Comments on: Top 5 displaced ’80s action heroes

By: sven

sven — Mon, 25 May 2009 12:05:41 +0000

Love this, you can picture who those guys could replace, but somehow I miss characters for good old Kurt “Snake P.” Russel or Rockies Opponent from the early days aka. Apollo Creed.

By: jic

jic — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:03:45 +0000

Well, Vinnie Jones starred in a British remake of *Mean Machine* about seven years ago that cost around $4.5M and grossed about $10M worldwide, so arguably he *did* reach his ’80s action star potential.

By: cftoto

cftoto — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 04:42:27 +0000

JIC … I agree, to a point. He’s the weakest pick in my list. But in the ’80s, it didn’t take much to lead an action movie … even Jeff Speakman got a crack at it (wonder what he’s doing now??).

By: jic

jic — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 04:38:52 +0000

Exactly. Both were mid-ranking sports stars known more for being tough than good. Both of them achieved greater success playing intimidating supporting roles in action movies. Neither are or were likely to score lead roles in major movies.

By: cftoto

cftoto — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 04:23:48 +0000

Ah, Randall “Tex” Cobb. He’s forever great to me for two reasons. One, nobody could have been better as the “wart hog from Hell” in “Raising Arizona.”

Two, I’ll never forget watching him fight Larry Holmes many years ago. He took more punches than any man should rightly absorb — but the sonofagun never went down. Lousy fighter. Great chin.

By: jic

jic — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 04:17:01 +0000

Vinnie Jones isn’t Sylvester Stallone, he’s Randall ‘Tex’ Cobb.

By: cftoto

cftoto — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:39:48 +0000

Good point about Ah-nuld. He was really shrewd early on, too. He aligned himself with the best directors of his era (Reitman for comedy, Cameron for action). The rest speaks for itself (we’ll forget “Junior” ever happened)

By: James Frazier

James Frazier — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:36:47 +0000

I’ve no problem taking the easy route.

One huge difference between him and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the star so many swore Johnson would follow: Arnold cranked out some trash, but he also put out a large number of great films. “Terminator,” “Terminator 2,” “Predator,” “Total Recall,” etc. The best film I’ve seen Johnson in was “The Rundown,” a decent and colorful action pic that still falls way short of greatness.

By: cftoto

cftoto — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:34:13 +0000

The conventional wisdom had The Rock on the A-list fast track (handsome, can act a bit, major screen presence thanks to his size) but it didn’t quite work out.

But … he was shrewd enough to go the family film route, and then hook up with films where he didn’t carry the show but basked in the b.o. (Get Smart).

That’s left him on the A-list periphery, I think. It’s easy to mock “The Game Plan,” but that made killer cash.

By: James Frazier

James Frazier — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:18:03 +0000

Do you remember that EW cover story a few weeks ago that declared something along the lines of “Dwayne Johnson is part of the new A-list!” I took one glance at that and had a flashback to 2001 when they were telling us the exact same thing. Somehow, I don’t think a bunch of stupid Disney movies and that garbage “Get Smart” are going to do it if “The Scorpion King” and “The Rundown” failed to.