Annoying action movies cliches

[Schuyler Colfax]

Let's see we have

Lousy henchmen
The fact that the antagonist never kills the protagonist when he has the chance
The hostage, which usually occurs at the end of the movie. "Put the gun down or I will put a bullet in her head". Has that ever even worked out before.

That's just off the top of my head.

[RogueIce]

Let's see we have

Lousy henchmen
The fact that the antagonist never kills the protagonist when he has the chance
The hostage, which usually occurs at the end of the movie. "Put the gun down or I will put a bullet in her head". Has that ever even worked out before.

That's just off the top of my head.

There's also the "I will discard my gun to fight you hand-to-hand because I am that bad-ass, yeah!"

Or the equally lame "I have infinite ammo...until it's just me and my Mortal Enemy, then I run out all of a sudden and thus must fight hand-to-hand."

[JointStrikeFighter]

Making list threads like these.

[Coyote]

"I just escaped from the enemy prison, karate-chopped a guard to escape, and as he slumped to the floor, I didn't grab his weapon and ammo..."

[Singular Intellect]

There's also the "I will discard my gun to fight you hand-to-hand because I am that bad-ass, yeah!"

I'll assert that exact scene worked really well for the first Predator movie.

[Venator]

Where're those Evil Overlord tips when I need to cite them?

Anyway, it's more of a horror device but it seems to show up in action flicks/shows more often than not.

Orifice invasion by creepy-crawlies. It's not so much annoying as offputting. Be it the tentacles in Pirates of the Caribbean, ants in Indiana Jones, Prior Bugs in Stargate, or the tarantula in Inspector Fucking Gadget.

I'm pretty sure that most people don't enjoy watching arthropods or snakelike appendages moving en masse down (or up) peoples' throats, so why do directors keep using this cheap horror trick?

/rant

Otherwise... incompetent law enforcement/military, almost as annoying if not more so than for evil minions.

[Wanderer]

Where're those Evil Overlord tips when I need to cite them?

You Rang?

Just Copy pasted a few of them.

# My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.

# My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.

# My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.

# Shooting is not too good for my enemies.

# The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.

# I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.

# When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought I'll shoot him then say "No."

# After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks' time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.

# I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled "Danger: Do Not Push". The big red button marked "Do Not Push" will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labelled as such.

[chitoryu12]

*Any can outrun an explosion. The bigger the explosion, the easier to avoid simply because it can take up to a whole fucking minute to finish.

*Anyone wielding dual weapons will have perfect accuracy with each.

*The hero can fall from any height so long as a pile of cardboard boxes lies at the bottom.

*A single man with a .38 snub nose revolver and a ripped shirt can beat off dozens of men with submachine guns, assault rifles, and RPGs.

*Any bad guy, upon seeing the hero duck with a look of shock on his face, will turn to see what is about to knock is head off, rather than do the same and drop to the floor.

*A grenade can be thrown in a completely open area, yet the fragments only move less than ten feet from the detonation area before disintegrating into vapor.

*Cars explode whenever they get hit by another car, get shot by something heavier than an air rifle, fall off a precipice from any height, or simply land in an awkward position from a jump.

[Patrick Degan]

Any scene which starts off with any variation of the opening phrase "Before I kill you, Mr. Bond..."

[Korvan]

Nameless bad guys will survive and stagger out of car wrecks, helicopter crashes and misc. explosions, but a single punch from a main good good will drop them immediately.

If the main protagonist is an established lone wolf, professing your love for them is as sure a way to kill yourself as playing Russian roulette with six loaded chambers.

As a bad guy, a even surer way to kill yourself is to kill the above mentioned love interest.

The best job ever is to be a police retirement fund manager. No one ever collects from it.

Belt fed machine guns will only have about a foot of ammo left to make carrying it around easy, but this is ok, as the belt will never decrease in length.

It's always the last time, 'till the next time.

[Wanderer]

A science geek and his girl friend with no weapons training can go Rambo against train mercenaries with heavy weapons.

Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy, I'm looking at you for that crime.

[Aquatain]

*Any geek like side kick character wearing glasses can hack into Any computer system in world - even if said system is not connected to the outside world in any way.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Let's see we have

Lousy henchmen
The fact that the antagonist never kills the protagonist when he has the chance
The hostage, which usually occurs at the end of the movie. "Put the gun down or I will put a bullet in her head". Has that ever even worked out before.

