There's something to be said about an action movie that does everything right, with an engaging, thrilling plot, a villain with well thought out motivations, action scenes that are choreographed better than any ballet, and realistic stunts that have great meaning for existing.

Then there's action movies that aren't so great but manage to have more outlandish and ridiculous action than any serious movie with wild, contrived plots that you can predict on first watch and events that only make sense as plot devices.

What is your favorite bad action movie?

Mine is RED (Retired, Extremely Dangerous) starring Bruce Willis. I think the idea of a retired group of assassins teaming up for one last job is a hilarious idea, and it has some of the dumbest action scenes I've ever seen. There was one part of this movie where Bruce Willis is driving and their vehicle gets sideswiped, as his car is doing donuts at ultrafast speeds, he opens the car door and steps out in a millisecond, missing the rotating vehicle swinging back around by a hair. As he steps out of his car, turned vertigo machine, he is immediately holding his gun in an aiming stance and fires it directly at the driver that hit him. It was one of the most ludicrous and unbelievable displays that I've ever seen in an action movie. There's other movies out there that fit this bill like Bad Lieutenant 2 but that was supposed to be like that and Red Notice.

That's a really hard question to answer because if you liked it, then it couldn't have been bad.

One example that I can think of would be Those Who Wish Me Dead. I know I gave it a five star rating but mostly because I loved the cinematography while I remember hearing that a lot of people didn't like it but even that still got a rating above 60% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Another example would be Cold Pursuit. I absolutley loved the style and humor but a lot of people hated it and there ended up being a lot of controversey that made people start negatively reviewing it.

zanderlex : I'm a big fan of the concept of "so bad its good" where something can be done so poorly that the failure in execution itself is comedic, and if it fails super hard at things we may consider basic tropes, it becomes an artform. I cannot endorse certain movies as a positive experience for what they bring to the table on face value, that is only indicated for me by things that have notable intentional enjoyability or meaningful artistic interpretation.

The problem with a lot of action movies is that they do so little to subvert expectations while having so little care put into defining features of cinema including writing, dialogue, casting, and other noted features you'd look for when reviewing a film. There is little that I can give to these movies on merit from an thoughtful or artistic perspective. I can only find amusement in the void that is presented. I'd say one of the only films to present a decent middle ground between horrible and amazing was Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The dialogue and characters were so off the charts bad while the casting and storyline were amazing. I will still find myself laughing at the terrible dialogue for being awful about as much as I'm paying attention to and finding interest in the story at hand.

It's far more interesting to be consistently critical of something and finding things that are poorly done about something you may not find very entertaining. Take the cult following of The Room or the love people still have for Mystery Science Theater 3000. I watch Down to Earth with Zac Efron because he's so dumb and his guru that guides half the series hasn't said a correct thing that isn't extremely basic the entire time. It's a hilarious show. Every minute has me rolling. They probably didn't want that, though.