What
happened to action movies this year?
Something must have aligned on a cosmic level in 2017, because for all
of the shit going on elsewhere in the world, the year was packed with awesome,
solidly-made action movies. And I’m not
just talking about the summer- from the March international release of Logan all the way through New
Year’s, there was nearly always at least one great action film running in
theaters in a given time.
Some
were fantastic films that will be remembered as significant game-changers
within their genres, some were just solid B-movies, but nearly all of the
year’s action-heavy releases had at least one great sequence in them to make
then worth a watch. And many had
considerably more than just one. And so,
while it was a great year all-around for the movies, it’s especially important
to take time this awards season to recall and be grateful for just how spoiled
we action fans were in 2017.
I
have thus shouldered the hellish task of trying to pick out a mere ten of the
year’s best action scenes for a ranking, although there were easily over two
dozen scenes that could qualify for such a list, so absence here should in no
way be taken as a slight. For this list,
I looked at three primary aspects of the scene to rank them:
1. How technically impressive or innovative
was the scene on a filmmaking level?
2. Does the scene have any relevance to
either the film’s plot or the development of a particular character, or is it
just visual fireworks for its own sake?
3. Is it groundbreaking in some way, i.e.,
will it have any likely influence or importance outside the context of the film
it’s in?
Much
of this is, to a certain extent, purely subjective, so if my list doesn’t jive
with yours, let me know in the comments below! Where possible, I have linked in
videos to the scene in question for easier viewing, but all these films are
worth watching from start to finish.
Oh,
and spoilers for many of these films, since some of these are major plot climaxes.
Honorable
Mentions: Baby Driver- “The Foot Chase”, Dunkirk-
the ship sinkings, Tiger Girl-
“The Subway Fight”, Star Wars: The Last
Jedi- “Opening Space Battle”, John
Wick 2- “Hall of Mirrors”
10.
Thor: Ragnarok- “Thor vs Hulk”
The
Marvel movies have always featured some great action beats in their films, but
the most memorable tend to be the ones they have the most fun with. Great effects and crisp fighting, sure, but
with a sense of humor and a willingness to break the fourth wall in the best
way. The re-entry of Banner/The Hulk is
a prime example of this- in an instant, all the serious tension these scenes
usually hold is punctured by Thor’s jubilant yell and Loki’s reaction when The
Hulk appears, hands-down one of the funniest things I saw in a movie all
year. The clear instinct for when and
how to draw the biggest laugh on display here is essentially the whole film in
miniature, and Exhibit A of why it’s The Best Marvel Movie.
9.
Guardians of the Galaxy 2- “Come A Little Bit
Closer”
And
speaking of Marvel movies knowing just the right buttons to push! This climactic moment from the second Guardians movie was, with my sincerest
apologies to the entirety of Baby Driver,
the single best use of a song underscoring an action scene this year, primarily
through just how overtly cartoonish it is.
This should be a far more terrifying moment than it is, but the
combination of the song and the slapstick manner of half the deaths made it
impossible to not laugh watching this. Slaughter
has never looked (or sounded) so good.
And
yeah, I couldn’t even fit Baby Driver
onto this list. Or Logan. Or Blade Runner. THAT’S how good this year was.
8.
John Wick 2- “The Catacombs”
Hands
down the best pure shoot-out of the year.
John Wick shows off just how far ahead of everyone he is when he fully
plans for his employer to betray him following a hit, and he fills the
catacombs of Rome beforehand with all manner of heavy firearms, strategically
placing them so that he can reach each one just as the last runs out of
ammo. Suffused with blue and orange
tones, the angles, colors, and setting make for an experience as ambient as it
is intense.
7.
Mr. Long- “The Final Fight”
Mr. Long could basically be summed up as
“John Wick, if he were Taiwanese and could also cook.” Forced to hide from a local Japanese gang
after a hit goes awry, Long is finally found out, and the gang leader’s cronies
threaten the lives of the villagers he’s befriended. In the climactic fight scene, they finally
meet face-to-face, and Long cuts.
Right. Through. Them.
.
This
sequence is slightly held back by being a touch tropey- they really could have
tried to gang up on him a more, and yeah, that one guy with the gun does wait
way too long to jump in- but as an emotional breaking point for a character
whose spent an entire film clearly holding everything inside, it doesn’t get
much more potent than this. The scene
alone can’t really convey the feeling you get after seeing the entire film
before it and knowing just how much this guy has been holding back to try and
keep his new friends safe, and just how much pain is now being released as he
realizes just how badly he failed.
6.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets- “Market
Shootout and Chase”
Despite
the unevenness in tone and acting that ultimately held it back, Valerian was nothing if not a stunningly
ambitious film, and its best moments could very well end up being some of the
most influential visual sequences to come out of 2017. One of the most daring was the first major
shootout and chase sequence of the film, taking place in a massive,
interdimensional marketplace, where a technical glitch results in the main
character having his gun hand caught in one dimension and his body in another,
leaving him vulnerable in both until his partner can find him and fix the
glitch. It’s a staggeringly creative
scene in a movie full of amazing design ideas, and even though much of the
movie ultimately didn’t work, moments like this still made it worth seeing on
the big screen.
5.
