The bodies hit the floor in the first round of our Action Franchise Tournament yesterday. Unlike in many of the films in question, the underdogs didn’t fare so well when confronted with some of the genre’s kingpins: John McClane whipped Robert McCall in the battle of the bald badasses, Milla Jovovich was outrun by Tom Cruise, and Vin Diesel In A Muscle Car beat out Vin Diesel In Space. Today, after the combatants had an evening to rest and trade witty banter, the Sweet 16 begins.
Which Hong Kong legend reigns supreme? Which high-tech melding of man and machine? Can John Wick outfight a Predator? (One imagines this final crossover is on its way.) Below, you’ll find the winners of round two.
Our reader poll also continues, allowing you to split the decision around any matchup you think isn’t getting a fair shake. Rush Hour and Rambo already set that poll apart, skating by on name recognition, while Jason Bourne beat out the dynamic cop duo of Lethal Weapon. The closest match-up for the readers was, as we all predicted, Kung Fu Panda vs. A Better Tomorrow, but at least that one ended up in the right spot.
Die Hard vs. In The Line Of Duty
Winner: Die Hard
An iconic villain, an all-time kiss-off line—it’s hard to believe Die Hard wasn’t pre-packaged as an action classic because it’s so ingrained in our psyches. But a TV star against an unknown Alan Rickman? Die Hard was never a sure bet. The only certainty was that John McTiernan would deliver the goods, having directed Predator a year earlier. Its initial sequels, the good Die Hard 2 and the excellent Die Hard With A Vengeance (with an electric Samuel L. Jackson), maintained the breakneck pace while never pushing the limits of the question “How the hell is this happening to this guy again?” It wasn’t until the middling Live Free Or Die Hard and the abject A Good Day To Die Hard that the wheels fell off. The series lost its way when John McClane became a supersoldier. Speaking of, the loose In The Line Of Duty anthology burst onto the Hong Kong action scene with killer leads, relentless cops, dizzying choreography, and a who’s who of martial arts staples. But unlike Die Hard, no matter where you start, you’ll never miss a beat: The franchise is less about plot and more about some of the finest fighters the screen has ever seen kick each other’s ass at the speed of light. Cynthia Khan is a particular hidden gem after she takes over for Michelle Yeoh. With charisma for days and moves like a panther, the dancer-turned-actor is one of the most unfairly unsung stars of the era. Die Hard is the giant in this matchup, and rightfully so, but where else are you going to see Yeoh rescue Hiroyuki Sanada in an absurd armored car before the pair beat the ever-loving hell out of the bad guys? [Brandon Streussnig]
Ip Man vs. Police Story
Winner: Police Story
Donnie Yen’s epic, sprawling ode to Bruce Lee’s martial arts master—a glossy historical epic that becomes more fawning and nationalistic as it goes—capably demonstrates Ip Man’s near-magical abilities with Wing Chun. Police Story, though, demonstrates Jackie Chan’s near-magical abilities with the entirety of the human body. Yen’s lithe movements and noble bearing are winning, to be sure. The beatdowns he lays are elegant, befitting a man with a hallowed cinematic legacy. But Jackie Chan’s impeccable stunt spectaculars win out the day because they’re so grungy, tactile, and visibly dangerous. The incredible only impresses if one can tell that it’s not impossible; Police Story weaponizes Chan’s clownish cop bravado while making its realism clear in every frame. Even as the franchise descends into misfires and spin-offs, its early go-for-broke high points overcome the smooth consistency of its more respectable opponent. [Jacob Oller]
James Bond vs. The Roundup
Winner: James Bond
The polar opposite heroes of these franchises—the mega-suave, typically lean 007 and the bumbling, beefed-up Columbo that is Ma Seok-do, a man who politely bullies criminals until forced to use his sedan-sized body to inflict moderate helpings of police brutality upon them—belie a shared affection for making large-scale villainy more palatable thanks to a larger-than-life agent of order. But as much silly fun as it is watching the massive Ma Dong-seok play dumb and slap the ever-loving hell out of crooks, The Roundup franchise’s films blend together into an affably repetitive blur. This isn’t to say that the James Bond movies don’t repeat themselves or don’t share a rigid vocabulary. But there’s enough diversity in its filmmakers’ tone and approach to action that for every cornball set-up or predictable groaner, there’s an imaginative stunt or killer fistfight bold enough to bring you to the edge of your seat. By making its spy antics bigger than the hero at their center, Bond remains flexible and—as the agent always does—lives to die another day. [Jacob Oller]
Lethal Weapon vs. The Matrix
Winner: The Matrix
Pairing a careerist on the verge of retirement (Danny Glover’s Murtaugh) and a traumatized man with a gun (Mel Gibson’s Riggs), Lethal Weapon began as a kinda-grim buddy-cop caper. By Lethal Weapon 4, it had grown to an action-comedy ensemble, welcoming Rene Russo as an Internal Affairs love interest, Chris Rock as Murtaugh’s future son-in-law, and Joe Pesci’s squeaky shining star of the franchise. Director Richard Donner expanded each new entry. Characters accumulated around Murtaugh and Riggs despite the mortal danger they attracted, while bad guys died with exponential frequency. Lana and Lilly Wachowski built The Matrix similarly. Subsuming more than three decades of action cinema, anime, and sci-fi, they wielded groundbreaking special effects and Yuen Woo-ping’s fight choreography to craft a vibrant post-apocalyptic cyber-hell. Their setpieces have been etched into the firmament of genre filmmaking. The mechs shooting hordes of floating digital squids, the mind-boggling freeway chase, even the moment when Neo says, “I know kung fu”—these are our hero fantasies splayed out violently, triumphantly. But whereas Donner’s auteurism is debatable, The Matrix films represent an exquisitely personal vision. Even as The Matrix universe swelled, the Wachowskis dug deeper into introspective conversations and philosophical wanderings. Resurrections, Lana’s solo-directed film, contends with the original’s battered legacy by having Neo contend with the legacy of being Neo in that original film. It’s a lucid, fascinating way to continue a bloated corporate studio action franchise without bloating it further. [Dom Sinacola]
