The Essentials: Martin Campbell’s Action Brilliance
The career of Martin Campbell is one that action fans should be celebrating more. He has had a mostly flawless resume of good action movies since the early 90’s and if there is one bad thing you could say about his filmography it’s that he hasn’t made enough action films. He’s apparently trying to remedy that with his newest film The Foreigner. If you haven’t seen the trailer for it yet then just think about Jackie Chan doing his best version of a violent Taken and you’ll be pretty spot on. I, for one, am very excited to see it. But before I do, I wanted to sit back and take a look at some of my favorite Martin Campbell flicks.
No Escape (1994): Ray Liotta might not be the action juggernaut that I though the would become after No Escape but it doesn’t make this movie any less badass. It’s a bad-attitude having soldier being sent to a island penal colony where he’s essentially fighting against a massive gang of cannibals. Also starring the amazing Stuart Wilson, Ernie Hudson, Kevin Dillion, Kevin J. O’Connor, and Lance Henriksen. If that doesn’t get your engines going I don’t know what will.
GoldenEye (1995): Campbell and Pierce Brosnan take over the James Bond franchise with arguably one of the best 007 movies ever. Judi Dench becomes even more of a legend as “M” and Sean Bean, of course, dies. It had been 6 years since the release of a Bond movie and GoldenEye reminded the world that the British spy was still one of the most interesting characters on screen.
The Mask of Zorro (1998), The Legend of Zorro (2005): I think Antonio Banderas is one of the most charismatic actors of all time. If you don’t believe me then just watch him act in all those salsa movies, cartoons, and uber-violent action movies he’s done. The man can do it all. Campbell found the perfect companion to Banderas with Catherine Zeta-Jones too. She’s amazingly sexy but so strong at the same time. The action set pieces are out of this world and watching these two movies really makes me long for the day when I get to see Martin Campbell do a Green Hornet film set in the 1940’s. Please…
Vertical Limit (2000): Loaded with an excellent cast and sporting some of the coolest climbing scenes I’ve seen since the muscle-bulging Cliffhanger, Vertical Limit has been one of those movies that I’ve enjoyed for a long time. I can’t say that I own the movie but if I see it playing on TV I always put it on. Scott Glenn, Bill Paxton, Chris O’Donnell, Robin Tunney, and Stuart Wilson (!) make this movie a very enjoyable and tense film.
Casino Royale (2006): Holy Shit! Just as Martin Campbell brought Bond back in 1995 with GoldenEye, he pulled a repeat 11 years later with the controversial selection of Daniel Craig as 007. Despite what people were bitching about with Craig (OMG blonde hair?!?), he knocked it out of the park like Barry Bonds with a whole new take on the character of James Bond that we had already seen like 17 times. Casino Royale is my favorite Bond movie and there’s no doubt that Martin Campbell is to thank for that.
Edge of Darkness (2010): Even though Mel Gibson had already been blackballed by Hollywood in 2010, Campbell released Edge of Darkness featuring Mel as a homicide detective investigating the death of his activist daughter. It’s an emotional role for Gibson and one that would have probably gotten a lot more of attention had he just sexually assaulted a bunch of women and not bad mouthed the Jewish people. Edge of Darkness totally ruled in spite of any backlash that it might have gotten during its making and it’s far and away better than that piece of trash Green Lantern movie he made a year later.
