Hollywood Action Hero

  • Main
  • All Subpages
  • Create New
    MENDOOOOOZAAAA!!!

    Hey, look at me
    Casually
    Walking away like Action Movie Hero Boy,
    In slow-mo,
    Everything glowing and blowing to bits
    Right behind me!

    —Lemon Demon, "Action Movie Hero Boy"

    A subtrope of the Action Hero, a Hollywood Action Hero is The Hero of a Summer Blockbuster Action Adventure Movie. He (and it's almost always a he) is usually defined by a few specific traits that separate him from other types of heroes:

    Now compare the above to Common Mary Sue Traits.

    Unsurprisingly, these types can fall to Invincible Hero if done poorly, especially when you consider your typical Hollywood Action Hero wastes a mole of mooks by movies' end. When it's averted, expect it to result in the hero bloody, bruised, and hurt badly by the end. He may be a Badass Normal, but he still worked for that victory. Speaking of normal, Hollywood Action Heroes rarely have super Powers, perhaps because they tend to fit a male viewers "fantasy" of their ideal self, a strong warrior Ubermensch type who kills bad guys, does good, and gets the girl.

    The phrase "action heroes" appeared early in the 1960s, used to describe the Charlton Comics protagonists (later the inspiration for the characters in Watchmen). This phrase, coined by Dick Giordiano, applied to their mostly non-metahuman adventurers such as The Question and Ted Kord. The era with the biggest affluence of Action Heroes are probably the 80's and 90's, with big name stars like Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, and many, many others starring in a half dozen Summer Blockbusters every year. Many film critics lament that the current generation of actors has failed to produce a viable crop of Action Heroes, with only a few actors fitting the "classical" model like Jason Statham, Vin Diesel, and The Rock. There was also a big action movie scene in Hong Kong, with stars such as Bruce Lee, Chow Yun-Fat, Jackie Chan and Jet Li kicking serious ass with kung fu (or gun fu, in the case of Chow Yun-Fat).

    The movies of the 2000s have instead produced the Action Survivor who, rather than being a Marty Stu, is more akin to a Self-Insert Fic where Hilarity Ensues. Occasionally both are teamed up as an Action Duo. Contrast the Nerd Action Hero.

    Examples of Hollywood Action Heroes include:

    Arnold Schwarzenegger

    Bruce Lee

    Bruce Willis

    Chow Yun-Fat

    Clint Eastwood

    Chuck Norris

    Dolph Lundgren

    Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson

    Errol Flynn

    Harrison Ford

    Humphrey Bogart

    Jackie Chan

    Jason Statham

    Jean-Claude Van Damme

    Jet Li

    Kurt Russell

    Mel Gibson

    Nicolas Cage

    Sean Connery

    Steven Seagal

    Sylvester Stallone

    Tony Jaa

    Vin Diesel

      This article is issued from Allthetropes. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.