Mission: Impossible vs. Once Upon A Time In China
Winner: Mission: Impossible
At the heart of Mission: Impossible and Once Upon A Time In China are supermen: magnificently athletic, heroically asexual, capable of saving the world. Wong Fei-hung, the legendary and often fictionalized martial arts master, is played in four of the Once Upon A Time films by Jet Li as an ageless Forrest Gump-like avatar of Chinese nationalism, spectacularly colliding with Western imperialism. For entries IV and V, Vincent Zhao filled in well enough, but Li’s absence codified the role’s reality: The Cantonese folk idol would always overshadow the actor taking him on. In stark contrast, Tom Cruise inhabits international superspy Ethan Hunt through all eight Missions: Impossible. Cruise could never say goodbye to Ethan Hunt, because he is Ethan Hunt, and Ethan Hunt is Tom Cruise, or at least the closest we’ll ever get to knowing Tom Cruise. The series is not only his life’s masterpiece, but his most precise expression of love for the movies, and for sacrificing his life to them—which he demonstrates through some of the most beautifully executed action scenes ever crafted. As much as Tsui Hark’s direction cradles each of his Once Upon A Time entries’ historical ills in endlessly attractive acrobatics and lavish sets, and as much as the series’ theme song (Wong Jim’s “A Man Of Determination”) is an all-time banger, Mission: Impossible thrums with cosmic desperation. Despite rotating directors, each entry stays remarkably consistent, plots unfolding endlessly around Cruise knocking on death’s door. Clinging to the side of the Burj Khalifa, HALO jumping, sprinting nimbly down a Shanghai waterfront, holding his breath so long that you realize you are too—at their apexes, these films are elemental. In thrall to essential movie magic, Cruise puts his body on the line to chase immortality. [Dom Sinacola]
Fast & Furious vs. The Terminator
Winner: The Terminator
Even if the Fast & Furious films seem like they’re heading towards a technological future where Dominic Toretto somehow rides Skynet like a motorcycle, those hotrod melodramas wane in power even as they encroach upon the Terminator franchise‘s science fiction. There’s a bit of Stockholm syndrome with the F&F movies; they become increasingly endearing as you feel more connected to the ever-expanding onscreen family, through time and ticket purchases, if nothing else. But the Terminator franchise didn’t need to zip between countless countries, recruit cameos from musicians and models and MMA fights, or endlessly up its ante. Its effectiveness lies in its elegance, even when explosive—and, unlike F&F, it would’ve been even better had it just stopped after two entries. Cameron’s second film perfectly established the mega-macho summer blockbuster template: An effects spectacular with catchphrases, enemies-turned-friends, and a propulsive construction that would shape films as seemingly distant from time-travel and killer AI as Fast & Furious. [Jacob Oller]
Predator vs. John Wick
Winner: John Wick
The Yautja may have alien technology on their side, but they’ve historically gotten their asses handed to them by humans far less deadly than the Baba Yaga himself. As cool as those mandible-mouthed bloodsport enthusiasts might be—and with, their consistent bag of tricks and defiant dedication to the thrill of the hunt, they’re cool enough to hold their own as antiheroes—their action bona fides cower in the face of one middle-aged juggernaut. If we’re simply comparing these two as movie-monsters, as otherworldly slasher villains whose violence tears through swathes of musclebound heavies, John Wick not only avoids being smoked by run-of-the-mill mercs, but goes out on his own terms after becoming more feared than a mere Predator ever was. And he does all this without the cheap cop-out of invisibility or plasma weaponry. Just good ol’ fashioned bullets and Kevlar suits, done as well as pretty much anyone ever has. [Jacob Oller]
A Better Tomorrow vs. Mad Max
Winner: Mad Max
I’ll be honest: It’s been hard to write this blurb, simply because I keep getting distracted imagining Chow Yun-fat driving a car in a Mad Max movie. Cigarette, big gun, little smirk, behind the wheel of the most dangerous-looking vehicle ever welded together by Australian mechanics? Alas, what could’ve been. Chow’s intense cool factor powered the Better Tomorrow trilogy—he was so charismatic, in fact, that after his character dies in the first film, the sequel introduces his twin brother just because it couldn’t do without a big dose of Chow. In both of John Woo’s films and in producer-director Tsui Hark’s third entry (Woo’s proposed third film would become Bullet In The Head), Chow’s star power is a flashbang in the face every time he’s on screen. Despite its title, this singular hero is what Mad Max lacks, exchanging that specificity for something far more sweeping and grandiose. Though Max Rockatansky is the namesake of the best car franchise ever made, it’s the madness that defines it. The compulsive, primal franchise of chases, revenge, and survival speaks to an eternal fear of extermination and an animalistic desire to escape it—a poetic drive outracing even that of Woo’s heroic bloodshed films. George Miller’s evolving, heart-revving vision from the original film forward has eclipsed anything as limiting as a character or an actor, which is what makes it great. [Jacob Oller]
Readers Poll
We’re already deviating in an interesting way in our parallel poll, but that just means more opportunity to tell us that we’re wrong. (And there are just never enough chances for that, right?) Vote for the winners in all eight match-ups below, hopefully for films not named Rambo. Check back tomorrow for the results of the poll, along with a new set of fistfights to vote on.
