Action movies

Action movies are a film genre where in the story is largely told through physical action as opposed to dialogue. The action typically involves individual efforts on the part of the hero. While action has long been an element of films, the "Action film" as a genre of its own began to develop in the 1970s. The genre is closely linked with the thriller and adventure film genres.
While action films have traditionally been a reliable source of revenue for movie studios, relatively few action films garner critical praise. While action films have traditionally been aimed at male audiences, from the early teens to the mid-30s, many action filmmakers from the 1990s and 2000s added female heroines in response to the times, glorifying the strong female archetype
During the 1920s and 1930s, action-based films were often "swashbuckling" adventure films in which Douglas Fairbanks or Errol Flynn wielded swords in period pieces. The long-running success of the James Bond series of spy films in the 1960s and 1970s helped to popularise the modern day action film. The early Bond films were characterised by quick cutting, car chases, fist fights and ever more elaborate action sequences. The series also established the concept of the resourceful hero, who is able to dispatch the villains with a ready one-liner. Early American action films usually focused on maverick police officers, as in Bullitt (1968), The French Connection (1971) and Dirty Harry (1971). These were among the earliest films to present a car chase as an action set-piece. Dirty Harry (1971) can be considered "the action film's first true archetype."[1]:23 The genre came about as a synthesis of the existing western and film noir genres, with some elements of the police procedural.


http://movies.about.com/