Where Have All The Action Stars Gone?

I was at Blockbuster the other day, and I noticed that Wesley Snipes has a new movie, The Contractor, out on video. If you just casually look around the store, you notice that Snipes has a lot of movies new to video. Then, I got to thinking: When was the last time Snipes was in a theatrical movie? He's been in a lot of direct-to-video movies, but, I believe Blade 3 was the last time he had a movie in the theatre. This from a guy who, in the '90s, used to put out two or three movies a year.

That got me thinking about this: When was the last time any of the action stars of the '90s had a movie in the theatres? Steven Segal has been direct-to-video for years. Same with Jean-Claude Van Damme. Schwarzennger is otherwise occupied. And Stallone and Ford got too old (although both of them still have the occasional movie, but have cut way back).

The fact of the matter is that we don't have any action hero staples anymore. Look at the stars of this summer's big action movies: Tobey McGuire, Matt Damon, Johnny Depp, Shia LaBeouf (the guy's name is LaBeouf, for Christ's sake; he doesn't even have the courtesy to spell it the manly way, like Boof Bonser does). These are guys I would expect to see in a movie about gay cowboys, not one where they're killing everything that moves. And all the guys that we used to rely on for that stuff, movie after movie, are out of the game. The Era of the Action Star is dead.

There is hope, though. The only action hero that seems to have survived the '90s intact is Bruce Willis, who would be done as well, had Joe Roth not saved his career in the late '90s. But, living on borrowed time or not, he's still around. I hope it will stay that way. He's the last of a dying breed. And I'm glad he keeps inviting us to watch him crash cars into helicopters.

"Welcome to the party, pal" indeed.