The action genre took a big hit throughout the 2000s. CGI technologies were on the rise, so action films were increasingly using early-days computer-generated effects (that have aged horribly) in place of practical stunt work. As CGI has become easier, filmmakers have learned to rein it in and use it sparingly because nothing will beat doing it for real.
Despite CGI effects bleeding into the action genre, the decade still brought some modern action classics, courtesy of directors like Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan going above and beyond. So, here are the five best and five worst action movies from the 2000s.
Best: Shoot ‘Em Up (2007)
Inspired by the iconic gunfight sequence in John Woo’s Hard Boiled, director Michael Davis set out to make a gun-toting actioner with that extreme level of intensity from start to finish.
As Clive Owen blasts his way through leagues of bad guys in order to protect a pregnant woman (the second pregnant woman Clive Owen has protected on the big screen, after Children of Men), Shoot ‘Em Up is a relentless thrill-ride.
Worst: Get Carter (2000)
Sylvester Stallone’s remake of the classic Michael Caine thriller Get Carter loses the authentic grit of the original and adds an unnecessarily large dose of Hollywood flash.
With strange camera angles and incongruous editing, the 2000 Get Carter remake is a complete mess — despite Stallone’s best efforts to elevate a weak script.
Best: The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
Jason Bourne and his fans finally got some answers about his identity and backstory in the third movie in the franchise, The Bourne Ultimatum. In his third outing as everyone’s favorite amnesiac spy, Matt Damon is more comfortable than ever in the title role.
The revolutionary shaky-cam aesthetic that Paul Greengrass brought to Supremacy, defining the visual style of the franchise, is perfected in his sophomore Bourne effort. Greengrass managed to up the ante yet again with even more intensity and bigger, bolder action.
Worst: The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
Whereas The Bourne Ultimatum is a great example of a threequel done right, The Matrix Revolutions is a great example of a threequel gone horribly wrong. Neo is unconscious for most of the movie, sitting out the entirety of the climactic battle.
The Wachowskis’ once-sharp meditations on the fabric of reality and the meaning of life have devolved into incoherent drivel. And there’s a lot of primitive CGI effects with weightless figures and PS2-level graphics.
Best: Taken (2008)
This movie changed Liam Neeson’s career forever. When he signed on to star, he likely didn’t expect Taken to be anything more than a free trip to Paris followed by an instantly forgotten direct-to-DVD release. But Pierre Morel’s adrenaline-fueled movie surprisingly hit the zeitgeist in a major way.
The story of a father’s desperate efforts to save his kidnapped daughter is universally relatable. Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen’s script follows a simplistic but intensely focused narrative with a ticking clock. Action thrillers don’t get much better than Taken.
Worst: Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003)
The first McG-directed Charlie’s Angels film was nothing to write home about. But with the sequel nothing but a nonsensical mess of plot clichés, the franchise sunk to new lows.
Like the original, Full Throttle fails as an action comedy because its action is bland and by-the-numbers and its comedy commits huge chunks of time to drawn-out gags that are dead on arrival.
Best: Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)
Quentin Tarantino put all his favorite grindhouse movie genres into a blender, mixed them all together, and poured out Kill Bill, a two-part action epic following the Bride’s quest for revenge.
Both parts of the film comprise a complete work, but Volume 1 is the fastest-paced and most action-packed of the two. From the brief segue into anime to the third-act battle at the House of Blue Leaves, Kill Bill: Volume 1 is one of the greatest action movies ever made.
Worst: Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen (2009)
After turning the beloved Transformers franchise into a generic blockbuster factory, Michael Bay made the first sequel an even worse movie than the original. The first Transformers film is bad, but it’s at least a serviceable crowd-pleasing sci-fi actioner. The second one is still bad, but it just feels obnoxious.
Across its two-and-a-half-hour runtime, Revenge of the Fallen is a problematic college comedy for the first 45-ish minutes before setting up a nonsensical plot with a lot of on-the-nose exposition, and eventually descending into mindless CGI-laden destruction for the final hour.
Best: The Dark Knight (2008)
Christopher Nolan essentially made The Dark Knight as Michael Mann’s Heat set in Gotham City as opposed to Los Angeles. After getting the pesky origin story out of the way in Batman Begins, Nolan was able to dive right into the action in the sequel.
With IMAX cameras and incredible stunt performers, Nolan created some of the biggest, boldest set pieces in Hollywood history for The Dark Knight, including the opening bank heist and flipping an 18-wheeler onto its back.
Worst: Die Another Day (2002)
From a performance standpoint, Pierce Brosnan was a fantastic James Bond. He was the perfect actor to bring 007 to life. It’s just a shame that his stint in the role came in the early days of CGI when blockbuster movies were overusing burgeoning computer-generated effects; the age of Ang Lee’s Hulk movie and the Star Wars prequels.
The lowest point of the Brosnan era of Bond films is arguably Die Another Day, a movie with a race-switching villain, a hovercraft chase, and 007 surfing on a tsunami. Like the worst of the Roger Moore Bond films, Die Another Day is simply too ridiculous to be enjoyable.