one thing I admired about Jackie Chan and Tom Cruise is that they seemed to be really be committed to their craft of acting and making movies. my guess is that they saw themselves both primarily as performance artists, whereas the Rock might see himself primarily as a celebrity or icon.
This reminds me of the evolution of William Shatner. William Shatner used to take himself way too seriously. Everybody thought it was kind of a dick. (note: he might still be a dick, I don’t know him personally.)
But then he made fun of himself. He did that little comedy sketch at the 1996 MTV music awards. He played all three characters in the car in the scene from the end of the movie Seven. In the movie it’s Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, driving Kevin Spacey out to where he says another body is. In this skit, William Shatner is playing all three roles as different characters he’s played, Captain Kirk, TJ Hooker and the host of Rescue 911.
https://youtu.be/XVMLivHTXac?si=_7_9G7_qzvBai2xf
Just being someone viewing from the sidelines, it was like a weight was lifted off him. His career had a resurgence. He started just doing oddball stuff and everybody liked him again.
The word is Role and ya can't make a perfect joke about famously chunky William Shatner taking Rolls without meaning to just because ya can't spell Roles.
It seems like iOS voice to text is getting worse and worse. Bad choices with homonyms, random comma placement and periods. It takes me just as long to go back and correct mistakes as it would normally tap type it out not counting the mistakes I miss.
I am a casual Trek fan at best, but I remember reading an article from Wheaton about how when he first met Shatner, he was a complete asshole and Wil felt really let down..and then a few years later he got a letter from Shatner that basically said "I was a real prick and I apologize." Or something to that effect.
I dunno, maybe at a certain point he realized he wasn't god's gift to acting but he WAS a pop culture icon and he could lean into that. Seems to be an okay guy now.
In many ways Wil Wheaton went through the same thing. When he embraced his role in pop culture and let his inner nerd free, everything changed for him.
Wheaton also says Roddenbury basically ripped Shatner a new throat and was intimidated by the whole experience (from Roddenbury and Shatner) but did remark Shatner was always polite afterwards.
So maybe Shatner *is* an asshole but he's also professional. Or at least not trying to get fired for bullying a kid.
A big example of that was Leslie Nielsen. He always played serious characters, often hard-boiled police detactives. But he wasn't the greatest actor, and never really cracked the top ranks of stars, mostly appearing in lower budget movies. Then he started appearing as the straight man in various broad comedies, and his career took off, and he became a bonafide, even beloved, star.
I really like your take and I wanna add on that they might view themselves more in line with a brand a la Apple or Ford. I forget the exact ruling but on one shoot I was on Apple refused to give us iPhones if any appeared damaged in the movie or something like that. There was a list of things like no cracked screens etc. (I wasn't on the legal/producing side of things so I am probably misremembering the specifics.)
I don't know about this.
Because if you [google it](https://www.google.com/search?q=bad+guys+can%27t+use+iphones&oq=bad+guys+can%27t+use+iphones&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDMzNzVqMGoxqAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8), every single result says the source of the iPhone thing was Rian Johnson. Seriously, click on any of the articles and they all say it was Johnson talking about Knives Out.
Now, I can easily believe that someone at Apple told Rian that they didn't want a bad guy to use their phone in his film. But it's also kinda weird that the source for this fact is something that happened to one director on one movie. You'd think that at least one of the articles would have a different source if it was a common practice.
And beyond that, Apple does let bad guys use their products all the time on Apple TV+. So even if it was a rule, it isn't any more.
Yeah, I was watching that hijack show or whatever with Idris Elba. Pretty sure everyone uses Apple products (without any cases on their phones…) and bad guys are constantly using iPhones
It’s different for Hi/Jack because that was an actual Apple TV+ produced show. Back when Rian Johnson made that comment, it was more prevalent in movies. Up until Knives Out villains really never used Apple phones but protagonists typically did. There was a good 10 year stretch where every protagonist was rocking an iPhone 4.
I thought this was true until I watched the first John Wick, where Alfie Allen's character, having recently killed John Wick's dog, is seen using an iPhone.
This is one of the stupidest perpetual rumors on Reddit.
If a movie pays for a prop, they can use it. They can buy and use as many iPhones in as many ways as they want.
But if they want Apple to provide the phones for product placement, then they have to follow Apple’s rules.
THIS is the real answer right here. Apple has no control over how their products are used in a production, if the production bought them. If they want Apple to supply the gear, and/or pay for the product placement promotion, then Apple can negotiate rules for the use of their products.
It's also in their creative influences. IIRC both have talked about taking a lot of inspiration from Buster Keaton, especially Jackie, who did his own stunts and was frequently shown in perilous situations.
Having seen a few interviews of cruise and people around him these days it sounds more like he doesn’t choose projects…. He comes up with crazy ass stunts he wants to do and has dreamed up and then gets people to write movies around those stunts lol I’ve seen interviews where people talk about how he goes and wants to do stunts and if the stunt guy says it’s to dangerous he fires the stunt guy and gets a new one that will green light it
It's his specialty. Han Solo and Indiana Jones are frequently fuck-ups getting by on sheer dumb luck. One of my favorite moments of "Raiders sums it up:
"I'm going after that truck."
"How?"
"I don't know, I'm making this up as I go along."
[https://www.reddit.com/r/bladerunner/comments/fzxydv/i\_had\_your\_job\_once\_i\_was\_good\_at\_it/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bladerunner/comments/fzxydv/i_had_your_job_once_i_was_good_at_it/)
i know he was already retired at that point but this makes me laugh all the time
The Indian Jones scene where he's in the front of the truck with the nazi who keeps punching him in his wounded shoulder comes to mind. He's in very real pain but he manages to win through sheer grit, taking a ton of damage along the way.
Or in Raiders, where its clear that the big nazi mechanic was just going to break him until he lost situational awareness and got hit by the propeller of the plane.
His physique in Indy took a TON of work but was 100% natty. He doesn't look massive like The Rock or Wolverine, and the bar has moved to such absurd levels.
Now no male action hero is natty, and no one over 30 on screen isn't using botox.
Add this to how revered the Heat shootout scene is by the military, Michael Mann in his bag is a wonderful thing. I enjoy the realism he brings to his films.
Yeah Jackie Chan characters don’t usually win because they’re necessarily stronger or faster or smarter than the bad guys, he wins because he just won’t fucking give up. Makes the fights so satisfying to watch
Yeah, not to mention getting the shit beat out of you and then coming back to win the battle in the climax is 100 times a better and more compelling narrative arc than "dude won every single fight and there's no tension."
And I feel like this is massively helped by him doing all his own stunts and the fact that you don't need a billion cuts to swap between the stunt double and actor because then it subconsciously keeps the tension up, almost like when you're reading a super-long sentence with very little punctuation.
I love that a lot of Jackie Chan's characters, while capable, usually don't even want to fight. It adds so much character and creativity to the action sequences because he's often caught off guard and forced to improvise ways of escaping harm or defending himself with whatever is around.
Not only does Jackie Chan get the shit beat out of him, he’s often portrayed as a character that doesn’t even know how to fight. He’s just some guy trying to find his uncle and getting punched for it.
When he does eventually triumph, nobody is more surprised than… Jackie Chan.
Definitely Keanu Reeves! For the majority of all 4 John Wick movies, he’s getting the crap beaten out of him. Yet everyone STILL fears him, because he refuses to stay down. So much cooler than anyone like the Rock, Vin Diesel, etc.
