Recent action films are rarely good. First of all, I hate to gripe about it, but PG-13 action films are usually awful. There are few directors who handle the PG-13 rating well; Steven Spielberg is one of them (he could probably make a G-rated action flick and it would still be fun). That being said, the often R-Rated action films of the 80s were the best. I miss them. I long for the blood and the guts. I long for the corny one-liners. I long for the big, brawny he-men snapping guy’s necks like they’re twigs and tossing bad guys out cars like they’re paper dolls. I miss guys like Arnold, Stallone, Willis, Ford, and Eastwood. To a lesser extent, I miss Van Damme, Charles Bronson, and Chuck Norris.

There are too many great 80s action movies to count. How about Predator? A bunch of commandos go in the woods and fight an alien, who picks them off one at a time. Who doesn’t remember the line, “I ain’t got time to bleed”? Right there, that one line, that sums it up. That’s what 80s action films were all about. Fighting to the bloody end with testosterone pumping while a bunch of men having major roid rage battle it out. Did anyone see the recent Terminator Salvation? Watch that, then compare it to the first Terminator. What different movies. The original had all the grit. It was in your face, down in the dirt action. We knew who the good guys were, and we knew who the bad guys were. End of story.

How about Rambo? Or Rocky III? Oh yes, Rocky III. Who doesn’t want to see Sylvester Stallone fight Mr. T? Shit, I would pay good money right now to watch them go at it, even if they are two over-the-hill geriatric farts these days. And what happened to action scenes, where I had a clue what was going on. The Bourne movies were fun when they first came out. The Matrix was fun. But I’m sick of every movie copycatting them. I want to tell who is hitting whom. I want to see the fists actually connect. I’m tired of paying good money to watch 90 minutes of blurs.

Then, there’s Die Hard. What a perfect action film. We’re introduced to a regular, average joe, working cop. He’s presented with the unimaginably difficult task of fighting hardcore German terrorists, and we buy every second of it. It’s a tough movie. Willis is beat up by the end of that film. He’s cut up from head to toe. Every muscle in your body aches after seeing what Willis went through. Compare that with the more recent Die Hard flick, and it’s a joke. Willis went from being average joe, working cop to superman. I don’t want to see Superman in my gritty action flicks. I want to see a regular guy who has the crap beaten out of him, but he keeps on going.

Speaking of which, they ruined Indiana Jones in the same way. Watch Raiders of the Lost Ark. Did you notice something? Indiana Jones looks like he’s been through the ringer. He even gripes about the pain he’s in. He’s all sore muscles, and he can barely move. Now you’ve got the recent movie, where he’s one hundred years old, but he’s flying around like Spider-man. What the Hell? What happened to these guys? These were my heroes. Not because they were invincible, but clearly in spite of it. Because they were ordinary people doing the extraordinary.

Maybe I’m getting off track here. All I know is, I want two things back in my action movies. I want real grit. I want to see what’s going on. I want to see blood and brains and brawn. And I want to see my heroes act like heroes, not like invincible supermen.