10 Amazing Action Scenes From Terrible Movies
Many bad movies turn out that way because they put all their energy into one insane action scene.
Master Yoda once said that hate leads to suffering. He wasn’t talking specifically about the pain of missing out on amazing scenes just because they are found in some of the most hated movies ever, but his wisdom still applies. The problem is that, today, we only seem to discuss movies in the extremes, especially when we didn’t like them. It doesn’t suffice anymore to call a movie “bad” and go on with your life.
No, nowadays, when we don’t like a film, we too often act like its director personally came to our house and hit us in the face with the corpse of our childhood pet. And it’s precisely this type of thinking that makes us overlook the good in many box office bombs, like their incredible action scenes for one.
You see, it turns out that a lot of “bad” movies only turned out that way because they diverted all their money and creative energy away from the story and acting, and instead pumped it all into one insane, adrenaline-fueled cinematic orgasm of the senses.
We’re talking about scenes like…
10. The Shirtless Mickey Rourke Tiger Landmine Explosion (Double Team)
In 1997, Dennis Rodman tried to pivot from his basketball career into Hollywood stardom with the film Double Team. This Jean-Claude Van Damme action comedy would eventually come to represent the general tone of Rodman’s post-NBA days, in the sense that it too was an awkward and confusing train wreck that the world is still trying to forget.
In Double Team, JCVD and Rodman play two clichés who must stop international terrorist Mickey Rourke from selling an explosive plot device to Plot Device Land. In the end, though things start to get a little interesting after Rourke kidnaps JCVD’s baby and places it as bait in a Roman amphitheater filled with landmines and a hungry tiger. He also takes off his shirt, which we’re pretty sure Rourke insisted on personally.
The Rourke-JCVD-Rodman fight itself was entertainingly brutal but it was upstaged by the last few minutes when Rourke steps on a landmine and is confronted by the ferocious tiger he let loose earlier. Making peace with his inevitable death, the topless terrorist waits for the animal to leap at him, which is when he steps off the mine, detonating both himself and the 600lbs murder kitten in a blazing fireball of orgiastic action glory.
In short, this long forgotten dud of a movie basically managed to create a live-action version of a heavy metal album cover.