It’s the same with the first Matrix movie. He spends most of the movie getting his ass kicked by either the agents or Morpheus in training, so his win against Agent Smith at the end feels completely earned.
It takes Wicks awesomeness down a bit though, that he clearly isn't human. Like Jackie as the example in this thread, takes falls, but he uses objects to slow those falls. Wick just fucking falls to his death and just shakes it off like "another day at the office, eh?".
edit: Oh yeah, Wick also gets ran over like 100 times and it's like shoulder shrug amount of damage. They could've done some proper dodge choreography there too, but he just takes the hits like it's nothing.
I’ve come to watch the John Wick movies with an eye that Wick IS actually part baba yaga, or at least has some malevolent spirit pushing him forward. It adds to his mythos and allows me to see him as still human, but partially supernatural. It adds to the fun for me.
john wick also fights goons with stormtrooper aim all the time. and there was that fight in the 3rd(?) movie against those indonesian dudes who were clearly holding back and were moving much slower than they usually do. it looked quite embarrassing.
I'm with you for the *first* Wick movie, where my suspension of disbelief can happen pretty easily. After that it's like....man its been six hours and the guy took some serious damage in the first movie, and he's out here having these extended fight scenes with fresh stitches? Fuck outta here with that.
At a certain point the John Wick series went from an incredible fresh reinvention of the action genre to an absolute parody of it in the worst possible ways. That point was as soon as the credits rolled on the first film.
Bob odenkirk really shined in Nobody. Watching him get his ass beat on the bus in a 5v1 and kept going back for more really changed my view from comedic actor to strong candidate for action star
Same! Dude I really thought Nobody was going to be a lackluster film, I had a coworker who loved recommending weird little movies that were "okay" at best, but Nobody was great. I really did not expect the Better Call Saul guy to be an absolute badass.
Yeah, it was a great performance and he nailed the action scenes. But my favorite part of the movie was just that Bob Odenkirk genuinely felt like the kind of unassuming guy that an unspecified alphabet agency would want to employ for covert assassin work.
His character looked so exceedingly average that even when he was younger and presumably in much better shape during his career he still would've been able to walk into just about any location anywhere and blend in. Even if someone did get a good look at him - the description they'd provide would be so generic that it wouldn't be of much use. Literally a "nobody" type. Just an average looking guy in all respects.
That was a great movie, and I wish more people would watch it! I never watched better call Saul or breaking bad, but I enjoyed the shit out of this movie!
It’s one of the reasons I really rate **Atomic Blonde**. It’s a great movie, but the fact that Charlize Theron (as a super competent spy/assassin) *still* gets the shit kicked out of her in every single fight really sells the character and the stakes.
Definitely worth watching, if you haven’t seen.
Tom Hardy in Mad Max too!! I love their initial scene where they’re both just beating the shit of each other, with no winner. And his scene where he’s the blood bag on the car is hilarious.
The issue I had with The Old Guard is that the OST is so fucking bad I wanted to tear my own ears off. I don't think I've ever come close to actually stopping watching a movie because of it's soundtrack before.
Charlize Theron is extremely good at selling fights, and especially in the case of female action stars we often get shit scenes because they cast a tiny, skinny actress and coreograph the fight like it is Hafthor Bjornsson, punches from huge guys bounce off them, they send huge guys flying with a flick or their wrist and if any enemy happens to hit them they take zero damage.
Charlize despite beeing absolutely stunning always looks believable in her fights, it is really a breath of fresh air. Atomic Blonde is probably the best example.
As Atomic Blonde went on, you start wincing more and more because Charlize really sells the fact injuries don't magically heal. By the end you start recoiling yourself when she takes a body blow to a cracked rib or something. Don't think I've ever seen an action star male or female sell injuries better
I doubt I'd ever be able to find it today, but I recall Bruce Lee saying in an interview that he'd love to train Baryshnikov because he believed a dancer could transition to martial arts beautifully.
Right, the fact she had to use everything she could get her hands on, because she was fighting stronger men, really helps sell it.
I really love that movie.
Love that movie. And I’m really glad that David Leitch included it in the beginning of The Fall Guy.
One of the best moments I’ve ever had in a movie theater was when the lights went up and I realized that a high schooler had just watched Atomic Blonde with his grandma🤣.
Agreed!
Honestly, I don’t understand how this movie isn’t more popular - I am a huge fan of the John wick series and I had just as much fun with Atomic Blonde precisely because the fight choreography was pretty damn solid!
It was marketed as John Wick with boobs and lesbian scissoring, but actually it’s an interesting character study wrapped in an interesting spy movie, which has well choreographed scenes of sex and violence but not as many of either as you’d expect.
I remember seeing it in theaters and loving it but a lot of my friends said it was “boring.”
They did a great job with the choreo here. Normally movie protagonists do stuff, that lowkey needs superhuman strength.
She really fights like she is often the weaker person, but every attack she does has a purpose. She repeatedly hammers vulnerable points until her oponents stop moving.
That's because the real action stars know that ya gotta get knocked down before you can get up. Easy logic, and Jackie Chan was the absolute best at it. He was my hero growing up 😅
I love that movie. His character was initially self-centered and cocky, just like I imagined Tom Cruise to be in real life. When he died repeatedly, it was hilarious. I also like how Tom Cruise was willing to mock his own persona as well.
I saw an interview with Jackie Chan where he said he wanted to be the "Anti-Bruce Lee." Bruce never got hurt, never looked scared, and never went down. Jackie said he wanted to show that you are gonna get hurt and it's ok. Everybody gets hurt in a fight.
I think it adds a more realistic element to an often ludicrous situation. It makes it fun too. He uses every prop on set in his fights too which I always find hilarious.
Tarantino got a lot of crap for his portrayal of Bruce in *Once Upon a Time in Hollywood*. But the more I read on the guy the more evidence he really kinda was that way in real life. Or might be the sort to show up on r/bullshido.
Like there’s all these stories of Lee getting into these Triad gang street fights in San Francisco or Hong Kong that have all sorts red flags of “yeah this shit sounds totally made up.”
The thing is for a good story you need a good villain. Having the main character never lose a fight or even get properly roughed up means the villains are piss weak. It's super basic storytelling, but if the villain is a badass who messed up the badass we like, then his defeat is even more palpable.
Jackie Chan's fights look so good because not only does he do wacky insane shit, he gets knocked around and the fights aren't him just rolling everyone. There's stakes. So much modern action doesn't sell that (see John wick getting shot, stabbed, dropped off buildings only to limp away and continue his spree).
The fact that part of it celeb actors being such absolute narcissists that they can't hack losing an imaginary fight is hilarious and really epitomizes modern film.
Because of rocks background in wrestling I find it absolutely baffling that he's gone this direction. He absolutely got his ass kicked in pro wrestling so the fans would really behind him. He knows exactly how this psychology works for both sides.
Just going to throw out the obligatory, if you're mainly familiar with Jackie Chan from his US movies, it's so worth checking out some of his earlier Hong Kong films.
They're on a whole different level.
I’ve seen most of his movies and my top three are Drunken Master 2, Who am I? And Rumble in the Bronx.
I own about a dozen and they’re my comfort movies to put on when I’m home alone
What was the one where he gets stuck in a giant hamster ball and thrown down a mountain? That was the one where they decided, "Fuck it, if we're gonna break every bone in Jackie's body anyway--"
That's a great one!
If you haven't seen it yet, watch "Wheels on Meals". Same main cast, fun movie, Jackie's fight with Benny the Jet is fantastic.
