Popular Movies Are Improving

[tabuno]

Taken from the Film Sales Drop thread 6-3-04 4:34 pm

quote:
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Originally posted by tabuno
Your comments still don't invalidate nor detract from my original statement about the qualitative improvement of the American cinema in various genres.
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arsaib4: They weren't intended to invalidate your statement outright. They were presenting a different POV. It's obvious that you aren't willing to comprehend the other side of the argument, something you did in the other thread.

tab uno: It is quite valid to state you don't think much about "Mean Girls" and "Chicago" because with my argument you don't necessarily think much about these films to still have the idea that the qualitative improvement of American cinema be correct.

arsaib4: Not quite. I could've mentioned "tons of releases" that would support my argument against any qualitative improvement of American cinema but I don't like repeating myself.

New thread discussion.

arsaib4 has responded to a concept in this other thread that I consider to be an important topic about films in "socialistic" terms, the movies of the masses. The topic almost reaches into the sociology of films and requires careful analysis just because what I'm discussing isn't found in comparing one or two movies nor pointing out the acting or directing of certain individuals, but a meta-review of a larger film analysis of many films focusing on such things as subject matter (plural) within a film, the incorporation of less stereotypical approaches to film (depth of characters and cookie cutter approaches to cut corners - unless innovative and effective), and one of the most obvious improvement topic that I've noticed is the synthesis of genres (comedy drama) into a much more potent movie experience.

arsaib4 could easily mention tons of releases against the improvement of American cinema but such comprehensive endeavor would be both easy but also very difficult because what would really need to accomplished was an examination of hundreds of films over time on the basis of various quality (there's that word again) themes and measure the mean/average of these films (the difficult part and perhaps not worth the effort or interest required).

However, I believe from a sociological standpoint in terms of American cinema for the masses and it's impact on cinema in general (based on a capitalistic market system) is huge! It's too bad one can just request an Release of Information and access the multitude of research studies conducted by the film industry of the public and their psychological analysis of films over the past decades, including budgets vs. profits vs. they care a "damn" of real filmmaking.

If given enough time (of course who has any), I will attempt to pursue and develop this thread because it's goes to the heart of film-making instead of the edges of film making that many times is discussed here.

[oscar jubis]

You have a theory, which seems to be: The "movies of the masses" are getting better. It's practically impossible to prove or refute for many reasons, paramount among them is the issue of personal taste. But it's interesting to apply some method to it on an individual basis, or at least some examples based on your viewing experience. Basically there needs to be a comparable before and after. For instance, I can argue that Prisoner of Azkaban is a better Potter movie than the two that preceded it. I haven't seen Sith, but it has received a better critical response than the two Star Wars movies that preceded it.
On the other hand I conducted a small experiment: I took the highest grossing movies of both 2000 and 2004 and assigned each movie a score between 1 and 4 as follows: 1=Awful 1.5=Avoid 2=Mediocre 2.5=Worth Watching if so inclined, rent it 3=Accomplished, watch at theatre 3.5=Excellent 4=Masterpiece. I added the scores for each year and divided by 10 to arrive at an average score for each year. I came up with identical scores of 2.5 for both years.
Of course, this is one simple way to examine your theory and there are infinite numbers of ways to do so. But obviously even if you apply your own ratings to the same method you may arrive at different conclusions. Mine is that the "movies for the masses" are not getting better or worse.

[tabuno]

Using IMDb with reference to the AFI Desk Reference (2002), I propose to select film genres to examine that I feel show promise of qualitative improvement over the past decade beginning with 1990.

Action-Adventure. While it can be argued that this genre's main purpose is to entertain through physical activity, there is sufficient subject matter regarding the heroic journey of how individuals persevere in the face of overwhelming odds, the noble struggle that is something everyday people are faced with in real life that has appeal here. How the public identifies with the qualitative human condition and struggle may have definite sociological value regarding the future of our society.

Comedy. I have insisted before that Comedy genre seems to have been one of the movie genres that have grown qualitatively the most over time with its successful inclusion of more dramatic elements, one immediate movie that comes to mind that has also been identified as science fiction is The Truman Show (1998). Comedy's focus on humor and amusement has a strong foundation in how the popular audience survives and lives in the real world. The concept of humor and its importance in our lives is almost undeniable and the increasing prevalence with dramatic elements appears to demonstrate how universally pervasive humor may be becoming and its importance in most everybodies lives.

