Bad 80s action: What makes them great?

[Mr. DS]

Side note, who besides me likes Eye Of The Tiger starring Gary Busey?  That film rocks to me.   Its another good example of bad cliched 80s actioners that rock. 

[Andrew]

Side note, who besides me likes Eye Of The Tiger starring Gary Busey?  That film rocks to me.   Its another good example of bad cliched 80s actioners that rock. 

Recently, meaning within the last few months, I've watched quite a few of the old action flicks.  Two favs that jump to mind are "Blind Fury" and "Eye of the Tiger" (corrected title).  "Wanted:  Dead or Alive" was very good as well.

I'm with you, even though that has to be the most disturbing way to kill a man with a stick of dynamite...

[Rev. Powell]

I never liked the genre when I was  surrounded by it growing up.  Seemed to me to echo the worst sensibilities of the Reagan era: lots of thoughtless patriotic violence, and barely a hint of sex or nudity.  What twisted values!  I watched wholesome women-in-prison and nudie-barbarian movies at the time.  Maybe today I could go back and see the camp value in these action flicks, but at the time I thought they were just stupid, and not in a fun way. 

[schmendrik]

Side note, who besides me likes Eye Of The Tiger starring Gary Busey?  That film rocks to me.   Its another good example of bad cliched 80s actioners that rock. 

Never heard of it but I'll check it out. I've been a Gary Busey fan since his role as the mutinying Navy officer in Steven Seagal's "Under Siege". One of my all time favorite action movies and he's one of several reasons why.

[Neville]

I liked "Eye of the tiger", but for me the ultimate Gary Busey movie will always be "Bulletproof". It's like "Lethal weapon" with armored vehicles! 

[Torgo]

The great thing about 80's action movies was that optical effects had really come into their own by the 80's and the advent of CGI hadn't come around yet. So everything that was usually done effects or stunts wise in 80's action movies had to be done practically which just adds to the cheesiness/goofiness.

Not that the crappy optical work looked that much better, but there's a huge charm that poorly done optical work has that crappy CGI can't begin to match.   

[Neville]

I couldn't agree more. 

[WingedSerpent]

One Word: MULLETS!

[Psycho Circus]

The great thing about 80's action movies was that optical effects had really come into their own by the 80's and the advent of CGI hadn't come around yet. So everything that was usually done effects or stunts wise in 80's action movies had to be done practically which just adds to the cheesiness/goofiness.

Not that the crappy optical work looked that much better, but there's a huge charm that poorly done optical work has that crappy CGI can't begin to match.   

Yeah, plus stunts and explosions were the real deal.

[MilkManPictures]

They were just straight ahead action films. None of the cross genre stuff like today.

[jordo2k1]

love eye of the tigerhunted this down last week after wondering what this film was for about 2 years of looking (watched it in the 80's as a kid) quality film and me and the girlfriend watched it recently again loved it!!

[lester1/2jr]

weren't they in Afghanistan or something for that one?

[Chainsawmidget]

They have an over the top charm.  Everything is bigger than it needs to be.   At the same time, there's a bit of campy charm.  It plays even the silliest aspects straight.  It helps that all the characters are very much one note. 

The cinematography is anther thing.  Everything is bright, cheerful, and well lit (although perhaps a bit muddy looking).  Movies hadn't gotten to the point where they tried to make everything dark and gritty yet.  Even the bad neighborhoods had a rather clean look to them.  Somehow it feels more honest and less sensationalized. 

The action is also very comic-book like.  Sure people get shot, stabbed, ran over, and then blow up, but nobody ever really seems to get hurt.  If they do, they'll either shrug it off after bandaging their wounds or grimace for a little bit and ten die.  Nobody suffers. 

[JaseSF]

Loud and stupid but also surprisingly entertaining fun.

[Archivist]

Everything is over the top, and doesn't really take itself seriously.  The 80's in American action cinema were full of crazy explosions, gunfights, fistfights and everything in between, and you could just turn off your mind and enjoy.  Everything was black and white but in a cool way.  The good guys were often crazy, but since they were 'good', they could get away with everything they did.  Arnold can happily dangle someone over a cliff to get information, then drop him off, and we just laugh about it.

By the way, has anyone ever noticed that in Commando, Arnold starts calling his daughter by the name of the main actress' character about halfway through???  I realized this during the third viewing on good old VHS in the 80's, and it never fails to amuse me.

80's Hong Kong action cinema was amazing, particularly the ones with Donnie Yen and the 'girls with guns' like Moon Lee, Cynthia Khan, Yukari Oshima et al.  They were really gung-ho about creating very violent, bone crunching actions scenes that are now largely lost to HK cinema.  Now it is Indonesia (The Raid) and Thailand (Ong Bak) that does this kind of action.