As the years go by the fight scenes tend to become a little more technical and a lot more impressive in terms of special effects, but when it comes to realism we’re still seeing them miss the mark horribly. Of course when it comes to source material we’re seeing the same thing since a lot movies have great fight scenes, but even in the 2010s they’re taking massive liberties with our favorite stories and trying to sell a different narrative that asks for more than just suspension of belief, it asks us to throw out what we already know and get on board with a new idea at the drop of a hat. In some cases that’s not too bad and it’s not too difficult, but to be realistic with some franchises and movies it’s been kind of hard since so much has already been built up that slamming your focus into another gear is more than a little demanding.
Here are some fight scenes from the most recent decade that were great for effects but kind of fell flat for a lot of other reasons.
5. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Two complete beginners pick up a lightsaber in this movie and go swinging it against someone that’s actually HAD lightsaber training from Luke Skywalker, the greatest Jedi still alive in this movie. Now a lot of people might want to argue that Rey had the Force on her side, and okay, that might explain a little part of how she survives and eventually overcomes Kylo. But what about Finn? For all we know he has no Force abilities and he’d be needing to worry half the time about cutting himself to pieces with the weapon, giving Kylo ample time, if he calmed down, to finish the fight quickly. As for Rey, she’s still an untrained duelist with a new weapon going up against a competent duelist who also uses the Force. Anyone else see the issue here?
4. Gods of Egypt
In the attempt to forget about the serious whitewashing this movie received (which didn’t do much good since it was still a bundle of awful) this particular fight scene boils down to low-grade CGI and the idea that Set is a living tank, whereas Horus, who, in Egyptian mythology is, as the movie depicts, the nephew of Set. But this fight scene kind of gives a nod to what happened in mythological times, though it also takes many liberties along the way. This fight scene is easy to call out as being somewhat less than pleasing since the entire movie was kind of ‘meh’ and didn’t really serve Egyptian mythology all that well.
3. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
It’s almost as though the Pirates movies were ready to say ‘we’re done’ and then turned around and said ‘oops’ as the rumors of another movie coming are still circulating. Neptune’s Trident however was something a little too over the top, even for this particular franchise, since if all curses are broken at the end, then what’s to keep any other curses from being stopped? Or would there be no more curses? Plus, how in the world is something as important as the Trident going to be able to be broken so easily? That feels like a serious gaffe on Disney’s part to allow such a thing, since such a titanic artifact should likely take a little more effort when it comes to getting rid of it.
2. Justice League
Letting go of the fact that Steppenwolf can’t even appear to match Superman’s speed or power, and that he’s been stepping all over the Amazons and the rest of the team, it’s fair to say that Superman is one big Macguffin as he’s always been. Can’t beat the bad guy? Send in Superman. It’s getting too rough? Send in Superman. Anything short of kryptonite tends to fail with this guy, which is why he’s the go-to in this case. But if the Mother boxes are really that important then why aren’t the parademons swarming? Why in the world are they just hanging out waiting to be dealt with? Oh, right, that’d be a lot of work to shoot and edit, and if you believe that, then get ready for the hypocrisy that’s been lauded as the Snyder Cut.
1. The Meg
Sigh…sharks DO NOT behave like this. Yes it’s a huge, ancient specimen, yes it’s likely a little different if it hasn’t evolved as much, but no, most animals won’t seek to cause harm to themselves just to get a little payback on prey that won’t play by their rules. This movie implies that a megalodon will gladly inflict injury upon itself just to get at the humans that are vexing it so much and won’t let it do what comes naturally. Granted, it’s not exactly allowable to just let a wild animal start killing people at random, but this thing appears to have a vendetta going, which isn’t something a wild animal normally does. Once the creature bit into something that wasn’t food, or experienced any kind of pain it couldn’t handle, it would have been gone.
Got to love that Hollywood magic.
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