If I’m understanding your question right, the 2010s were fairly dominated by marvel’s movie machine, and RDJ was probably the stand out lead of those films, though Samuel L Jackson is the highest grossingactor of that decade i think. RdJ has now garnered the critical acclaim in the 2020s that was missing, so there’s a reasonable chance RDJ could be the man you’re looking for. Leo DiCaprio is the most revered critically over the same period I think, of leading men in highly rated films. Though Tom Cruise, for whatever reasons, is really the last of the real Moviestars, but his career spans over the earlier period too of the 00’s and even 80s, & 90s.
Dave Bautista mirrors Arnold Schwarzenegger’s path from sports to cinema, where he got action movie roles because of his physique. And like Schwarzenegger, Bautista’s transition into diverse acting roles showcases his versatility beyond that.
Yeah. I feel like The Rock in terms of overall success, but John Cena more in that Cena’s career seems more willing to take the career risks that Schwarzenegger did.
Lots of media theory was aimed at the depictions of men on screen in the 80s. I’d say a modern equivalent might be (hear me out….) Ryan Gosling. Start with La La Land, where he establishes himself as a guy who can sing and dance, then go through to Barbie. Sure, it’s not the muscle men of the ‘80s, but it’s a new male archetype.
Honestly I didn’t even enjoy it much but in a way the only memorable action movie I’ve seen in the last 2 decades was Drive.
There has been big stuff like Inception but that’s more of a mind fuck movie. Everything else is a sequel or a comic book. The only others I can think of was the Accountant and the Kingsman
Where Arnold’s action movies seem like an example of the 80’s (at least looking back on movies at that time). Drive seems like a fit for the 2010s. Man just struggling to get by, finding it difficult to fit in, doing what he has to do. Lot more gritty and depressing.
I wanted to disagree with you, but checking the data almost all of the best action flicks I could have sworn were fairly recent actually came out in the early-mid noughts. Seems like after The Matrix blew up the genre, nobody ever figured out how to put it back together.
Even if I wanted to quibble and argue for the best my personal favorite action flicks within a precise “2 decade” window… it’s a depressingly short list:
2004
Hellboy (technically a comic movie, but I’m keeping it because Doug Jones and Ron Perlman just rocked)
Kill Bill Vol. 2 (Vol 1 missed the cutoff)
2006
Crank
2007
Hot Fuzz
2009
The Bourne Ultimatum
District 9
2017
Baby Driver
… Almost every single other action flick I thought of came out between 1998 and 2004. (Also, 2000 was a weirdly good year for action fans in retrospect)
Sigh. I’m gonna go bemoan the world getting lame and shake my cane at the kids out on my lawn.
Edit: JOHN WICK! How TF did I forget those? But yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s it now.
Dwayne Johnson has definitely improved as an actor. I thought he was absolutely shit in The Mummy Returns but great in the more recent Jumanji reboots.
Yep. The guy has a crapload of roles, from silly to more action-hero serious. I’d also toss Bautista out there, he’s pretty good and has had a good variety of roles, but Johnson wins I think just by having way more screen time.
Add comment