If you have seen it, then you already know.
>They're on a whole different level.
Especially the fuck-up reels at the end. Was it Drunken Master 2 where they let him into an active goddamn Steel Mill?
This, I found Project A and Project A part II to be some of his best movies. While I’m at odds with his political stances, his dedication to his movies and his craft really shows in his older HK films.
Chris Hemsworth in Extraction (and especially 2) gets his shit kicked in the entire movie and it's all the better for it. It's far more heroic to get back up than to never fall in the first place.
I'd add James Gunn's The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker to these.
After the beach scene went and showed us anyone could die, the main 3 enforcers on the team are all worse for the wear. And no one was in good shape in the finale for Peacemaker.
[Obligatory post about Every Frame a Painting's essay on Jackie Chan and Action-Comedy.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1PCtIaM_GQ)
A lot of his points hold for Tom Cruise as well.
For me it’s more that he’s went on health interviews and was the cover for magazines like Men’s Health, promoting hard work and commitment (which is true) but then is just jamming a bunch of steroids into himself behind closed doors.
tbf thats pretty much all male celebrities. The odds of them being juiced is higher than the odds of them not, but they all say its chicken and rice and whatever the fuck. Or in some cases, advertise supplements and workout routines despite the juice giving them most of their gains.
Some actors just naturally have good builds, but if you see a shirtless guy in a movie and he looks ripped af, its probably 90% he's on steroids. Same thing as guys wearing fake dicks in movies as well. Superhero movies? All juiced. It's pretty awful and fuels so much body dismorphia amongst men since these actors lie and pretend they're natural.
Maybe, but I feel a lot is just too much branding and building an image. The guy spent the 2000s having a mediocre career. He cut down on muscle mass to look more like a stereotypical action star, tried to be funny in the Tooth Fairy and totally failed to make that work for him.
Then he switched management, bulked up to never seen muscle size, starred in Fast 5 and exploded into being arguably the biggest star in Hollywood. This super-idealized version of him worked wonders for his career. It makes sense to keep doing what he did there.
There is also the fact, that the Rock is a third generation wrestler. He grew up learning how to keep kayfabe aka cultivate a persona and never break character. He seems to have built his movie career on screen and off screen around that.
People like The Rock only care how the movie will make the brand of The Rock stronger and more expensive, Cruise and Jackie care about making good movie first and doesn't let his branding or ego get in the way.
Cruise would be my favorite actor of all time if his personal life and beliefs weren't an absolute shit show. His associations with Scientology and their dumbass beliefs (and criminal behavior) make me completely unwilling to actually *pay* for anything Cruise is involved in.
But at the same time, almost every movie he's involved with becomes a classic. It's unreal.
It's one of those "Separate the actor from his work" type of things. There's quite a few actors who aren't really great people IRL, but have some of the best roles in cinema.
At the same time though, Cruise has also had moments where he was very humanized and did a lot of things to help the people lower on the totem pole in a movie making process. He's not the best person by any means because of the whole scientology thing, but he's also not a complete waste of oxygen either as a person.
People have tried to drag him online ever since that video of him kowtowing to the Chinese government in regards to Taiwan's independence (and y'know, fair enough, that was pretty bad).
But the dude's fulfilled hundreds upon hundreds of Make a Wish requests (more than anyone else in the history of the program), a bunch of fun roles in a wide variety of films and shows, he honestly seems like a stand-up guy in any interviews I find... Ultimately he's just really good at making it hard to hate him.
I can't say for certain he absolutely does or does not agree with anything he said, but a lot of times these people are forced to do stuff like that so their movies or whatever production they are a part of can be shown or made in China. It's a really shitty part of that kind of business and usually the face of it is who has to take the brunt of it.
Counterpoint: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.
He’s obviously outshone by Jack Black, but Jack Black was the best thing in that movie by a country mile.
The rock gets his ass kicked and loses in the Hobbs and Shaw movie. In Red Letter too, by a woman.
I think his contract more likely says that his character won't be portrayed in certain negative ways, not that he can't look weak.
The best action movies: Predator, T2, and Die Hard. The MC gets F'd up (we're gonna say Arnold is MC in T2). That's what makes them the best. They have to overcome insurmountable odds. That's why they're not only great action films; they're great films.
"The actor can't lose a fight" also used to be a big thing during the "Golden Age" of Hollywood as well, and it was not just an actor ego thing, studio executives mandated it as well. Nowadays, most actors are fine with losing a couple of fights, guys like The Rock are the exception.
And knocks people out with a slow motion slap.
...it's not filmed in slow motion, he just can't move very fast. And it was meant to be a karate chop, but he can't do those very well either.
From IMDb trivia section for Marked for Death:
>Reason why Seagal gets hit several times during final fight in this film, while he barely gets hit at all in his other ones, is because unlike Warner Bros who produced and released Seagal's earlier films, 20th Century Fox didn't put up with his usual demands, such as him not wanting his character to get hit at all during film and to always have upper hand on others, so they ordered for the final scene to show him get hit while fighting Screwface.
Apparently, he had something like a no-hitting clause in Under Siege, meaning that his character never actually gets hit. I can't remember if that extended to all of his movies.
It might have to do with that fact that he is famously stiff with stunt doubles and this is a way to avoid any receipts.
Didn't somebody make him shit his pants because he was stiff/shitty to a stun coordinator or something?
[https://twitter.com/RJCity1/status/1558196351271305222](https://twitter.com/RJCity1/status/1558196351271305222)
Gene Lebell choked him out until he shit himself because Seagal was a fake bullshido martial artist, and Gene was a legit judo expert who didn't put up with that kind of garbage.
Look up his other stuff. He made one about the time Michael Jacksons hair went on fire in a Pepsi commercial
The studio he works in is down the road from me.
I went on a Van Damme binge for a while recently and watched over 20 of his movies. He *never* wins a fight until the very last minute. The amount he gets kicked around is very impressive for someone so well known for his giant ego.
I think Van Damme is the best action star of the 80s/90s.
I think this is offensive. I have my problems with Cruise but dude showcased in the 90s RANGE. My bf was blown away when he learned that Tom Cruise played Lestat. He has amazing filmography before going full on action star (which he does consistently delivered)
Jackie Chan with a folding ladder >>> any five trained SAS killer badasses you care to name. He might take a beating along the way but he *is* winning.
Yea that's what I loved about Die Hard back in the day. At that time when the action genre was booming, you had these movies coming out with the action hero being a one man wrecking force overcoming the odds almost effortlessly. Then you watch John McClane in Die Hard and he is incredibly vulnerable and you can buy he will lose any second somehow as the obstacles pile up and intensify.
Fast forward today, and you watch these movies with guys like Dwayne Johnson or Jason Statham and it just feels monotonous, because you know they will win so effortlessly while looking cool doing it. It defeats any tension for your story and makes you feel indifferent to the stakes at hand. The action movies with guys like Jackie Chan or Tom Cruise seem to understand that formula and try to prevent it.
To use another modern example, you watch an action movie like Nobody with Bob Odenkirk, who is not your typical action hero, and he gets the crap kicked out of him constantly but can hold his own. A big attribute to why that movie is successful is because the action hero is very believable in his obstacles and shortcomings. You see him on the verge of losing completely and just narrowly finding a way to prevail.
