List by Richard Trondsen Pro
The Action Stars of 'The Expendables 2' and Their Five Best Action Films
Idea stolen from Cinebro. Check out his list here.
Since this is an action-oriented list, I decided to only include action films, and films where each actor is the (or one of the) main character(s), which means I had to leave out great films like Pulp Fiction, 12 Monkeys, The Fifth Element, Rocky (and sequels, even though some of them are heavy on the boxing action), Cop Land, JCVD, Way of the Dragon, The Bank Job etc.
Also, I did not include the two Expendables films in this list.
The actors are ranked in order of personal preference (or awesomeness, if you will).
The actors are listed/ranked as follows:
Bruce Willis
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Sylvester Stallone
Jean-Claude Van Damme
Jet Li
Chuck Norris
Dolph Lundgren
Jason Statham
Bonus:
Scott Adkins
OK, on to the films...
Great list!
For me, these '80 action movies (for the most of them) are a secret pleasure... I love those...
A small comment though... Putting in 2 cranks and 2 transporters in for Statham. I can understand putting in 1 of them for both. What about his work with Guy Ritchie? Or wouldn't you call them action movies?
Exactly, I wouldn't call any of them action films. Snatch. and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels are still his two best films, though.
This is like a "I don't ever want to watch any of these movies" list for me (with a couple obvious exceptions: Terminator and Die Hard).
(and Predator!)
Hmmm... that makes it al lot more of a challenge...
And I can see the difficulties you've had too... No Universal Soldier for van Damme (because you've got it for Lundgren)...
And looking at the list you'll notice that they might not be the "action hero's" from the eighties... Basically most of them had one great hit movie (and a lot of sequels).
But what about...
Bruce Willis - Armageddon
Again, not an action film. And as much as I like Armageddon (and I do like that silly film), it's far from my favorite with Bruce Willis.
And yeah, I initially added Universal Soldier for Van Damme, but decided to add it for Lundgren instead (as Van Damme has more, and better, films to choose from).
No JCVD?
Red the 'fine print.' ;-) It's not an action film and therefor not included. It's a great film, though.
I was following along with you pretty well here until War. That movie just felt so bizarrely overcomplicated that the few good fights to be found just didn't make up for the entirety of what the plot ended up being. That said, this is your list so I'm not gonna fight you, I've just always known people to generally consider that the weaker link in his films. Then again I liked Death Race.
Oh, I agree -- War is awful, but it's actually the only non-Transporter/Crank Jason Statham action film I've seen, so I had to add it.
Replaced the awful 'War' with the not-very-good 'Transporter 3.'
It is at least a minor improvement. Hell, cheesy as it is, Statham/Li's first teaming, The One, is pretty damn fun and delivers on the action. I also quite liked Safe, which just hit dvd this week I believe.