

Read IndieWire’s complete review of “Plane” by David Ehrlich.Ĥ9. Sully Sullenberger had been man enough to land that baby in the middle of a steroidal ’80s action movie? You know the kind! The sort where vaguely racist man-vs.-army spectacle that finds a couple of jacked-up English-speaking everymen forced to kill their way out of a sweltering foreign jungle full of indigenous militants, and climaxes with the bad guys loading the shoulder-mounted rocket-launchers that Southeast Asian henchmen always keep on hand in case Sylvester Stallone ever decides to reboot “Rambo” again. “Plane” (2023)Īs sturdy, weathered, and no-frills as the Reagan-era passenger jet that lends this January-ass film its poetically blunt title, Jean-François Richet’s “ Plane” becomes the most airworthy Gerard Butler vehicle this side of “Greenland” by answering a question that Clint Eastwood didn’t even have the courage to ask: What if, instead of ditching US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River like a total loser, Capt. Here are the 50 Best Action Movies of the 21st Century, from “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” to “ Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.”Ĭhris O’Falt, Ryan Lattanzio, Noel Murray, Samantha Bergeson, and Graham Winfrey also contributed to this list. Art that quickens the pulse is sometimes dismissed as lowbrow or inferior, but it doesn’t have to be that way. These are movies that have tried to show audiences something new. They’re called “motion pictures” after all, and these movies move - and couldn’t exist in any other medium. The movies below are some of the finest examples of pure cinema that this still-young century has to offer.

Others opt to use action to tell more serious, human stories that just happen to feature thrilling fight sequences. Some gleefully take their action to self-consciously ridiculous extremes, from Jason Statham needing to keep his heart rate at hyper-adrenalized levels in “Crank: High Voltage” to Clive Owen and Monica Bellucci having sex while blowing away baddies in “Shoot ’Em Up,” to the endless platitudes about “family” in the “Fast” saga. That principle is what separates so many of the movies on IndieWire’s list from their weaker counterparts.

James Gunn Is Tired of ‘Lazy’ Superhero Movies with ‘No Rhyme or Reason to What’s Happening’