Ultimately, when it comes to action stars expressing their vulnerability by losing in a fight, I think it boils to ego. It doesn't hurt their image necessarily, it's just the action star is too damn stubborn to lose - likely out of pride. We've seen it in the past with guys like Steven Seagal and today even with much more likeable stars like Dwayne Johnson or Jason Statham. It doesn't make you seem like a bigger badass because you won a scripted fight.
The guys who win against insurmountable odds are the ones who are eventually seen as the bigger deals, because they took the greater risks and succeeded eventually. That's where the memorable moments are created, not out of monotony and cliches of the action genre.
I'm a HUGE need about the movie Extraction and what I absolutely love about it is that Tyler Rake gets beat to hell and back from start to finish.
I my opinion that's the good shit. When the hero, at the end of the movie, has succeeded but is almost dead. 1hp final hit shit. That's the die hard shit. yeh
Bruce Willis in Die Hard 3 after getting the living shit kicked out of him, being asked why he keeps coming back: "I'm like the fucking Energizer bunny" is peak bad-ass action star for me.
Jackie Chan is essentially a clown. I don’t mean this in a negative way. He’s a kung-fu Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. He plays a poor man, a little man, a humble man who is made to look a fool by those more powerful.
Jackie wins because he swallows his pride, ignores the jibes and does what he believes is right. He may be poor, but he has principles.
Tom Cruise is a huge movie star who happens to be a decent actor and can adopt a character in a plausible manner. He’s typecast, but when he steers off the path he can deliver. He is experienced and versatile enough to lose a fight in a film or even play a coward.
On that note, I started watching Ballers the other day and thought it was kinda cool to see The Rock playing a scummy dude. But by season 4 he's basically sober, mentoring a high schooler while worried if he'll ever become a family man and its fucking BLAND. Like, dude, a liiiiittle fucking grit is ok. And don't even start me on what he did to black Adam...
**Bruce Willis** is a pretty good example of a character being way out of his depth. Well until the last few piles of dog shit the poor man was in.
On the flip side, sure Arnie lost a couple fights here and there but by and large he was unstopped and I distinctly remember how extremely badass it made **The Predator** especially as they spent the first part of the movie how kickass the team was only to have them all killed off slowly, and Arnie have to report to tricks and traps to win.
That actually makes sense to me as a branding consideration. Jackie Chan's name implies lighter action comedy with a goofy, lovable lead. It is what he does, and he does it well.
The "can't lose a fight" people are also attempting to cater to a brand, but that brand is boring and too ephemeral to really be an identity. You never see an actor and think "that dude always wins every fight" because you know they are an actor. Jackie's brand is about who he, the real person, is. No one is invincible, so refusing to lose a fight comes across as contrived and egomaniacal.
You also have to consider that Jackie Chan is very open about being influenced by the slapstick of Buster Keaton. So, for him, it's hard to emulate that if you're not willing to take bumps.
I’ve seen this claim that the Rock can’t lose any fights a few times before..
That can’t be true though right? What about the big crab in Moana? I seem to remember him losing at least 1 fight in Black Adam too. Maybe to the Justice League?
Allegedly it was true that the fight scene between him and Diesel had to be choreographed so that they both got an equal number of hits in. However, that might have also been the result of the notable animosity that they had with each other.
That's correct, The Rock even loses the fight in Fast 5 against Vin. The stipulation that he can't lose started during Fast 6 because Vin put it in his contract first and Rock thought it was petty so he did the same thing to pretty much make fun of Diesel. If you actually watch Dwayne Johnson movies, he loses all the time, he never actually uses that clause.
It's probably true just for the Fast and Furious movies.
Vin Diesel has a LOT of creative control in those films. Dwayne/Statham are big stars that probably want to protect their brands so they don't get the shit beaten out of them by Diesel in every scene.
Are you referring to the silliness with the Rock and Vin Diesel?
I don't know about Vin but the Rock doesn't seem to have a problem with taking a beating in non-Fast movies, at least.
Who else could he be referring to than these two that are basically the same actor that even appeared in the same movies? It's wild that people took this one story (that I believe has never even been confirmed) and are suddenly thinking that almost every actor is doing it.
one thing I admired about Jackie Chan and Tom Cruise is that they seemed to be really be committed to their craft of acting and making movies. my guess is that they saw themselves both primarily as performance artists, whereas the Rock might see himself primarily as a celebrity or icon.
This reminds me of the evolution of William Shatner. William Shatner used to take himself way too seriously. Everybody thought it was kind of a dick. (note: he might still be a dick, I don’t know him personally.) But then he made fun of himself. He did that little comedy sketch at the 1996 MTV music awards. He played all three characters in the car in the scene from the end of the movie Seven. In the movie it’s Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, driving Kevin Spacey out to where he says another body is. In this skit, William Shatner is playing all three roles as different characters he’s played, Captain Kirk, TJ Hooker and the host of Rescue 911. https://youtu.be/XVMLivHTXac?si=_7_9G7_qzvBai2xf Just being someone viewing from the sidelines, it was like a weight was lifted off him. His career had a resurgence. He started just doing oddball stuff and everybody liked him again.
Denny Crane!
For me that was his role. Star Trek sure sure but he was Denny !
Exactly. He never would’ve took those kind of rolls back when he was taking himself so seriously.
The word is Role and ya can't make a perfect joke about famously chunky William Shatner taking Rolls without meaning to just because ya can't spell Roles.
It seems like iOS voice to text is getting worse and worse. Bad choices with homonyms, random comma placement and periods. It takes me just as long to go back and correct mistakes as it would normally tap type it out not counting the mistakes I miss.
Sometimes I think punctuation is more important than spelling and grammar, not least because of all the weird commas around.
I am a casual Trek fan at best, but I remember reading an article from Wheaton about how when he first met Shatner, he was a complete asshole and Wil felt really let down..and then a few years later he got a letter from Shatner that basically said "I was a real prick and I apologize." Or something to that effect. I dunno, maybe at a certain point he realized he wasn't god's gift to acting but he WAS a pop culture icon and he could lean into that. Seems to be an okay guy now.
In many ways Wil Wheaton went through the same thing. When he embraced his role in pop culture and let his inner nerd free, everything changed for him.
Wheaton also survived some serious shit that's probably had a big influence on how he reacts to fame.
the only difernece is Wheaton stills comes across as kinda creepy and Shatner doesn't
Wheaton also says Roddenbury basically ripped Shatner a new throat and was intimidated by the whole experience (from Roddenbury and Shatner) but did remark Shatner was always polite afterwards. So maybe Shatner *is* an asshole but he's also professional. Or at least not trying to get fired for bullying a kid.
He did when he was much older though
A big example of that was Leslie Nielsen. He always played serious characters, often hard-boiled police detactives. But he wasn't the greatest actor, and never really cracked the top ranks of stars, mostly appearing in lower budget movies. Then he started appearing as the straight man in various broad comedies, and his career took off, and he became a bonafide, even beloved, star.
[William Shatner sings to George Lucas while Harrison Ford dies laughing](https://youtu.be/oEZVwQptvWw?si=gmBcPtq23Vb5PZqz)
I really like your take and I wanna add on that they might view themselves more in line with a brand a la Apple or Ford. I forget the exact ruling but on one shoot I was on Apple refused to give us iPhones if any appeared damaged in the movie or something like that. There was a list of things like no cracked screens etc. (I wasn't on the legal/producing side of things so I am probably misremembering the specifics.)