Atomic Blonde- “Staircase Fight”
Charlize
Theron’s recent turn as an action lead has been nothing short of inspired, and
her performance is the key reason to watch this neon-glazed return to the genre
of Cold War spy thrillers. The plot has
the usual twists and double-turns, but it’s in the action beats that the film
hits its stride, and its best sequence by far is this brutal, third-act fight
in a staircase and apartment.
Painstakingly crafted to look like it was done in a single take (several
people from the John Wick movies were
involved in the production), this is part of an extended third-act climax where
Theron tries to navigate a turncoat spy out of East Berlin despite a raft of
Soviet agents sent to stop her, include one of the main henchmen who’d been
dogging her since she arrived from London.
Much of the scene’s tension comes from how the actors realistically show
just how. Effing. Exhausting. This level of combat is and the toll it takes
on the body.
4.
John Wick 2- “John Wick vs. The Assassins”
After
a bounty is placed on his head, John Wick finds himself beset on all sides by
seemingly every assassin in New York.
The mixed nature of these fights allows for a really creative and
impressive variety of weapons, people, and techniques used to take John Wick
down (and all of them failing). We
finally learn why the thought of John Wick with a pencil sends shivers down the
crime world’s collective spine (and oh God, is it horrifying), and it ends with
a sequence of him and Common shooting at each other covertly before ending
their battle with a heart-stopping knife fight inside a subway.
3.
Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi- “The Throneroom”
**sadly no clip of this scene in good quality is on Youtube. You really should watch the film anyway**
There
were so many action beats in the latest Star Wars movie that could be on this
list, but the highlight for me is and shall remain the throne room battle
between Rey and Kylo and the red-cloaked guards of Snoke following his
death. The film’s motif of red hits a
particular intensity here, with the walls and uniforms of the soldiers
appearing uniformly threatening as they close in around the two. It also allows for a surprising amount of
hard-edged brutality to the fight in a franchise known more often for being
“clean” in its violence. The whole affair
ends with the two alone and seemingly surrounding by raining fireballs, as both
the battle outside and their own emotional journeys within the film reach one
of the year’s most powerful climaxes.
2.
Dunkirk- The Air Combat
Dunkirk
was about as intense an experience as it got in theaters in 2017, with the
technical mastery of Nolan and his crew on full display in each scene showing
the inherent chaos and overwhelming sensory overload of war. Nowhere was this more impressive (at least in
my book) than in the air combat scenes, possibly the best-made and most
realistic of such sequences we’ve yet gotten in a war movie.
The
intimate closeness of the camera within the cockpit allows you to feel how
small and cramped it must have been to fly the planes, and how few your options
for surviving are if you’re hit. Up
close, we rattle, and swerve and duck with the pilots, each one managing to act
remarkably effectively through their heavy airmen’s gear. But then, when the scene cuts to the outside,
the camera sweeps out in dizzyingly grand angles, making these machines of
death appear small and insignificant when compared with the magnificence
backdrop of nature’s beauty. Every shot,
every turn, every bailout or crash has a real weight that makes you feel each
second you spend in the air with the pilots.
I don’t expect to see a WWII movie match this one for a long, long
time.
1.
Wonder Woman- “No Man’s Land”
The
best action scene of the year succeeded in being so many things at once, I
don’t even think I could manage to list them all here. At long last, we finally got the first real,
live-action Wonder Woman movie, which
doubled as the first real studio attempt at a blockbuster comic book film
starring a woman (and directed by one too!).
It broke the box office and broke the Meninists, and in the first year
of the world having to endure Donald Trump in the Oval Office, the strength and
courage this movie was able to provide to women and girls around the world was
not something to sniff at.
As
a whole it was not quite as great as it could have been- a slow and uneven
third act drags the film out of “Best of the Year” category- but the first two
thirds are damn near perfect, culminating in a powerhouse extended sequence
where Diana charges out into a WWI killing field, takes a line of trenches, and
frees the occupied Belgian town beyond.
There
is so much that happens in this scene that I could spend hours dissecting
it. Diana’s character, her status as a
true hero, her transformation into Wonder Woman, are all cemented in an instant
when she decides that yes, she will take on the impossible, and yes, she will
try to save everyone, because that’s who she is. The image of her standing alone, taking on an
entire line of gunfire, was perhaps the best visual metaphor our new age of
#MeToo and #TimesUp could have ever dreamed of.
It’s
also a scene of remarkable variety. Guns
and explosives are used aplenty, but Diana also uses her shield, sword, and
lasso, chairs and tables and guns are used as clubs and battering rams, and
even her own body serves as a wrecking ball for a sniper’s bell tower. Her connection with Chris Pine is cemented
when they fight alongside each other and can each see and respect the other as
fellow warriors, striving for good. This
culminates in one of the film’s best single moments of payoff, when Pine
remembers a tactic he saw the Amazons use earlier, gets the guys to follow him
without question, and with a single word signals to Diana what he intends to
do, and she immediately follows along.
Oh
yeah, and Diana THROWS A TANK. A F***ING
TANK.
This
scene lifted me up and made my spirit soar in a way only a handful of other
moments this year did, and for that, this scene earns my spot as the single
best action scene of 2017. Godspeed,
Diana. Your move, Black Panther.
-Noah Franc
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