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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 1549043" data-attributes="member: 812">I don't find insults, veiled or not, particularly conducive to good discussion. If this is the sort of tone you want to take then I'd rather abandon the conversation altogether. Please, no more of this.If I said something that irritated you and caused this sort of attack, I'm sorry. Let me know and I'll try to avoid doing so in the future.*shrug* Okay. I don't know what you object to in those scenes. They look just fine to me.I'm not asking you to care; I'm still trying to get you to explain why you think one movie is so much better than the other. If you've got evidence, holler.Yeah, about as easily as I could see a girl running into danger to save her new pet dog.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />It's not that the specific case is indefensible -- it's that the movie is ridden with stuff like that.Really? You must be watching different movies than I've seen. I know Bond is unflappably debonair, ruthless but never sadistic, loyal to his country, almost never afraid of anything, always has a backup plan, has no concern for government property, is cheerfully disrespectful to authority -- especially to pompous types who want him to be serious, and has a deep-seated soft spot for a pretty face. I know he can handle almost anything, I know he's got gadgets and tricks up the ying-yang, I know he's capable of wild n crazy stuff that most people would die horribly attempting. And I know he's written by people with huge sacks of money at their disposal, so just about ANYTHING is possible.When I see some random guy standing in a street with a BMW tearing towards him, I'm marginally interested. My interest rises when it's James Bond, because I KNOW Bond to a sufficient degree that I can anticipate something really wacky is about to happen.Keep in mind, please, that I'm not talking about "character development" in the, let us say, Jane Austen sense. I'm not saying we need loads of details about the character. Obviously that gets in the way of an action movie.But what defines great action movies is that they present to us just the character details we exactly need in order to get excited about what's happening.Sure, for the opening sequence, which was great. Even the first twenty minutes of the film are really, really good. For just these reasons. After that the movie starts to fall apart, precisely because those elements start getting confused and emptied.Okay, leaving aside the fact that I think the opening to The Matrix was slightly cooler than the Gap ads that had used the same technique (only better) in the months prior to the film's release, it's still the same principle as in the opening to Star Wars.Pretty girl is inoffensively typing at a computer when threatening goons with guns burst in.Gee, you can't figure out who the good guys and bad guys are in this situation? Of course you can. It's remarkable how little context one needs for a single sequence to work. But it STILL requires performance, script and direction.Hitchcock's famously described this principle many times. He uses it in Rear Window to marvellous effect -- if we see someone rooting about in a room, acting furtive, and then we see someone else coming up the stairs, we are immediately put into a state of suspense. In Rear Window, of course, the suspense is much heightened because we're invested in Grace Kelly's character and so the idea of her getting caught is even more worrisome. But even if all we know about someone is that they're looking around where they aren't supposed to, that's enough to generate tension.That's what I'm talking about as to "performances". The actor doing the snooping has to convince us that they are doing what they're not supposed to, that there will consequences to being caught. The script has put them in that situation. The director has to make sure the audience understands the situation.I'm talking strictly about the "action". I agree that if you take the action out of an action movie, you're unlikely to have anything worth watching. Just like if you take the comic bits out of a comedy, you'll have a dull (though mercifully short) film.Maybe I'm deeply misunderstanding this, but I don't see how it's relevant. I'm not talking about the rest of the movie. I'm talking about the action. The action requires performances, script and direction if it's going to succeed. Action needs to be well-performed, well-scripted and well-directed. Maybe you agree with that and are arguing some other point that I don't get. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be obtuse here, but honestly I don't understand why you keep saying that if you take out the action, an action film will suffer.I agree with that idea, but I don't understand why you think it's important. I haven't been trying to argue that if you consider everything besides the action in Van Helsing, you'll have a bad movie. I've been arguing that it's a bad movie because it's poorly directed, poorly written and poorly acted. Action scenes and non-action scenes alike.Does that make it more clear?I have to say, KL, that the tone of this post really caught me off guard. Maybe I'm feeling especially insecure today, but I feel like you're going after me rather than my arguments. We've gotten into it enough times that I'm not going to blow you off, but I do hope this doesn't represent some change in your attitude. Maybe it's just me.Anyway, I hope I've been more clear. I remain unconvinced that there's anything at all clear about VH's supposed superiority over The Mummy, but I'm willing to listen to any arguments you have (though I'm probably not the only one sensing a certain "circularity" to that discussion). I still feel like we're passing in the night on the "performances, script and direction" issue -- apparently you're trying to get at something that I'm just missing. Or vice versa.</blockquote>

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