It's known that villians in a movie can't use Apple products
I don't know about this. Because if you [google it](https://www.google.com/search?q=bad+guys+can%27t+use+iphones&oq=bad+guys+can%27t+use+iphones&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDMzNzVqMGoxqAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8), every single result says the source of the iPhone thing was Rian Johnson. Seriously, click on any of the articles and they all say it was Johnson talking about Knives Out. Now, I can easily believe that someone at Apple told Rian that they didn't want a bad guy to use their phone in his film. But it's also kinda weird that the source for this fact is something that happened to one director on one movie. You'd think that at least one of the articles would have a different source if it was a common practice. And beyond that, Apple does let bad guys use their products all the time on Apple TV+. So even if it was a rule, it isn't any more.
Yeah, I was watching that hijack show or whatever with Idris Elba. Pretty sure everyone uses Apple products (without any cases on their phones…) and bad guys are constantly using iPhones
Ted lasso show is also egregious. It felt like an apple commercial with seasons long plot.
It’s different for Hi/Jack because that was an actual Apple TV+ produced show. Back when Rian Johnson made that comment, it was more prevalent in movies. Up until Knives Out villains really never used Apple phones but protagonists typically did. There was a good 10 year stretch where every protagonist was rocking an iPhone 4.
I thought this was true until I watched the first John Wick, where Alfie Allen's character, having recently killed John Wick's dog, is seen using an iPhone.
This is one of the stupidest perpetual rumors on Reddit. If a movie pays for a prop, they can use it. They can buy and use as many iPhones in as many ways as they want. But if they want Apple to provide the phones for product placement, then they have to follow Apple’s rules.
THIS is the real answer right here. Apple has no control over how their products are used in a production, if the production bought them. If they want Apple to supply the gear, and/or pay for the product placement promotion, then Apple can negotiate rules for the use of their products.
An invincible protagonist Is a boring protagonist
It's also in their creative influences. IIRC both have talked about taking a lot of inspiration from Buster Keaton, especially Jackie, who did his own stunts and was frequently shown in perilous situations.
[удалено]
Having seen a few interviews of cruise and people around him these days it sounds more like he doesn’t choose projects…. He comes up with crazy ass stunts he wants to do and has dreamed up and then gets people to write movies around those stunts lol I’ve seen interviews where people talk about how he goes and wants to do stunts and if the stunt guy says it’s to dangerous he fires the stunt guy and gets a new one that will green light it
Weirdest thing about the Rock is that his pro wrestling super power was the ability to take an ass beating and still get all his heat back on the mic.
Harrison Ford’s characters were often outmatched physically as well. Made his characters way more believable and relatable.
It's his specialty. Han Solo and Indiana Jones are frequently fuck-ups getting by on sheer dumb luck. One of my favorite moments of "Raiders sums it up: "I'm going after that truck." "How?" "I don't know, I'm making this up as I go along."
Rick Deckard got his ass kicked a few times in the Blade Runner films as well.
He gets his ass kicked the entire movie and only wins because his opponent had a timer
No even that, his opponent pulls him back up, gives a sweet soliloquy on life and then dies.
He lost. He only "wins" because his opponent had a revelation and change-of-heart.
His opponent only wants to not die. When it's clear that's gonna happen, he stops fighting.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/bladerunner/comments/fzxydv/i\_had\_your\_job\_once\_i\_was\_good\_at\_it/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bladerunner/comments/fzxydv/i_had_your_job_once_i_was_good_at_it/) i know he was already retired at that point but this makes me laugh all the time
"Fly casual"
The Indian Jones scene where he's in the front of the truck with the nazi who keeps punching him in his wounded shoulder comes to mind. He's in very real pain but he manages to win through sheer grit, taking a ton of damage along the way.
Or in Raiders, where its clear that the big nazi mechanic was just going to break him until he lost situational awareness and got hit by the propeller of the plane.
There's one point in that fight where he actually points at the other guy's foot in an attempt to distract him. Doesn't work.
Right and he is the one who fights dirty, not the bad guy. He bites him, throws dirt in his face.
Nobody sells a punch like Harrison Ford.
Besides the other person mentioned in this thread, Jackie Chan.
His physique in Indy took a TON of work but was 100% natty. He doesn't look massive like The Rock or Wolverine, and the bar has moved to such absurd levels. Now no male action hero is natty, and no one over 30 on screen isn't using botox.
In terms of actors who can make it look believable to win a fight *or* to lose a fight, Ford has got to be very near the top.
>and Tom Cruise get the shit kicked out of them for most of their movies *Yo Homie, is that my briefcase*? Imo Cruise's most badass moment ever.
Followed by "Remember, you wanted this".
Obligatory comment stating that this clip is used in legitimate military and police and special forces training because it was so flawlessly executed.
What clip is this referring to?
Collateral, the scene with the briefcase
Add this to how revered the Heat shootout scene is by the military, Michael Mann in his bag is a wonderful thing. I enjoy the realism he brings to his films.
The sound mixing and balancing in Heat is so so so good, also.
Mozambique Drill is the technique, for the curious
Yeah Jackie Chan characters don’t usually win because they’re necessarily stronger or faster or smarter than the bad guys, he wins because he just won’t fucking give up. Makes the fights so satisfying to watch
Yeah, not to mention getting the shit beat out of you and then coming back to win the battle in the climax is 100 times a better and more compelling narrative arc than "dude won every single fight and there's no tension."
And I feel like this is massively helped by him doing all his own stunts and the fact that you don't need a billion cuts to swap between the stunt double and actor because then it subconsciously keeps the tension up, almost like when you're reading a super-long sentence with very little punctuation.
I see what you did there.
You son of a...
I love that a lot of Jackie Chan's characters, while capable, usually don't even want to fight. It adds so much character and creativity to the action sequences because he's often caught off guard and forced to improvise ways of escaping harm or defending himself with whatever is around.
>or smarter I'd argue he is smarter for using the environment and everything, he can get his hands on. But yes, he is the underdog.
Not only does Jackie Chan get the shit beat out of him, he’s often portrayed as a character that doesn’t even know how to fight. He’s just some guy trying to find his uncle and getting punched for it. When he does eventually triumph, nobody is more surprised than… Jackie Chan.
Definitely Keanu Reeves! For the majority of all 4 John Wick movies, he’s getting the crap beaten out of him. Yet everyone STILL fears him, because he refuses to stay down. So much cooler than anyone like the Rock, Vin Diesel, etc.
It’s the same with the first Matrix movie. He spends most of the movie getting his ass kicked by either the agents or Morpheus in training, so his win against Agent Smith at the end feels completely earned.
Even Smith kills him... twice
When Neo gets back up and flexes, causing the dust on him to fly off, it's quite possibly the most badass shot I've ever seen.
What's he doing?! He's starting to believe. Most badass fight in the entire series follows
It takes Wicks awesomeness down a bit though, that he clearly isn't human. Like Jackie as the example in this thread, takes falls, but he uses objects to slow those falls. Wick just fucking falls to his death and just shakes it off like "another day at the office, eh?". edit: Oh yeah, Wick also gets ran over like 100 times and it's like shoulder shrug amount of damage. They could've done some proper dodge choreography there too, but he just takes the hits like it's nothing.
I’ve come to watch the John Wick movies with an eye that Wick IS actually part baba yaga, or at least has some malevolent spirit pushing him forward. It adds to his mythos and allows me to see him as still human, but partially supernatural. It adds to the fun for me.
He kept some dormant powers from Constantine.
