This is kind of a tough list to make, isn’t it? Everyone and their movie-loving, obsessed friends are going to want to chime in on what the most ‘important’ action movies of the decade are and it’s very likely that the list below might satisfy some people but not ALL people. Ah well, that’s how it goes when it comes to action movies, but there is a reason why some are a little more important and some are, well, just there to enjoy. It could be a societal reason, something that people are happy to see as far as representation of a gender or a race goes, or it could be the renewal of a franchise that people were wanting to see come back for a long time, it’s hard to say. But the importance of the movie usually lies within the minds of the fans and as we all know by this point, fans can be extremely picky and less than agreeable for even the smallest things since everyone has different priorities and tends to think that their own line of thinking is what should be followed. At least, some folks think that way. But in this instance, these movie below are some of those that have carried more significance than others in the past decade and it’s been seen that many people might agree with this sentiment, if only because it was seen that the movies did in fact push an agenda of some sort that people fully agreed with in some respects.
Here are a few of the most important action movies of the past decade.
5. Atomic Blonde
With talk of equality and patriarchy and all this other noise, some might have forgotten that Atomic Blonde wasn’t the first movie to showcase a female lead that could kick some serious butt and look good while doing it. But considering the era in which this movie came out, it was bound to get the kind of attention that it did. The sad part about it is that by focusing on this movie and making appear that this was a breakthrough for women in the action genre, it kind of ignores everyone that came before Charlize Theron, even if that wasn’t the intention since there were plenty of tough women in the decades prior to this movie, and with more convincing character arcs.
4. Edge of Tomorrow
More often than not Tom Cruise tends to play a character that’s very aware of the world around him and what he can do. That confidence is what’s appreciated by a lot of people, but it can get kind of old after a while. In this movie though he broke form and played a rather cowardly character that didn’t want to get into the thick of it and was content to try and get out of fighting as much as he could. Even when he finally started to learn and get aggressive he was still more uncertain than he’s been in many of his roles, which was nice to see since it gave him another dimension that hasn’t been noticed in a while.
3. Mad Max: Fury Road
Some fans might have loved to have seen Mel Gibson take up this role again but the fact is that he was a bit too old for it and the studio obviously wanted someone younger, so enter Tom Hardy. This was also a return to a franchise that was highly popular back in the day and introduced a character that a lot of people enjoyed and wanted to see more of, but in a different story of course. This time around Max was in just as much trouble as he always was, but the introduction of Furiosa was something that is already prompting a spinoff that fans are wanting to see, and talks of another return.
2. John Wick
If anyone says that they saw this coming then go ahead and laugh since at one point Keanu Reeves was a popular actor but he hadn’t done anything of note for a while considering that he’d performed in a few lackluster movies and had remade his image with The Matrix but hadn’t gone much further. When John Wick came out though, the whole world was flipped upside down as he took on the role of a contract killer that even the worst bad guys knew to fear since he’s the type of individual that doesn’t stop until he reaches his objective. As of now, people are already anticipating John Wick 4, especially after how part 3 ended.
1. Black Panther
Kind of like Captain Marvel, which came later, this movie was decent as an action flick but was given way too much hype for what was revealed. It carried more importance as a sign that Marvel’s first black hero had finally arrived on screen in his own movie than anything, and unfortunately that kind of undercuts the story aspect of it. It was a good movie, there’s no doubt about that, but the amount of attention that was given to it was hard to justify considering that it was, at its core, another superhero movie.
Everyone gives importance to different things after all.
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