Drama. Drama is probably one of the most important, vital movie genres when examining popular audience preferences, attitudes, beliefs. Drama is oftentimes has a traffic relationship in people's lives and we cannot avoid it. How drama is portrayed and to which dramatic movies attend to may have invaluable sociological as well as moral/ethical significance.

Family (Children). The future of the world is with the children and family. This movie genre has a powerful influence on what children experience, the more than true to life scenarios they are exposed to and how they react may dictate our own futures. Whether or not qualitative improvements can be uncovered in this genre is probably of the most important areas for examination.

Musical. Music as with the talkie movies has been a vibrant, important presentation format of theater - as with the opera. Music can take us places that normal dialogue and performance acting cannnot. It is also a recogize human form of communication as opposed to animated characters.

Romance. The universal, most talked about, song about, thought about human interaction, that humanity including the popular audience is almost obsessed with (excluding small children) is this emotion of "love." As such, this movie genre is also among the most vital in terms of seeking the qualitative status of popular romance movies.

Science Fiction/Fantasy. My personal preference, this genre holds many times the key and hope to the future, oftentimes based on hopes and dreams and the imagination of would could be. Sociologically speaking this is vital, directly connected to our sociological perspective of current to future possibilities and how the popular audience perceives and what it is exposed to may have a major impact on our world.

War. Unfortunately, war isn't a selected historical time period like the Western genre and so far it doesn't appear that it will disappear soon either. War having such a real and devastating impact on many popular audience members, this genre has deeply emotional and sociological consequences that may have far reaching and enlightening analysis benefits and values.


The following genres were not included:

Animation. Like the controversial inclusion of a separate category into the Academy Awards, this genre is being excluded due to its not quite so definite status as a genre. Animation can be considered more of a technique or format by which to create a particular genre film rather being a genre in itself. Current advances in animation will begin to raise serious questions regarding this idea as the technological capacity begins to enable filmmakers to create another of the other movie genres using animation techniques and begin to advance into other movie genres that were not the exclusive domain of non-animated technique while children/family films had previous been the favorite film genre for animation.

Crime. While crime is an ever present-threatening experience to everyone, especially the popular audience, the essence of a crime movie is primarily driven by the specific activity of crime. Even a movie as Traffic (2000) was placed in the Drama genre by AFI. As a measure of popular film improvement, the resonance with the general public and its sociological implications is somewhat limited as not all public members are criminal and how the larger society actually handles criminals is more derived perhaps by the mass-media of television, newspapers, and documentaries. Besides films such as "Birdman of Alcatraz" (1962) and "The Shawshank Redemption (1994), the sociological impact of this genre appears to be minimal.

Film-Noir. I've excluded this genre on the assumption that it is primarily focused on a singular narrow era of the crime genre, a sub-genre so to speak that has been expanded into film technique to be used in movies in other genres such as Bladerunner.

Historical. Even though AFI has this genre, IMDb unfortunately does not. One might wonder if the Historical genre is too close to Documentary genre for IMDb to include it.

Horror. Based on the need for fear and revulsion, the sociological significance and influence of this genre is limiting. It is more about how to scare people better and more effectively rather than offering how people deal with their fears. The entertainment and escapist value of this movie genre is so high that it almost pushes out any other consideration.

Melodrama. Melodrama is the exaggeration of real life of real human dramas, it appears to be a collapsing genre over time.

Music. IMDb includes this genre as a separate category in addition to the musical. It appears that this category is more of a spin off that allows for selecting movies with music elements and thus seems redundant and not signficantly mutually exclusive.

Mystery. This genre similar to Crime seems to revolve around primarily the solving of it. This genre seems more experiential than substantive. While the popular audience may be exposed to minor mysteries, the essence of this movies appear to be similar to entertainment value of a book novel read at bedroom.

Thriller. AFI doesn't include this genre. As with horror, the thriller genre appears to be more focused on entertainment value to the exclusion of any values...it is the summer time what to do if bored movie category.

Western. Personally not my favorite genre, this genre appears in the bigger picture will eventually fall into the historical genre as this brief period exclusively narrowed onto the American historical experience will become less and less prominent as other historical periods will crowd out this particular historical period of time as a separate genre.

[Fan of Kubrick]

While Oscar Jubis' theory is almost perfect, I have a few different opinions. While I believe that for the most part there are around the same amount of bad movies to good movies in ratios, I do believe that those good movies are deteriorating.

