I really love it, for many aspects, even if I find Schwarzenegger's "acting" or "non-acting" overrated in it. But for me it's a near perfect little scifi-thriller, that I classify as close to Spielberg's Duel. A simple chase, an unstoppable, relentless, overwhelingly powerful machine. Just the running away. Plus a romantic time-warped story that works on me. It's a great less-is-more flick.
Oh wow. I accidentally answered a page one hot take.
Anyway.
At some point I know I'll have to muster the courage to express this. It's the pivotal moment from which on BrawlMan will hate my guts forever.
I just dislike movie fistfights.
I see them as the most tedious, boring moments of movies, series, etc. There are a few exceptions. I enjoy most of them in the early James Bond movies, and for similar reasons I respect those in Jackie Chan movies (although they don't appeal to me as, to add insult to injury, I just can't get into martial art esthetics). But they are generally just dragging forever, and pointless.
The problem I have with them is quite specific : they are long, the outcome is known most of times (it's a "how" spectacle, not a "what"), and above all
there is no progression within them. People punch each others and punch each others back and punch each others back until the script demands that one of them stay down, which
can occure at absolutely any random point, depending on how long the sequence has been decided to be. It's the case in most action movies, but especially the case with "magical fistfight" and with "cyborg fistfights" where superpowers allow the pugilists to keep crawling out unscathed from the debris (until arbitrary time out). There is no tension, no sense of upper hand or despair, the convention is that any battered character can find a second breath at any point (especially after a flasback triggered by a low point in battle) and, no matter their state, fight with renewed energy to smack down another character who, in turn, is just as vulnerable to "plot-driven knock out" whatever the physical state. And just bleh, yes, we know it, just get on with it, don't act as if there was tension of if there was anything
narrated during these unending sequences. It's as annoying to me as love scenes are to kids (and often to me aswell) : they just uselessly put the story on pause for what feels like hours. We got it, carry on with the movie please.
Now of course there are exceptions. There are love scenes that are informative, that tell a lot about the significance of the moment or the dynamics between the characters. There are fight scenes with real progression and real suspense - and those generally involve wit, with the dominated character trning the table though other means than suddenly hitting stronger (or suddenly their hits registering because plot). Spatial awareness, environment use, or sudden openings (Robocop vs Boddicker, The Mountain vs Oberyn), stuff that make sense in a situation's reversal. But these are so much the exceptions that conventional fights are generally
expected to be senseless - you generally know that looking tired or battered (if it even is a thing) has no meaning and no effect on the fighters' chances. That there is no "story" within the fight. That it's not a fight.
So when one starts, in such movies (like the MCU/DC ones for instance), my eyelids drop to mid-height and I just go "okay, there we go, call me back when my attention is demanded again". It could be commercial breaks for what they're worth.
There. This is my stance. Fight me over it if you want, but, ffs, make it
quick.
)