That's just off the top of my head.

There's also the "I will discard my gun to fight you hand-to-hand because I am that bad-ass, yeah!"

Or the equally lame "I have infinite ammo...until it's just me and my Mortal Enemy, then I run out all of a sudden and thus must fight hand-to-hand."

hey it was fucking cool in outlaw jose wales, pulls out four or five empty revolvers and then runs the fucker through with a sword.

[spaceviking]

The largest henchmen despite seemingly used for hand to hand combat will be clumsy and die by running into some machinery. He will also most likely try to kill the hero with moves like a massive bear hug rather then more lethal means.

[Lord Revan]

What I dislike most, is people (good guys or bad doesn't matter) who clearly take way too much punishment and keep on going even if there's no reason for it (or in fact every reason they shouldn't go on like that).


It's better if it's not shown how they survived so you can make a semi-reasonble explanation for it in your mind, but when you think middle of movie "there's no fucking way he/she should survive that, not a chance in hell", it kind of pulls me out of the movie.

[Guardsman Bass]

"We fight for minutes on end, hand to hand, landing many severe blows to the face and/or chest, yet nobody ever seems permanently damaged by this unless it kills them."

[speaker-to-trolls]

Where're those Evil Overlord tips when I need to cite them?

The evil overlord list is just a killjoy, I mean one of the rules/hints is "despite its stress calming effects, I will not engage in bouts of maniacal laughter". If you can't engage in maniacal laughter from time to time what in gods name is the point of being an evil overlord at all?

[The Yosemite Bear]

if you can't laugh manically, then just get a pet cat. I think they allow you to own a pet cat still.

[[R_H]]

Huge firey explosions which fail to harm the protagonist because he/she/it dove, vehicle bursting into fireballs, people getting shot (usually with shotguns) and their corpses going flying etc.

[Edi]

if you can't laugh manically, then just get a pet cat. I think they allow you to own a pet cat still.

I think you have that backwards. The Evil Overlord rules allow you to be owned by a cat. Who is likely going to be even more evil than you, thus running the whole show.

Of course, the problem with being an Evil Overlord in the possession of a cat is that you get relegated to the status of an underling and we all know what happens to the underlings of Evil Overlords. Which is why the heroes always prevail, I think...

[Pulp Hero]

I can usually ignore cliches and enjoy films, especially if they are on the campy side. However there are a few that irk me almost every time I see them (especially in "realistic" movies):

-Explosives with huge digital countdown timers. Unless there is a good reason, like say the timer is meant to fuck with the heros' head or something. An especially bad offender is SG-1 which often uses digital counters on C4.

-The stock "electric beep" sound used whenever an explosive detonates. If you listen for it, almost every show or movie uses the exact same "beep" when a counter reaches zero or someone pushes "the button". Even the normally quite accurate The Unit does this.

-Assault rifles only use full auto. Fine for an 80s' action flick, kind of takes me out of a modern realistic flick.

-A strange annoyance, but: POV sniper scope views where the crosshairs have clearly just been pasted over the picture in post-production.

[PainRack]

I never.. break a sweat/pant/ache/sore unless the female is dressing my wounds.


Bruce Willis Die Hard character somehow breaks the mold for this cliche, yet embraces it fully at the same time.

[Ted C]

Heroes and villains pointing guns at each other at point blank range and then stopping as if just being at gunpoint forced them into some kind of staredown. Whoever pulls their trigger first wins, you morons.

[The Spartan]

People using firearms expertly with little to no training or practice.

Firing on full auto with accuracy.

Punching someone in the jaw, hard, without a broken hand.

hey it was fucking cool in outlaw jose wales, pulls out four or five empty revolvers and then runs the fucker through with a sword.

The Outlaw Josie Wales is actually good about the whole dual wield bit because they showed him using them correctly. Gunfighters back then didn't dual wield to spray rounds at someone, the did so because it gave them 12 rounds and they would alternate firing. With an auto, especially the higher capacity ones of today, there's no need for that and you'd be better of carrying extra magazines.

[wautd]

I was unfortunate enough to see Torque last night. I think they jammed in every cliché on purpose. Hell, it was so over the top it was almost a comedy. Almost