Actionnnn: Stupid Movie Tricks Pt 2

Bad plot points are murder, but sometimes even the action is annoyingly bad, as evidenced by some of thse old chestnuts (if by chestnut you understand I mean, piece of shit)

And Now For My Imitation of Jesse Owens - A huge wall of water or fireball is heading towards our hero and he just sprints away from it til he can dodge to safety. Here is what is interesting, if you are a main character you will probably run just fast enough, if you are secondary character.. adios. Let's be realistic, you are going to be a seared hunk of meat or a drowned rat. I think that superheated oxygen just might be a touch faster and feel free to ask a few thousand Asians how that whole running away from rushing water thing works.

The Mary Lou Retton Award (Or, Let Me Woo You) - Anytime you have gunfights in which the actors are doing these beautifully choreographed dives and twists while in a gunfight, you might have a shit movie. This was popularized John Woo, possibly the most overhyped director of recent times (go see Windtalkers and try to tell me he's brilliant). Yea it looks good, but it's just stupid. The same goes for firing away with a gun in each hand. You aren't going to hit a fucking thing unless the guy stands right in front of you idiots. If you are going to do a triple lutz then at least stop then fire. This falls in line with..

The Magic Bullett - Doesn't matter if the hero has just a Daisy BB Gun facing bad guys armed like an NRA wet dream, he will drop them eventually. A hail of bullets tear the shit out of everything around our hero and then he peaks up and "pop" there goes a bad guy. Keep repeating until coast is clear.

Mastur-Bay-tion - In honor of director Michael Bay, who never met an explosion he didn't like. Everything blows up like it was pumped full of naplam. Cars go up in flames like they were '74 Pintos driving backwards. Handgrenades look like you tossed a 500 lb bomb. I don't know why they even bother since we have become so numb to it all. Hey, make the explosions look more reaslistic and gritty, not cartoony and then people would really go wow.

Ouch, I've Been Shot - Hero is in epic gun battle with bad guys, hero gets hit by 9mm slug(s), hero walks away with slight limp. Ok, I can accept that adrenaline can do much for you, but sometimes these guys have just had muscles shredded and they move better than when you sprain your ankle. Not to mention they are soldiering on fine for hours on without even an aspirin. Well, I can't outrun fireballs, pick locks or shoot someone at 200 yards while doing a running jump, so I guess I just suck.

Well, that's good for now, it got me thinking of a particular franchise to go after. Next: I give it to Star Trek. Who's your Vulcan, bitch?