Let's start in 1999. Here are some of the best popular movies (in total grosses) of 1999:
Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace
The Sixth Sense
Toy Story 2
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
The Matrix
Tarzan
Big Daddy
The Mummy
Runaway Bride
The Blairwitch Project

These are the movies in 1999, generally considered a good year, that the masses chose to see for various reasons. How many of these are actually good (not okay, good)? For me it is 3. Let's compare with last year, shall we?

Shrek 2
Spider-Man 2
Meet the Fockers
The Incredibles
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
The Day After Tomorrow
The Bourne Supremacy
National Treasure
The Polar Express
Shark Tale

How many of these were good? 2. Now, let's check out what we have so far this year...

Hitch
Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Robots
The Pacifier
Are We There Yet?
The Ring Two
Constantine
Sin City
Guess Who
Coach Carter

Zero. Zero good movies. One or two okay ones... Now tell me the movies are getting better. I don't think that any of the oscar movies last year are better than the previous year either. Million Dollar Baby ain't better than Lord of the Rings.

Just my opinion.

[tabuno]

I actually like Fan of Kubrick's quick approach to an overall assessment of the question about popular movies (while I'm still in the midst of laborous work to put together a definitive list of movies to look at year by year, genre by genre between 1990 and 2005 - I must be a masochist).

A quick comment is that I would say the 1999 list compared to the 2004 list would support my believe of incremental improvements while the 2005 partial list possibly comfirms my unease about the quality of any movie out this year (the overall product seems weak) as I've started to point out last year but so far it would in the short run support Fan of Kubrick's observation. But like the stock market, I think we'll have to see and compare than just a few years because my hypothesis covers years, decades in fact - the overall trend over time. If I have more time, I'd like to take a stab and looking closer at the 1999 and 2004 list.

[tabuno]

I will be using IMDb power search and selecting films by genre and excluding TV movies, direct to videos, TV series, and having a minimum of 1,000 voters (to reflect that this movie is a popular one).

[tabuno]

A comprehensive list of all action-adventure films betweem 1990 and 2005 meeting the criteria for selected was compiled numbering 308 films. In order to avoid having to actually see all these movies, some movies will have to be excluded and a representative number of films from each year selected to be considered for comparison with each other over the years. Popularity will be a big consideration (not quality or rating per se). Subjectively, personal name recognition and number of IMDb voters will be used (this will reduced the number of foreign films though it is assumed that the average American movie goer will also have limited access to such films). Some of my bias and prejudice such as western genre movies will already have been taken into account here.

[tabuno]

1999:

Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace. In retrospect, not as good at Episode III where Episode III has become more serious, more mature in its convoluted struggle over the megalopolis world and bastions of power.

The Sixth Sense. A smash hit, due to its singular twist at the end a well crafted supernatural thriller (but without substantive depth).

Toy Story 2 - Was a powerful and most say better than the original. It was able to focus on relationships, brought up issues of family, loyalty, and betrayal.

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me - No comment.

The Matrix - Definitely a dazzling movie based on a solid sci-fi storyline.

Tarzan - No comment.

Big Daddy - No comment.

The Mummy - A big hit.

Runaway Bride - A good, but not outstanding romantic comedy.

The Blairwitch Project - Unique in bringing back the power of natural-realism to movies. A retro-movie - a movie that is good for being of poor professional quality looking.

2004:

Shrek 2 - Continued to introduce, albeit in animated form, the lead appearance of a plain looking female character in an epic-comedy adventure.

Spider-Man 2 - Continues to promote the flawed everyman hero, a nod to the general population. This movie is the updated psychologically sensitive Jaws movie format incorporating the popular themes that resonant among the mass audience. It it qualitative superior in its polish of the general themes of cultural icons - sacrifice, selflessness but powerlessness, humility and humbleness.

Meet the Fockers - Not much improvement that I can tell.

The Incredibles - one of the best animated features, now introducing the everyman superhero family in feature films. This is qualitative improvement in both production value and content value. The symbolism and plot design strike strong parallels with today's general audience family.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Can't really assess whether it is the source material or the movie that allows for quality here. I can't say that there is really any more qualitative improvement compared to other children's stories out there, past and present.

The Day After Tomorrow. A solid sci-fi what if movie that strives to incorporate a good dose of humanity along with the tremendous special effects action. A progressive step away from the stereotypical Airport and other disaster movies.

