
Action/Psycho-Thriller
Action thriller with Bruce Willis as a river patrol detective hunting a serial killer
Stryker (1983)
Post-Apocalyptic Action
A vigorous copy of the Mad Max post-apocalyptic action film made by the underrated Cirio H. Santiago
Submerged (2005)
Action Film/Mind Control
Steven Seagal submarine action where he tackles a terrorist who has perfected mind control techniques
Sucker Punch (2011)
Fantasy Action in Dreamed Alternate Realities
Bizarrely uncategorisable film from Zack Snyder that seems a mix of Girl, Interrupted and Inception
Supergrid (2018)
Socially Collapsed Future Action
Lowell Dean, director of WolfCop, makes what feels like a revival of the low-budget Mad Max film – an action film set in a socially collapsed future
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.
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
The Swordsman (1992)
Mystical Sword/Action/Reincarnation
Action film starring Lorenzo Lamas as a detective drawn into underground fight clubs while discovering a mystic sword owned by Alexander the Great
Tekken (2010)
Videogame Adaptation/Combat Tournament
Another videogame adapted film, this has almost entirely been conceived around a series of slick fight sequences and little else
Tekken: A Man Called X (2014)
Videogame Adaptation
Nobody seemed to care about Tekken, the 2010 film based on the popular videogame. Despite that, this is a sequel – albeit one that has almost nothing to do with the first film. This consists of nothing more than a series of efficiently unmemorable action scenes and a plot that makes no real sense
Tenet (2020)
Time Travel Action/Temporal Weaponry
After delays, Christopher Nolan’s unique time travel film is with us, a dense challenging work that plays like an intellectual version of a James Bond film
The Terminator (1984)
Time-Travelling Killer Android
One of the 2-3 most influential SF films since 1980. James Cameron creates a barrelling powerhouse of a film, all lorded over by Arnold Schwarzenegger as the relentless killer machine in the role that defined his career
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
The first sequel to The Terminator where James Cameron returns with the biggest budget for a film at the time. Cameron harnesses then top-drawer CGI technology to create one of the most original nemeses in any SF film
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
After the highs of James Cameron’s first two Terminator films, this was a crashing disappointment. Schwarzenegger is back but his performance has become self-parody and the uninspired action sequences are accompanied by some terrible effects
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
The sixth Terminator film that boasts the return of both James Cameron and Linda Hamilton to the franchise. After the troughs of Terminator: Genisys, this makes one forget about the last three sequels
Terminator Genisys (2015)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
A hodgepodge of competing elements – an aging Arnold Schwarzenegger, a soft reboot, alternate timelines, reintroduction of the familiar, twists to the familiar – that make no sense on a narrative level, least of all come anywhere near what James Cameron delivered back in the first two films
Terminator Salvation (2009)
War Against the Machines
The fourth Terminator film is slightly better than you would expect of something directed by the empty-headed McG. There are some undeniably spectacular action sequences, although the film still stands too much in the shadow of what has gone before
The 355 (2022)
Spy/Action Film
Female-led spy/action film that serves everything up in an enjoyably kinetic mix with likeable characters. Not wheel reinventing but more enjoyable than most Hollywood product
Time Lapse (2001)
Action/Memory Erasing Drug
Action film in which an agent tries to prevent a nuclear arms deal after being given a memory-erasing drug
Time Under Fire (1997)
Time Travel/Action
Unimaginative time travel/action film that plays out like
Timebomb (1991)
Brainwashing/Action
Action film from Avi Nesher that comes with a solid and satisfying punch. Michael Biehn is a mild-mannered clockmaker who suddenly discovers he is a brainwashed assassin
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
Timecop: The Berlin Decision (2003)
Time Police
Sequel to Timecop with more of an action emphasis as Jason Scott Lee replacing Jean-Claude Van Damme trying to stop a criminal who is erasing agents from the timeline.
Tomb Raider (2018)
Videogame Adaptation
This reboot of the film series based on the videogame franchise is a mixed affair. Certainly, the perpetually non-acting Angelina Jolie is replaced by Alicia Vikander who gives Lara Croft living, breathing emotions
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
The Tomorrow War (2021)
War Across Time
Chris Pratt is recruited to fight an alien invasion in a war across time in a big-budget film that flounders in its own ridiculousness
Total Recall (1990)
Virtual Memories/Reality Bender/Action
Adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story is killed by being turned into an Arnold Schwarzenegger action vehicle and by director Paul Verhoeven’s burying the reality bending subtleties of the story under bludgeoning ultra-violence
Total Recall (2012)
Virtual Memories/Reality Bender/Action
I was never a particular fan of the Schwarzenegger original and this improves on it somewhat. This is far better conceived as an action film with some amazing Cyberpunk designs. On the other hand, the two decades interim has made the story’s Philip K. Dick-ian reality bendings seem commonplace
Transformers (2007)
Live-Action Transformer Robots
Michael Bay takes on the 1980s toy phenomenon, turning it into a massive blockbuster filled with copious mass destruction and machines beating the metal crap out of each other
Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
Live-Action Transformer Robots
Are there any new creative directions that Michael Bay feels he he has to explore for a fourth Transformers film? All the Transformers beating the crap out of each other and copious mass destruction has become hard to tell one of the films from each other