The List: 5 90's Films That Feel Like An 80's Film

This will be my first list created on this blog, and let me apologize ahead of time. These are obviously just my opinions, and if you do not agree with them, them please feel free to reply back.

Now with that out of the way, I present my opinion of 5 action films from the 90's that resemble action films from the 80's.

5. Under Siege (1992)

Directed By: Andrew Davis
Written By: J.F. Lawton
Starring: Steven Seagal, Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Busey, Erika Eleniak

Steven Seagal stars as Casey Ryback, a no-nonsense cook aboard the USS Missouri during its final mission. As he is no-nonsense, Casey has no friends aboard the ship, which suits him just fine. As luck would have it, Casey also is a master martial artist which comes in handy when terrorists take control of the ship, led by the always entertaining Tommy Lee Jones. Casey escapes the clutches of the bad guys, teams up with an unwitting partner (Erika Eleniak) and tries to save the day.

Under Siege takes the formula started by 80's king: Die Hard. You have one guy taking on a bunch of terrorists in a remote location and occasionally helped by a partner. The difference with Casey Ryback and John McClane from Die Hard is that Casey is a hand-to-hand/weapons specialist. Obviously, knowing that Casey is amazing in all ways considered amazing, that removes most of the tension that this film tries to create.

The main character is very different compared to John McClane, but the non-stop action and decent use of humor give this the feel of an 80's action film. Under Siege does feel more slick than most 80's fare, but the humor, numerous random henchmen and a sense of fun make this a worthy consideration.

4. Cliffhanger (1993)

Directed By: Renny Harlin
Written By: John Long, Michael France, Sylvester Stallone
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Michael Rooker, Janine Turner, John Lithgow

Possibly the biggest budgeted film on this list.

Sylvester Stallone stars as Gabe Walker, a rescue ranger who, after losing the life of a fellow mountain climber, attempts to return to his former life. The woman in Gabe's life, Jessie, (Janine Turner) along with his former best friend and mountain climber, Hal, (Michael Rooker) want nothing to do with him.

Meanwhile, bad guy Eric Qualen (John Lithgow sporting some kind of European accent?) and his team of bad guys attempt to hijack $100 million dollars from a United States Treasury plane. The plan does not go according to plan and the suitcases filled with the money fall into the mountains below. Eric sends out a phony distress call, which is picked up by Gabe, Hal and Jessie for support in locating the briefcases.

Cliffhanger, in the simplest words, is a pure summer film.You had Sylvester Stallone, who at the time, was one of the biggest actors in Hollywood. You have a heist film and you have a film just filled to the brim with action and stunts. Sylvester Stallone, for a good portion of the film is by himself when battling John Lithgow and his gang of baddies, providing a bit of a Die Hard-feel. Beyond that, the action is big and in your face while the feel of the film is meant to just be fun. And in my opinion, Cliffhanger succeeds in a major way.

3. Universal Soldier (1992)

Directed By: Roland Emmerich
Written By: Richard Rothstein, Christopher Leitch, Dean Devlin
Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Ally Walker, Jerry Orbach

Sci/Fi and action meet in a film written and directed by the team that gave us such classics as Independence Day, the 1998 Godzilla remake and Stargate. This early film from Roland Emmerich finds military soldiers Luc Devereaux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren) at odds with each other during the Vietnam War. As their differences get in their way, both men are killed in action.

Flash forward to 1992 and a secret organization has reanimated the dead soldiers plus a host more and are now called UniSols. Both, Devereaux and Scott begin to regain their memory of what happened and continue onward with their lives within the UniSol program. Scott begins to return to his insane personality and Devereaux must stop him with the help of a plucky news reporter (Ally Walker).

Before Roland Emmerich found multiple ways to destroy the world, he began with this classic and a much lower budget. As both stars have now appeared in The Expendables 2, you can imagine that acting isn't their strong suit. Jean-Claude Van Damme is fine as the hero, but Dolph Lundgren is highly enjoyable as the crazy Scott. Beyond that, you get some moderate action scenes and good hand to hand combat. Again, the hero is teamed up with a civilian who finds herself in the midst of the action. A solid, if unspectacular film.

2. The Last Boy Scout (1991)

Directed By: Tony Scott
Written By: Shane Black
Starring: Bruce Willis, Damon Wayans, Noble Willingham, Halle Berry

What type of list would this be without ol' Bruno making an appearance? With this film we get what was at the time, the most expensive screenplay sold. Was it worth it? Well, it fits on this list so that answer of course is no. Instead what we get is one of the stupidest, yet fun, films of the last 30 years.

Directed by the late Tony Scott, we meet Joe Hallenbeck (Bruce Willis) who is assigned to protect stripper, Cory (Halle Berry). Cory's boyfriend Jimmy (Damon Wayans) does not get along with Joe. Before long, Cory is murdered and Joe and Jimmy team up to solve the murder with predictable humor and action-packed results.

As this is written by Shane Black, a film like this fits perfectly into his mold. You get one-dimensional characters, big action and lame one-liners. This is a love or hate movie, but those who are able to know that this movie is stupid yet able to turn their brain off will have a fun time. I mean, just look at the poster. There is a paragraph-long tagline and a huge explosion behind the main characters. That's really all you need to know about The Last Boy Scout.

1. Sudden Death

Directed By: Peter Hyams
Written By: Gene Quintano
Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Powers Boothe, Dorian Harewood, Raymond J. Barry

Jean-Claude Van Damme returns to the list in what I consider the perfect 80's movie made in the 90's.