The Bourne Supremacy. Continues the more meaningful action movie that isn't all black and white, incorporates intelligent script plots and exposes the more harsh realities of spy activity. A great give and take between Joan Allen (strong intelligent female lead) and to Matt Damon's off the radar counter punches. A slick performance that is powerful on both actors parts.

National Treasure - while not meaningful in a practical way, National Treasure to its credit incorporates one of the best, sophisticated sounding adventure mystery clue discovery and analysis scripts ever. Qualitatively better in terms of process if not content for the masses. It emphasizes brains over just plain action.

The Polar Express - have reservations about this high-tech animated feature - accidently raises important ethical and moral questions in terms of animation. There, however, a plenty of good scenes involving basic moral values and using to good effect technology in allowing the audience to see the important non-verbal cues so often missed in animation and in real life.

Shark Tale - didn't see.


Overall, based on Fan of Kubrick's selection, over a five year period of time the selected representatives of each time period strongly suggest an improvement in popular movie fare.

[tabuno]

I compiled and selected 107 popular action-adventure films from 1990 to 2005 to look over. What was notable was the absence during the past 15 years of a large quantity of blockbuster movies each year that I had thought to have existed. Instead now that I think about it, blockbusters by year can be usually noted using fingers of both hands. Such blockbusters consists of all movie genres not just any particular one so that the contribution of any one movie genre to the total year's supply of really popular movies that year is usually quite small and so it usually is with action-adventure films.

My benchmark standard is looking over action-adventure films begins with The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) with an adventure film of prospecting for gold with deadly consequences without the overkill and The African Queen (1951) where the relationship component in adventure films found in Romancing the Stone finds its possible origin and The Seven Samurai (1954) that forms the basis on the team who bands together to face adventure that resembles a crew in the The Perfect Storm (2000). But adventure action films didn't get off to that great of start. The Pride and the Passion (1957) floundered in its portrayal of action and romance (surprising considering it starred Gary Grant, Frank Sinatra, and Sophia Loren and then action-adventure began its climb with North by Northwest (1957) directed by Alfred Hitchcock also starring Gary Grant in this spy adventure yet with what would be considered to be stylized acting. Ben Hur (1959) and Spartacus (1960) would foretell Troy (2004). But it was in 1962 that action adventure really seems to have come of its own and made a mark. In that year, no less than four major film accomplishments had their debut Lawrence of Arabia, The Manchurian Candidate, How the West was Won (I'm including it even though I'm not a western fan), and James Bond debut in Dr. No. It really was these four films that sent the standard for action adventure films though Dr. No really wasn't as flashy or as tight as future sequels would become.

Action Adventure films had to be lavish with good production value (Lawrence of Arabia), somehow epic (in either big or little ways), suspenseful with direct or implicit action and intensity, life must be at stake (How the West was Won and Dr. No) and some terror must somehow be conveyed at some level for the film to have the real emotional punch (The Manchurian Candidate). Lawrence of Arabia set a high standard for character development where this epic adventure has Peter O'Toole as T.E. Lawrence playing a compromised hero and deeper emotional issues. Later action adventure films would include Cleopatra (1963), From Russia with Love (1963) James Bonds second movie later followed by Goldfinger (1965), they really had those Bond movies coming.

For me personally, it was in 1965 with The Ipcress File and has become a benchmark for me for future action adventure films that was marketed as "A thinking man's 'Goldfinger'" that brought the notion of terror and fear of life and pain to full front and center.

Pale imitations of action adventure films came out Assault on the Queen (1966).

Then in 1970, came the movie that would change the map of action adventure movies forever. Whether one regards Airport, based on Arthur Hailey's engrossing popular bestseller, as pulp trash or exciting and thrilling to the max, it made its mark as a lead up to Jaws five years later. It group together all the stereotypes and the brief snippets of cardboard personal background to make the audience feel they could identify with someone in the movie. This was mindless action all the way and didn't allow for much thought - one was caught for the two hour ride regardless and this was then followed up with the Poseidon Adventure two years later, and The Towering Inferno two years after that following the same disaster format.

Finally it was then, when the little film that almost didn't get made, made it to the screen that the action adventure film became a household word

JAWS (1975)

and forever afterwords the action adventure blockbuster was a must for the movie industry every year thereafter. Jaws as I experience the movie is the psychological perfection of the action adventure movie for the general audience. It incorporates all the elements of fear, suspense, role identification with using the personality type models found in the general public to engage the paying public. It has the obligatory government greed syndrome. The science, the humor, the rebel, the everyman or woman (that would come in later films). JAWS created the concept of the blockbuster movie. And it is to this standard of JAWS that all other action adventure films must rise up above from. Yet it is with more than coincidental curiosity that during the same year, even more high-end quality action-adventure film was in circulation The Man Who Would Be Kind starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine in a character-driven with fascinating twists in the plot (that might foretell Mission Impossible (1996) and The Bourne Supremacy (2004).

