CLICHÈS

ACTION

 

  • No cell phone reception

  • Horrible one-liners after any fight sequence

  • Female characters that serve no function whatsoever

  • Token black guy

  • Main character has dead family

  • Villain listens to classical music

  • Hackers

  • Machine gun fire that conveniently misses any named character

  • Absurdly accurate pistols

  • Sneaky helicopters

  • Overly dramatic sidekick deaths

  • Inexplicable kidnapping

  • Female lead with pedestrian job insists on being involved in violent high-stakes mission

  • Fight on a freighter or train

  • Villain abuses coworkers

  • Villain dresses in black tie regardless of situation

  • Cronies who wear masks so we won’t think about it when the heroes massacre them

  • 0% survival rate of people on the protection team

  • Low survival rate of guys flying or inside helicopter

  • Forced fist fight between giants

  • Light easily intensified into a burning laser

  • Sleazy wealthy white guy betrayal

  • Infinite impulse of taxi cabs

  • Hero eats breakfast hungover right on the day it all goes to hell

  • Something noncombustible exploding in a mushroom cloud of destruction after moderate impact

  • Villain killed by environment (stage kill)

  • Character who frequently and with 100% accuracy jump from overpass or roof onto a moving vehicle

  • Very soft garbage inside dumpsters

  • Conveniently placed explosive barrels

  • Going for the dropped gun causes death by nearby seemingly banal object

  • Absurd frequency of broken bridges

  • Getting on top of a moving truck with ease

  • People getting out of moving vehicles at all

  • Villain is the last to die no matter how vast his criminal enterprise

  • Windows that can be shattered with anything

  • Shattered glass never cuts anyone unless it’s deliberate

  • Incredibly unsafe safe houses and bunkers

  • Everyone’s a combat medic

  • Slight cut right below the eye of main character

  • Hero that can rebound from bullet wounds almost immediately

  • Infinite cigarettes and gun magazines

  • Characters not looking at an explosion right behind them and consequently revealing their culpability

  • Ability to run from poisonous gas, avalanches, speeding trains, planes, rockets, missiles and the sun

  • Willingness of characters to sprint or drive up to the very edge of cliffs or long drops

  • Characters frequently falling off cliffs and tall buildings

  • Characters not dying after falling off cliffs and tall buildings

  • Rooftop chases

  • Problems that are solved by characters kicking or punching things just a little bit harder

  • Injured character dramatically fires handgun with even tempo to buy another character a few precious seconds

  • Melee combatant completely disappears in midst of fight leaving other fighter confused and spinning in circles