JCVD stars as Darren McCord, a former firefighter turned fire marshal for the Pittsburgh Civic Arena. He is divorced and having trouble communicating with his ex-wife or 2 children. He gets tickets to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals and takes his kids with him. As so happens, the Vice President of the United States (Raymond J. Barry) is also attending the game. And on top of that, former government agent Joshua Foss (Powers Boothe) and his goons have planted bombs throughout the arena and taken the Vice President and all in the executives in the luxury suite hostage. With time ticking away and his daughter being kidnapped, Darren has to think and react fast to save the day.

Yes, that is all you need to know about this film. JCVD has fun with the role, making one-liners and homemade weapons during the film while Powers Boothe has a ball chewing up the scenery as the flamboyant bad guy. What really makes this film feel like an 80's movie is that everyone really tries and believes in this film without forcing any of the film upon the audience. The script, dumb as it is, has a basic setup with your basic characters, but executes all the beats needed for this type of film perfectly. This is a fun film, that doesn't need to wink at you and tell you to have fun. It just is.

One final thing that makes this movie stand out: This was filmed during the 1994-1995 NHL lockout. As all the NHL players were not allowed to play hockey, these players were available and add and authenticity of the hockey action seen throughout the film. As a fan of hockey, this added an extra layer of love I have towards this film. This is a highly recommended film for anyone who enjoys fun action films. A perfect representation of an 80's film made in the 90's.


Thank you for reading. I understand my opinion may not match other people's opinions about this topic. This is an opinion piece and if you have any suggestions, feel free to post them.

The Expendables 2

A film by Simon West.

As the tagline states, The Expendables are back and ready for war. And also, they are back to cash their paychecks.

Since the last installment in The Expendables saga, Mickey Rourke is nowhere to be found, and in his place is an Army sniper referred to as Billy The Kid (Liam "Not Chris" Hemsworth). Billy is teamed up with the rest of The Expendables: Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Hale Caeser (Terry Crews), Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren) and Toll Road (Randy Couture).

After completing their latest mission, Yin decides to step out of the film and Billy informs Barney that he is ready to quit The Expendables and live a normal life with his French girlfriend. Before that can happen, the mysterious Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) reappears and makes Barney and his team accept a mission to Albania where a plane has crashed with a safe. Barney and his team are to retrieve the contents of the safe and return the items, along with a tag along provided by Church, Maggie (Yu Nan), in pristine condition.

With such a simple job, you know things will never go that smoothly. Before Barney and the team are able to complete the mission, they are interrupted by super villain, Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme). The contents of the safe are taken, along with the life of an Expendable. Needless to say, Barney and The Expendables are not happy with this turn of events and will not rest until they stop Vilain and blow up almost all of Europe.

The biggest problem I had with the original Expendables was that the film seemed to take itself way too seriously for a film that was supposed to be fun. The infamous monologue delivered by Mickey Rourke is a sequence that still makes me cringe when I think about it. The first Expendable adventure tried WAY too hard to be a fun 80's film. You cannot purposely make a fun 80's action film. Those things happen by accident (see 1995's Sudden Death starring Jean-Claude Van Damme for proof).

Most of the seriousness of the first film has been taken away, but that has created a new problem. The film is too self-referential now. Some of the most groan-inducing one-liners in the history of film found their way into The Expendables 2. This film finds itself on the other end of the spectrum when it comes to tone. Yes, I do think the violence is harder in this film, but when not blowing limbs off random bad guys, this film's tongue is planted way too firmly into it's cheek.

As bad as it is to say, Arnold Schwarzenegger's Trench seems to suffer the most in this film. Everything out of his mouth is a horrendous one-liner. Now, I love me some cheesy one-liners, but these one-liners are not about the action on film. These are more along the lines of describing the actors. If you don't believe me about the awful, forced one-liners, just wait for the "Yippie-Ki-Yay" one-liner. The way it is used is so forced that you just have to roll your eyes and stop yourself from booing at the screen.

Beyond the one-liners, Randy Couture's Toll Road still continues to serve no purpose in the film. Each character seems to have some quirk, but basically Toll is there to just stand off to the side. Along with Toll, Jet Li makes what should be considered an extended cameo instead of a starring role. Granted the action he does in the film is entertaining, it is just disappointing to see his character randomly leave the film without a proper goodbye. And then there's Chuck Norris' Booker. Well, he's useless. His character has no explanation as he is a "lone wolf" yet appears out of nowhere, disappears and then reappears again. A horrible character who is only there to sell a couple tickets for the people who would be wanting to see Chuck Norris on the big screen again.

And what is it about this franchise and the shoddy CGI? Good God. That and the CGI blood should really be reined in. The classic 80's action films were all about practical effects as it added an extra layer to the film.

I don't want you to feel this will all be negativity, as there were some good things in this film. As with the first one, Dolph Lundgren again is one of the best reasons to see the film. I really believe that Dolph is the only actor who understands what The Expendables films should be. He brings the action but also the fun. Beyond Dolph, Jean-Claude Van Damme is a very welcome addition to The Expendables franchise, even if he is underused. Van Damme brings a giddy menace that the first film was missing. His character wants to destroy the world (what else would a super villain want?) and will do anything to accomplish his mission. Unfortunately, besides his first scene and last scene, he is relegated to just barking out orders as his plan is under way. Overall, though, Van Damme is a good choice and you can tell he really embellished the role.

Overall, I feel this is a slight improvement over the first one. The humor adds to what the first film was lacking. Though with the added emphasis on humor in this film, the constant winking at the camera gets old (like it's stars) very quickly. If they can find a better balance between the action and humor for the inevitable The Expendables 3, that might make the film these guys have been trying for since the first one.

4.7/10