It would take two more years, 1977, when action adventure would be taken into outer space with Star Wars and Superman the next year, other blockbusters that the Jaws phenomenon had started.

The 1980s saw a new action adventure film - Raiders of the Lost Ark that brought with a new updated twist on the old adventure story that began with The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) but with a much lighter sense of non-threatening proportions and Die Hard (1988). The Road Warrior came in 1982, Rambo in 1983. One of the more intelligent and compelling adventure movies of 1983 was The Right Stuff about the early days of the U.S. space program showing that reality is as film-worthy for adventure as fiction (setting up the notion of realism as adventurous as would be found in Apollo 13 (1995) and Touching the Void (2004) one of top films of all time, about a daring mountain climbing incident). Top Gun, a reality based military action movie, came out in 1986 that tapped into the sound track to pulse along with the riveting action sequences. At the end of the 1980s, 1989, Batman, a dark version, would break boxoffice records and an even more lighter version of Indiana Jones would come out as sheer entertainment with a father-son undertone.

AFI identifies other films as action adventure that I skip as they have a more liberal definition that incorporates both crime/cops and robbers into this genre and science fiction. But as these contenders for the adventure crowd can attest, JAWS-like yearly blockbuster movies retained the nature of action adventure in order to keep the audience coming in regardless of the predominate genre they were made in.

So at the beginning of the last decade of the last century, the 1990s, the broad sketches of the action adventure movie were set into place, surprising based not on hundreds of films but on a mere handfull of them.

[wpqx]

I agree that the quality of films hasn't generally improved, and this is true throughout. I don't think modern films are an abysmal wasteland compared to Hollwyood's golden era, quite the opposite. The only reason "classics" might seem better is because all the mediocre shit has been filtered out. When people are looking to see a great Fritz Lang film they go to The Big Heat, not Ministry of Fear. Granted neither film were particularly popular, but again we have to look deeper. Some directors, like Billy Wilder were massively popular in their prime, but his biggest box office success was Imra La Duce, which I'm not sure about you, certainly wasn't his best film.

Summer is usually an abysmal time for movies (unless you like loud explosions, video game graphic special effects, and big big big stars). I rarely look forward to Hollywood films this time of year, but I consider Summer a necessary stumbling block to get to the fall and early winter season when all the films designed to win awards get released.

But yes films like Lord of the Rings, clearly made for commercial reasons, are far better in quality than other commercial cow franchises like the Austin Powers series or the two Spider Man movies.

There will always be shit, and there will always be great films, it's just harder to sort them all out in the present tense. Ten years from now it'll be a lot easier to assess what films of this era are worth a damn.

[tabuno]

After a comprehensive review of popular action-adventure films, it is apparent that this genre did not produce an abundance of them each year and it becomes necessary to discover popular "representative" films of the genre that might be compared for their quality over time. In Part I, an attempt was made to provide a historical overview of these films up to the 1990s, laying the groundwork for a much more detailed look at the past 15 years of action-adventure films based on the quality of the films that preceeded them. A re-examination of my 107 film list, has revealed some striking errors and omission of the IMDb power search process. While these errors may diminish the validity of my review somewhat, the overall premise of the improving quality of popular action-adventure films will not be necessarily and fatally flawed.

An singular examination of just the James Bond series itself would provide some insight of evolving changes in quality movie production over time. Controversy, of course, would arise over which actor was the best portrayal of this amazing, enduring spy character - Sean Connery, Rogers Moore, Pierce Brosnan. Yet the production value derived mainly from the greatly increased investment budget into subsequent films made for some difference. Yet even with the more subtle items such as relationships with women and even Mr. Bond himself there crept into some of his performance in later movies a sense of vulnerability. The acting as well, particularly with the American criminal and CIA element quickly became more believable and less stereotypical in later productions.

Unfortunately like any densely, lengthy search among hundreds of examples, like the Bible, it's possible to validate or justify or come up with substantial support for most any position. Yet hopefully the enduring truths from all this examination may uncover some kernal of truth.

