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Worst action movie clichés


Starlord

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Saying a bad pun about a now-deceased bad guy, said pun having to do with the way they died.  For example, hero finds a way to fry the bad guy and then says, "You're toast."

 

It's one thing if it's said just beforehand, so the bad guy can at least "appreciate" the pun  (e.g. in Speed, when Keanu Reeves says, "I'm taller" just before the tunnel ceiling light takes off the bad guy's head).   Or if the hero is bantering with someone else (though this still seems a little tasteless).  But if nobody else is around to hear it, the protagonist is just talking to himself (well, really, the audience). 

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The hero dives through a window, shattering the glass into a thousand shards which miraculously don't leave a scratch.

 

The hero jumps onto the roof of a fleeing car, desperately clinging to it while the villain swerves to shake him off. Seriously, what did he think he was going to do once he was up there?

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Every action hero is a trained stunt driver.

 

The hero's car is always somehow fitted with indestructible suspension, wheels, and tires.

 

Groups of thugs fight the hero one at a time, rather than overpowering him with their numbers.

 

Police/soldiers stand their ground and continue to shoot at someone/something that has not felt the effects of the first hundred rounds that hit.

 

Knife fights.

 

Protagonist can always get up and flee (usually in the second act), no matter how numerous/serious their wounds are.

 

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"Hero" was a top assassin or master thief but now after a change of heart will use his abilities for good.  Because those skills sets just scream righteous behavior when applied correctly.

 

The villain or hero being able to kill large numbers of people with little apparent consequence (well the villain gets killed in the end by the hero of course).  The police must be too busy issuing traffic tickets to investigate mass killings (except during the aforementioned car chases, because the police can never catch main characters).

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Hero holds villain at gunpoint, long dialogue ensues, then hero cocks hammer to show he really means it. 

 

Any scene involving a computer.

 

Unbelievably inaccurate bad guys.  Like half a dozen hardened thugs spray full auto at the hero from thirty feet away while he sprints for cover.

 

Any character is hit by an arrow and can still function, even (or especially) if they break it off.

 

Any character gets blown off their feet by an explosion and can still function, let alone hear.
 

Exploding fuel tanks, especially when detonated by non-incendiary bullets.

 

Note that all of the last four occurred in War for the Planet of the Apes, which was actually a really good movie in spite of the clichés.

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The worst new one that is used more often lately is "suffering catastrophic, even lethal damage, and walking away virtually unharmed."  Its like the hero (and some villains) of action movies are all cartoons.  The first example I ever saw of this was in Die Hard where Bruce Willis' and Alexander Gudonov's characters get in a fist fight.  Basically both are punched way more times in the head than a normal person could sustain, but then Bruce puts GUdonov's head on a steel pipe then proceeds to punch him as hard as he can in the face like 15 times.  Then he wraps the guy around the neck with a chain and hangs him.  Minutes later, when the people are fleeing the roof top explosion he's still hanging there motionlessly.  And yet he's still alive at the end of the movie.


Or the times in The Mummy when Brendan Frasier's character is slammed in the chest so hard he flies like 30 feet and crashes into a stone wall, gets up a little dazed.  Or Tony Stark in his steampunk armor falling 150 feet into sand head first, walking away unharmed.  Or Captain America falling 4 stories on his head on a car and just being slightly dazed.  It happens over, and over these days.

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