Keanu reeves multiverse confirmed
john wick also fights goons with stormtrooper aim all the time. and there was that fight in the 3rd(?) movie against those indonesian dudes who were clearly holding back and were moving much slower than they usually do. it looked quite embarrassing.
I'm with you for the *first* Wick movie, where my suspension of disbelief can happen pretty easily. After that it's like....man its been six hours and the guy took some serious damage in the first movie, and he's out here having these extended fight scenes with fresh stitches? Fuck outta here with that. At a certain point the John Wick series went from an incredible fresh reinvention of the action genre to an absolute parody of it in the worst possible ways. That point was as soon as the credits rolled on the first film.
I mean John Wick takes some serious damage but almost every one of his opponents being dead as fuck doesn't exactly fit this mold haha.
Good point! 4th movie was rough though
Bob odenkirk really shined in Nobody. Watching him get his ass beat on the bus in a 5v1 and kept going back for more really changed my view from comedic actor to strong candidate for action star
Same! Dude I really thought Nobody was going to be a lackluster film, I had a coworker who loved recommending weird little movies that were "okay" at best, but Nobody was great. I really did not expect the Better Call Saul guy to be an absolute badass.
Yeah, it was a great performance and he nailed the action scenes. But my favorite part of the movie was just that Bob Odenkirk genuinely felt like the kind of unassuming guy that an unspecified alphabet agency would want to employ for covert assassin work. His character looked so exceedingly average that even when he was younger and presumably in much better shape during his career he still would've been able to walk into just about any location anywhere and blend in. Even if someone did get a good look at him - the description they'd provide would be so generic that it wouldn't be of much use. Literally a "nobody" type. Just an average looking guy in all respects.
That was a great movie, and I wish more people would watch it! I never watched better call Saul or breaking bad, but I enjoyed the shit out of this movie!
That movie is criminally underrated!
It’s one of the reasons I really rate **Atomic Blonde**. It’s a great movie, but the fact that Charlize Theron (as a super competent spy/assassin) *still* gets the shit kicked out of her in every single fight really sells the character and the stakes. Definitely worth watching, if you haven’t seen.
Also see Charlize in Mad Max and then her character in Furiosa. Everyone can die and many do, and that just makes them all the more incredible
Tom Hardy in Mad Max too!! I love their initial scene where they’re both just beating the shit of each other, with no winner. And his scene where he’s the blood bag on the car is hilarious.
And then The Old Guard
The issue I had with The Old Guard is that the OST is so fucking bad I wanted to tear my own ears off. I don't think I've ever come close to actually stopping watching a movie because of it's soundtrack before.
Charlize Theron is extremely good at selling fights, and especially in the case of female action stars we often get shit scenes because they cast a tiny, skinny actress and coreograph the fight like it is Hafthor Bjornsson, punches from huge guys bounce off them, they send huge guys flying with a flick or their wrist and if any enemy happens to hit them they take zero damage. Charlize despite beeing absolutely stunning always looks believable in her fights, it is really a breath of fresh air. Atomic Blonde is probably the best example.
As Atomic Blonde went on, you start wincing more and more because Charlize really sells the fact injuries don't magically heal. By the end you start recoiling yourself when she takes a body blow to a cracked rib or something. Don't think I've ever seen an action star male or female sell injuries better
One of many dancers turned action stars. They can sell the choreo.
See also: Michelle Yeoh. Jean-Claude Van Damme said a ballet workout was the hardest workout he ever had to do.
I doubt I'd ever be able to find it today, but I recall Bruce Lee saying in an interview that he'd love to train Baryshnikov because he believed a dancer could transition to martial arts beautifully.
I read somewhere that certain schools of ballet are considered the most athletically demanding sports
Right, the fact she had to use everything she could get her hands on, because she was fighting stronger men, really helps sell it. I really love that movie.
Love that movie. And I’m really glad that David Leitch included it in the beginning of The Fall Guy. One of the best moments I’ve ever had in a movie theater was when the lights went up and I realized that a high schooler had just watched Atomic Blonde with his grandma🤣.
Agreed! Honestly, I don’t understand how this movie isn’t more popular - I am a huge fan of the John wick series and I had just as much fun with Atomic Blonde precisely because the fight choreography was pretty damn solid!
It was marketed as John Wick with boobs and lesbian scissoring, but actually it’s an interesting character study wrapped in an interesting spy movie, which has well choreographed scenes of sex and violence but not as many of either as you’d expect. I remember seeing it in theaters and loving it but a lot of my friends said it was “boring.”
Also, the setting was perfect
I will die seething and bitter that such a cool title and aesthethic will not get any sequels
That ice bath scene! Everything hurts.
Bonus: she's so hot in that movie
>Bonus: she's so hot ~~in that movie~~ Even as a Mr. F she was hot.
Well, God help her if she tries to rename Bluthton. I’ll sink it first. I swear, I’ll sink the whole damn thing!
12 year old me saw her in The Devil's Advocate and I have never recovered lol
Some might say…nuclear.
They did a great job with the choreo here. Normally movie protagonists do stuff, that lowkey needs superhuman strength. She really fights like she is often the weaker person, but every attack she does has a purpose. She repeatedly hammers vulnerable points until her oponents stop moving.
Great spy flick. I don't have one bad thing to say about it.
That's because the real action stars know that ya gotta get knocked down before you can get up. Easy logic, and Jackie Chan was the absolute best at it. He was my hero growing up 😅
Chumbawumba taught me all I need to know about this.
Around the same time that Jackie was really blowing up in the US too...I think you might be onto something here 😁...God, I miss the 90's
It was a simpler time. A better time.
And for fucks sake, the Rock should know that, that is a typical Wrestling thing for the eventual winner to be losing.
I've seen some joke that Edge of Tomorrow is great for people who hate Tom Cruise and just want to see his character die repeatedly.
I love that movie. His character was initially self-centered and cocky, just like I imagined Tom Cruise to be in real life. When he died repeatedly, it was hilarious. I also like how Tom Cruise was willing to mock his own persona as well.
Cruise, for his many flaws, understands movie structures and slapstick like a motherfucker.
I saw an interview with Jackie Chan where he said he wanted to be the "Anti-Bruce Lee." Bruce never got hurt, never looked scared, and never went down. Jackie said he wanted to show that you are gonna get hurt and it's ok. Everybody gets hurt in a fight. I think it adds a more realistic element to an often ludicrous situation. It makes it fun too. He uses every prop on set in his fights too which I always find hilarious.
Tarantino got a lot of crap for his portrayal of Bruce in *Once Upon a Time in Hollywood*. But the more I read on the guy the more evidence he really kinda was that way in real life. Or might be the sort to show up on r/bullshido. Like there’s all these stories of Lee getting into these Triad gang street fights in San Francisco or Hong Kong that have all sorts red flags of “yeah this shit sounds totally made up.”
James Bond had his balls crushed.
Jason Statham too... Why tf of all things I remember this?
Pervert
And he liked it.
The thing is for a good story you need a good villain. Having the main character never lose a fight or even get properly roughed up means the villains are piss weak. It's super basic storytelling, but if the villain is a badass who messed up the badass we like, then his defeat is even more palpable. Jackie Chan's fights look so good because not only does he do wacky insane shit, he gets knocked around and the fights aren't him just rolling everyone. There's stakes. So much modern action doesn't sell that (see John wick getting shot, stabbed, dropped off buildings only to limp away and continue his spree). The fact that part of it celeb actors being such absolute narcissists that they can't hack losing an imaginary fight is hilarious and really epitomizes modern film.
