The 25 Best Action Sequences Of 2016 - Page 3 of 4

TRAIN-TO-BUSAN_STILL-CUT-(4)15. Zombies At The Station – “Train To Busan”
Just as it seemed like the zombie movie might be on the wane (even the behemoth of “The Walking Dead” saw its ratings nearly halve over this season), along came “Train To Busan,” which didn’t exactly reinvent the wheel, but certainly put the wheel on a speeding train full of fast-paced undead creatures. Tracking a little microcosm of Korean society on a high-train train from Seoul to, yes, Busan during the early moments of a zombie outbreak, the relentless film threatens to take a breather towards the end of the first act as it stops at a station where the army are reportedly ready to rescue everyone. But as our heroes come down the escalator at the station, they find that the military have already been zombified, and have to turn tail and flee back onto the zombie-packed train instead. It’s relentlessly nail-biting stuff, riffing on “World War Z”-style piles of the undead but using it far more effectively.

Star-Trek-Beyond-1514. Enterprise Crash – “Star Trek Beyond”
One of the better, or at least less awful, blockbusters of the summer was Justin Lin’s “Star Trek Beyond,” which proved to be a much more enjoyable and worthy successor to J.J. Abrams’ reboot than the disappointing ‘Into Darkness‘ in 2013. Lin brings his “Fast & Furious” chops to the space franchise in a number of sequences, but the best is the first, which sees the Enterprise being attacked and ripped apart by a swarm of nanobot-type creatures, and then a boarding party by the villainous Krall (Idris Elba) invading. With some “Inception”-riffing zero-gravity action as the ship tilts and spins, a strong handling of geography and the mournful sight of the iconic spaceship being destroyed, it’s a strong start to the movie — so strong, in fact, that it never quite matches it, though we also enjoyed the teleporting-motorbike sequence later in the movie too.

deadpool13. Bridge Fight – “Deadpool”
For all its irreverence, “Deadpool” wouldn’t have worked without two things: 1) a surprisingly good-natured vibe that helped to dampen any obnoxiousness that might have been present, and 2) some kick-ass action sequences. It delivered on both, which is particularly impressive on the second front given that it had a budget the fraction of many other tentpoles. Much of the film is actually set on a single action scene — the bridge confrontation that opens the film, and which is used as a sort of framing device. But the bit we loved best is where the red-suited hero is cornered by a group of heavily armed bad guys with only a small number of bullets, which he then proceeds to count as he fires them away. It’s fun, bloody, John Woo-ish stuff, somehow giving a spin on what could have been a familiar sequence, while still keeping the dramatic stakes front-and-center throughout.


Dheepan Jacques Audiard12. Final Rampage – “Dheepan”
The final sequence of Jacques Audiard’s “Dheepan,” a movie that remains oddly underrated despite winning the Palme d’Or in 2015, proved controversial to many. A bloody, explosive shootout of a level of violence and carnage that almost nothing in Audiard’s career really compares to, as the title character, a former Tamil Tiger living as a refugee in France, takes on the drug dealers that have been threatening him, it almost feels like it’s from a different movie that what’s come before, and some felt that the movie betrayed itself with it. But to us, it all felt of a piece, the slightly heightened and stylized nature of the scene fitting with the odd genre riff that Audiard was playing with. Any way around, it’s a shocking, powerful sequence, bringing a real sense of war and chaos to the French housing project without ever losing clarity. No embed available, unfortunately.

kill-zone-2

11. Jail Riot – “Kill Zone 2”
Soi Cheang’s “SPL II: A Time for Consequences” (known as “Kill Zone 2” in the U.S.) is one confusing action movie. It’s a sequel to 2007’s “SPL” in name only, with some of the original film’s cast members showing up here in completely different roles, and I won’t even begin to try and explain its multiple plotlines, which include black-market organ transplants, drug dealers, sibling rivalry, and Tony Jaa trying to save his dying daughter (just to name a few). Luckily, with action this good, the nitty-gritties of the story get drop-kicked to the back of the mind, and out of the film’s many fight scenes, the best one comes during the halfway point. Undercover cop Kit (Wu Jing) finds himself locked away in a corrupt Thai prison after his cover gets blown, and after starting a prison riot, he manages to get his hands on a guard’s cell phone. The only problem: no signal, meaning Kit has to wade his way through the riot in order to get to higher ground and call his superiors so they can rescue him. It’s an extraordinary showcase of controlled chaos, with the camera floating from one floor of the prison to another, capturing all of the elaborate stunt work before climaxing with a jaw-dropping long take. “SPL II” may not be the best action film of the year, but it sure as hell has some of 2016’s best on-screen action.