The historical past of action-adventure films prior to 1975 have relied on:

1. Epic nature.
2. Production value (action, heroic journey or struggle) that may include special effects.
3. Character development (set by Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia).
4. Suspense (particularly with regard to life and plot twists).
5. Terror and Pain.
6. Psychological buttons (Airport and Jaws) - setting the lowest common "resonating" denominator.

[tabuno]

Two important qualitative additions to action-adventure film genre occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. The introduction of sequels, most familiar among them the Indiana Jones trilogy that added the nice Sean Connery as father and Harrison Ford as son touch as well as the Die Hard 2 (1990) sequel to Die Hard (1988) and the Mission Impossible (1996) and its sequel in 2000 and introduction of reality-based action-adventure with Air America (1990), regarding the surreptitious war in South East Asia, Backdraft (1991) about fire fighters, Medicine Man (1992) about medical discoveries in South America, and Apollo 13 (1995). Both of these new influences on action-adventure films allowed for the opportunity to increase focus on character development in the sequel approach to action adventure and to offer a counter-point to bigger and better special effects by providing the possibility for a more realistic, more identifiable hero experiences for the movie going audience that have as much or more emotional impact because of the events being witness have in same ways actually happened to real people.

A more limited influence on action adventure was made by foreign, independent movies albeit having to make do with limited budgets and marketing - Nikita (1990) that was subsequently remade as Point of No Return (1993) in what I consider to be the better movie (though this point has probably been much debated with Point of No Return losing), El Mariachi (1992), The Professional (1995), Run, Lola, Run (1999), and the classic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). All if not of these movies were well received by the American public at large and can be considered to have enhanced the quality of the genre by introducing a new way of adding to the excitement and balance of action and adventure. Females became prominent in three of them (Point of No Return, Run, Lola, Run, and Crouching Tiger, Hiddgen Dragon) all with strong leads without having to sacrifice their feminity. The Professional lent the introduction of young children as part of the action adventure set up though Indiana Jones had successfully used this device earlier, but in the Professional - the relationship became a vital part of the plot development. American copies of female action-adventure were attempted with Cutthroat Island with Geena Davis in her unsuccessful though what I considered underrated action-adventure film (that was much more successfully produced and released in a male version with Johnny Depp in Priates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), a decent Sharon Stone western version in The Quick and the Dead (1995) and the more successful Charlies Angels (2000) and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) as well as the recent Jennifer Garner's lukewarm Elektra (2005) that I also felt was underrated. Both Charlies Angels and Lara Croft would follow in their male-counter sequel pattern in 2003 with Full Throttle and The Cradle of Life both which did decent if not spectacular business.

A curious point in this the most recent discussion is about the popularity and quality. It is important not to focus too heavily on how these movies did at the box office but in terms of the quality of the film no matter for what reason they lagged back in terms of profit. The premise of this thread is quality and popular movies (but movies not based on their exact popularity based on the number of people watching it).

Thus so far it can be argued that action adventure films have enhanced their balance with regards to the roles of women adding the the character development of these films and interestingly enough providing for a further range of emotions and pain that normally isn't appropriate (culturally) to be seen in male character roles. As good example of this opportunity of emotional expression was in Elektra where Jennifer Garner's character has more instances of felt pain in a different expression.

Two recent releases of action adventure films while not based complete on reality but have heavy suggestions towards it were Hidalgo (2004) and Sahara (2005) that toned-down their special effects laden overkill to focus more on the human struggle and heroic journey. While both of these films didn't do that well at the boxoffice the mass distribution of these "popular" films still provide evidence that quality in terms of the human versus special effects balance hasn't continued to go downhill or be ignored by the film industry. Personally, I felt that these films were a refreshing change to tendency for more, big, and louder. Even King Arthur (2004) was also a rather interesting attempt a more epic, historic realism that really wasn't that great of a movie. What perhaps is more disconcerting was the public response to these too films. However, National Treasure (2004) remains a hopeful sign that not all action adventure and the mass audience must rely on a blanketing of gigantic big action scenes one after another. National Treasure seemed to find a balance between big and smart plot developments. National Treasure was fascinating because it brought to much higher point than has been seen even than in Indiana Jones, and Lara Croft, the successful introduction of scientific reasoning, study, and judging from the evidence of historical research of conclusions to help make the movie move forward. This movie was a definite quality improvement to the genre.

In Part IV, and final Action-Adventure Film, I will discuss provide an overview of how the 15 years of recent films compare with the quality standards that I forth in Part II.