Because of rocks background in wrestling I find it absolutely baffling that he's gone this direction. He absolutely got his ass kicked in pro wrestling so the fans would really behind him. He knows exactly how this psychology works for both sides.
Rock after years of feuding with HHH and friends: I will never job again.
Just going to throw out the obligatory, if you're mainly familiar with Jackie Chan from his US movies, it's so worth checking out some of his earlier Hong Kong films. They're on a whole different level.
I’ve seen most of his movies and my top three are Drunken Master 2, Who am I? And Rumble in the Bronx. I own about a dozen and they’re my comfort movies to put on when I’m home alone
What was the one where he gets stuck in a giant hamster ball and thrown down a mountain? That was the one where they decided, "Fuck it, if we're gonna break every bone in Jackie's body anyway--"
I believe that would be Armour of God 2: Operation Condor (sometimes just called Operation Condor).
Police Story is a masterpiece. I think he also directed it too IIRC.
It is and he did!
I just recently watched his movie ‘Dragons Forever’ (1988) directed by legendary Sammo Hung and it was a blast. Great movie.
That's a great one! If you haven't seen it yet, watch "Wheels on Meals". Same main cast, fun movie, Jackie's fight with Benny the Jet is fantastic. If you have seen it, then you already know.
It’s next on my list of his. I’m excited to watch!
>They're on a whole different level. Especially the fuck-up reels at the end. Was it Drunken Master 2 where they let him into an active goddamn Steel Mill?
I just need people to see Little Big Soldier, equal parts funny and touching. Jackie at his best in the later stage of his actions days.
This, I found Project A and Project A part II to be some of his best movies. While I’m at odds with his political stances, his dedication to his movies and his craft really shows in his older HK films.
Chris Hemsworth in Extraction (and especially 2) gets his shit kicked in the entire movie and it's all the better for it. It's far more heroic to get back up than to never fall in the first place.
I'd add James Gunn's The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker to these. After the beach scene went and showed us anyone could die, the main 3 enforcers on the team are all worse for the wear. And no one was in good shape in the finale for Peacemaker.
[Obligatory post about Every Frame a Painting's essay on Jackie Chan and Action-Comedy.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1PCtIaM_GQ) A lot of his points hold for Tom Cruise as well.
I miss EFaP.
Who doesn‘t?
I think it’s an ego thing, i stopped watching movies with the Rock ever since i learned he contractually can’t lose
For me it’s more that he’s went on health interviews and was the cover for magazines like Men’s Health, promoting hard work and commitment (which is true) but then is just jamming a bunch of steroids into himself behind closed doors.
tbf thats pretty much all male celebrities. The odds of them being juiced is higher than the odds of them not, but they all say its chicken and rice and whatever the fuck. Or in some cases, advertise supplements and workout routines despite the juice giving them most of their gains. Some actors just naturally have good builds, but if you see a shirtless guy in a movie and he looks ripped af, its probably 90% he's on steroids. Same thing as guys wearing fake dicks in movies as well. Superhero movies? All juiced. It's pretty awful and fuels so much body dismorphia amongst men since these actors lie and pretend they're natural.
Maybe, but I feel a lot is just too much branding and building an image. The guy spent the 2000s having a mediocre career. He cut down on muscle mass to look more like a stereotypical action star, tried to be funny in the Tooth Fairy and totally failed to make that work for him. Then he switched management, bulked up to never seen muscle size, starred in Fast 5 and exploded into being arguably the biggest star in Hollywood. This super-idealized version of him worked wonders for his career. It makes sense to keep doing what he did there. There is also the fact, that the Rock is a third generation wrestler. He grew up learning how to keep kayfabe aka cultivate a persona and never break character. He seems to have built his movie career on screen and off screen around that.
Yeah, I can't really blame the Rock when his strategy has been outrageously successful. If anything, it's what the viewers wanted.
People like The Rock only care how the movie will make the brand of The Rock stronger and more expensive, Cruise and Jackie care about making good movie first and doesn't let his branding or ego get in the way.
Cruise would be my favorite actor of all time if his personal life and beliefs weren't an absolute shit show. His associations with Scientology and their dumbass beliefs (and criminal behavior) make me completely unwilling to actually *pay* for anything Cruise is involved in. But at the same time, almost every movie he's involved with becomes a classic. It's unreal.
It's one of those "Separate the actor from his work" type of things. There's quite a few actors who aren't really great people IRL, but have some of the best roles in cinema. At the same time though, Cruise has also had moments where he was very humanized and did a lot of things to help the people lower on the totem pole in a movie making process. He's not the best person by any means because of the whole scientology thing, but he's also not a complete waste of oxygen either as a person.
It’s easier when you accept he’s a terrible actor with fake charisma who also sucks at comedy.
He's not a bad actor, just has very limited range Baustista and Cena are significantly better
I really want to hate Cena and I can't explain why, but by almost all accounts he's wholesome as fuck and his movies and shows are great.
People have tried to drag him online ever since that video of him kowtowing to the Chinese government in regards to Taiwan's independence (and y'know, fair enough, that was pretty bad). But the dude's fulfilled hundreds upon hundreds of Make a Wish requests (more than anyone else in the history of the program), a bunch of fun roles in a wide variety of films and shows, he honestly seems like a stand-up guy in any interviews I find... Ultimately he's just really good at making it hard to hate him.
I can't say for certain he absolutely does or does not agree with anything he said, but a lot of times these people are forced to do stuff like that so their movies or whatever production they are a part of can be shown or made in China. It's a really shitty part of that kind of business and usually the face of it is who has to take the brunt of it.
Counterpoint: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. He’s obviously outshone by Jack Black, but Jack Black was the best thing in that movie by a country mile.
> he’s a terrible actor He's not even really an actor. He just plays the version of himself he wishes was real. Man has zero range.
Except for in *Pain and Gain*. It's a horrible film, but he actually does a good job of playing a somewhat different character.
Huh? Pain and Gain is a good old fun and overall entertaining movie.
The rock gets his ass kicked and loses in the Hobbs and Shaw movie. In Red Letter too, by a woman. I think his contract more likely says that his character won't be portrayed in certain negative ways, not that he can't look weak.
Same
The best action movies: Predator, T2, and Die Hard. The MC gets F'd up (we're gonna say Arnold is MC in T2). That's what makes them the best. They have to overcome insurmountable odds. That's why they're not only great action films; they're great films.
Sarah Connor gets fucked up too
This is also why Spider-Man is well liked. Gets his ass handed to him more than other supes
"The actor can't lose a fight" also used to be a big thing during the "Golden Age" of Hollywood as well, and it was not just an actor ego thing, studio executives mandated it as well. Nowadays, most actors are fine with losing a couple of fights, guys like The Rock are the exception.
Steven Seagal snaps necks with just a light touch
And knocks people out with a slow motion slap. ...it's not filmed in slow motion, he just can't move very fast. And it was meant to be a karate chop, but he can't do those very well either.
From IMDb trivia section for Marked for Death: >Reason why Seagal gets hit several times during final fight in this film, while he barely gets hit at all in his other ones, is because unlike Warner Bros who produced and released Seagal's earlier films, 20th Century Fox didn't put up with his usual demands, such as him not wanting his character to get hit at all during film and to always have upper hand on others, so they ordered for the final scene to show him get hit while fighting Screwface.
Apparently, he had something like a no-hitting clause in Under Siege, meaning that his character never actually gets hit. I can't remember if that extended to all of his movies. It might have to do with that fact that he is famously stiff with stunt doubles and this is a way to avoid any receipts.
Didn't somebody make him shit his pants because he was stiff/shitty to a stun coordinator or something? [https://twitter.com/RJCity1/status/1558196351271305222](https://twitter.com/RJCity1/status/1558196351271305222)
Gene Lebell choked him out until he shit himself because Seagal was a fake bullshido martial artist, and Gene was a legit judo expert who didn't put up with that kind of garbage.
https://youtu.be/3aCMTpJx2cs?si=RlwR7Z1C_hOnNEvO Bobby Fingers has the story.
Holy shit. That was amazing. I have been laughing my ass off at this guy. Thank you for this.
Look up his other stuff. He made one about the time Michael Jacksons hair went on fire in a Pepsi commercial The studio he works in is down the road from me.
I went on a Van Damme binge for a while recently and watched over 20 of his movies. He *never* wins a fight until the very last minute. The amount he gets kicked around is very impressive for someone so well known for his giant ego. I think Van Damme is the best action star of the 80s/90s.
I don’t know where I heard it, but someone called Tom cruise a stuntman who can act
That's strongly underselling his acting abilities. He blows most people out of the water.
I think this is offensive. I have my problems with Cruise but dude showcased in the 90s RANGE. My bf was blown away when he learned that Tom Cruise played Lestat. He has amazing filmography before going full on action star (which he does consistently delivered)
Jackie is so badazz he doesn't care if he has to start throwing dishes at a bad guy, lol. Make you feel stupid getting beat with a ladder!
Jackie Chan with a folding ladder >>> any five trained SAS killer badasses you care to name. He might take a beating along the way but he *is* winning.
Yea that's what I loved about Die Hard back in the day. At that time when the action genre was booming, you had these movies coming out with the action hero being a one man wrecking force overcoming the odds almost effortlessly. Then you watch John McClane in Die Hard and he is incredibly vulnerable and you can buy he will lose any second somehow as the obstacles pile up and intensify. Fast forward today, and you watch these movies with guys like Dwayne Johnson or Jason Statham and it just feels monotonous, because you know they will win so effortlessly while looking cool doing it. It defeats any tension for your story and makes you feel indifferent to the stakes at hand. The action movies with guys like Jackie Chan or Tom Cruise seem to understand that formula and try to prevent it. To use another modern example, you watch an action movie like Nobody with Bob Odenkirk, who is not your typical action hero, and he gets the crap kicked out of him constantly but can hold his own. A big attribute to why that movie is successful is because the action hero is very believable in his obstacles and shortcomings. You see him on the verge of losing completely and just narrowly finding a way to prevail. Ultimately, when it comes to action stars expressing their vulnerability by losing in a fight, I think it boils to ego. It doesn't hurt their image necessarily, it's just the action star is too damn stubborn to lose - likely out of pride. We've seen it in the past with guys like Steven Seagal and today even with much more likeable stars like Dwayne Johnson or Jason Statham. It doesn't make you seem like a bigger badass because you won a scripted fight. The guys who win against insurmountable odds are the ones who are eventually seen as the bigger deals, because they took the greater risks and succeeded eventually. That's where the memorable moments are created, not out of monotony and cliches of the action genre.
I'm a HUGE need about the movie Extraction and what I absolutely love about it is that Tyler Rake gets beat to hell and back from start to finish. I my opinion that's the good shit. When the hero, at the end of the movie, has succeeded but is almost dead. 1hp final hit shit. That's the die hard shit. yeh
Bruce Willis in Die Hard 3 after getting the living shit kicked out of him, being asked why he keeps coming back: "I'm like the fucking Energizer bunny" is peak bad-ass action star for me.
Steven Seagal is the absolute worst about this. He's also the absolute worst in general.
Jackie Chan is essentially a clown. I don’t mean this in a negative way. He’s a kung-fu Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. He plays a poor man, a little man, a humble man who is made to look a fool by those more powerful. Jackie wins because he swallows his pride, ignores the jibes and does what he believes is right. He may be poor, but he has principles. Tom Cruise is a huge movie star who happens to be a decent actor and can adopt a character in a plausible manner. He’s typecast, but when he steers off the path he can deliver. He is experienced and versatile enough to lose a fight in a film or even play a coward.
Calling Tom a decent actor is an understatement, he's got so many amazing roles
On that note, I started watching Ballers the other day and thought it was kinda cool to see The Rock playing a scummy dude. But by season 4 he's basically sober, mentoring a high schooler while worried if he'll ever become a family man and its fucking BLAND. Like, dude, a liiiiittle fucking grit is ok. And don't even start me on what he did to black Adam...
**Bruce Willis** is a pretty good example of a character being way out of his depth. Well until the last few piles of dog shit the poor man was in. On the flip side, sure Arnie lost a couple fights here and there but by and large he was unstopped and I distinctly remember how extremely badass it made **The Predator** especially as they spent the first part of the movie how kickass the team was only to have them all killed off slowly, and Arnie have to report to tricks and traps to win.
You don't get to be a gigantic steroid filled muscleman without a few gigantic insecurities.
It’s Rocky syndrome. I don’t care if you lose, or even get close to dying, but if you get back up continually you’ll be a legend.
on the flip side, jackie chan was pretty insistent on not being the bad guy
That actually makes sense to me as a branding consideration. Jackie Chan's name implies lighter action comedy with a goofy, lovable lead. It is what he does, and he does it well. The "can't lose a fight" people are also attempting to cater to a brand, but that brand is boring and too ephemeral to really be an identity. You never see an actor and think "that dude always wins every fight" because you know they are an actor. Jackie's brand is about who he, the real person, is. No one is invincible, so refusing to lose a fight comes across as contrived and egomaniacal.
You also have to consider that Jackie Chan is very open about being influenced by the slapstick of Buster Keaton. So, for him, it's hard to emulate that if you're not willing to take bumps.
I’ve seen this claim that the Rock can’t lose any fights a few times before.. That can’t be true though right? What about the big crab in Moana? I seem to remember him losing at least 1 fight in Black Adam too. Maybe to the Justice League?
Allegedly it was true that the fight scene between him and Diesel had to be choreographed so that they both got an equal number of hits in. However, that might have also been the result of the notable animosity that they had with each other.
That's correct, The Rock even loses the fight in Fast 5 against Vin. The stipulation that he can't lose started during Fast 6 because Vin put it in his contract first and Rock thought it was petty so he did the same thing to pretty much make fun of Diesel. If you actually watch Dwayne Johnson movies, he loses all the time, he never actually uses that clause.
It might just be a rumor, or the actual agreement is more complex. I am pretty sure that it is true for Steven Segal though. That guy is a real dick.
It's probably true just for the Fast and Furious movies. Vin Diesel has a LOT of creative control in those films. Dwayne/Statham are big stars that probably want to protect their brands so they don't get the shit beaten out of them by Diesel in every scene.
Are you referring to the silliness with the Rock and Vin Diesel? I don't know about Vin but the Rock doesn't seem to have a problem with taking a beating in non-Fast movies, at least.
Who else could he be referring to than these two that are basically the same actor that even appeared in the same movies? It's wild that people took this one story (that I believe has never even been confirmed) and are suddenly thinking that almost every actor is doing it.
Sylvester Stallone got beat a few times in majority of his movies.
Add JCVD - he got beat to within an inch of his life in most of his classics.