By David Cohea, ReMIND Magazine
Setting aside the biggest action films of the ’80s — The Empire Strikes Back, Batman, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Top Gun (covered elsewhere in this issue) — many summer spectaculars were kicked into gear by heroes with bulging biceps and lethal firepower.
After winning every bodybuilding contest on earth, Arnold Schwarzenegger turned his attention to acting (albeit with an Austrian accent thicker than his glutes), starring in 1982’s sword opera Conan the Barbarian. Arnold went on to become the dominant action hero of the ’80s, playing a cyborg with a bad attitude in The Terminator (1984), a human armored tank in Commando (1985), an alien hunter in Predator (1987) and so on. When he muttered, “I’ll be back,” he wasn’t kidding.
Sylvester Stallone was Arnold’s main muscle-bound contender, strutting out of successful Rocky movies in the ’70s to play combat-wizened Vietnam vet John Rambo in First Blood (1982). He would return for the sequels Rambo II and III through the ’80s. Stallone also starred in the cop action films Cobra (1986) and Tango & Cash (1989), and played a champion arm-wrestler in Over the Top (1987).
Mel Gibson captured America’s movie imagination playing the mullet-haired Special Forces operative-turned-cop Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon (1987). But it was Gibson’s stint earlier in the decade as Mad Max, the Road Warrior in three George Miller films, that would establish him as everyone’s favorite future demolition derby winner and all-around bad good guy.
Some guys were made for fisticuffs — you know, fightin’ movies — and Hollywood supplied plenty of martial arts knuckle candy with Chuck Norris in Lone Wolf McQuade (1983), Missing in Action (1984) and The Delta Force (1986). You also got Steven Seagal in Above the Law (1988) and Jean-Claude Van Damme in Bloodsport (1988) and Kickboxer (1989). And who can forget Patrick Swayze in the best bar-fight movie ever, Road House (1989).
The ’80s were a transition decade for James Bond movies. Roger Moore played the official Bond for the first half of the decade in For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983) and A View to a Kill (1985), though Sean Connery got in a last martini in the off-label Never Say Never Again (1983). When Moore retired from the role, it was Timothy Dalton the franchise suited up next, throwing him like a lit fuse into The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989).
There were some one- and two-hit wonders who didn’t quite gain the footing of their action-hero peers — Peter Weller in RoboCop (1987) and Kurt Russell in Escape From New York (1981), The Thing (1982) and Big Trouble in Little China (1986).
As for action heroines of the era, Sigourney Weaver proved she was even tougher than the boys, as she managed to out-blast just about everyone in Aliens (1986), including a 15-foot bug queen with nasty choppers and red-hot halitosis. And Linda Hamilton also taught us just how tough moms really are in The Terminator.
Maybe it was the Dolby stereo, or the soda/Pop-Tarts sugar high, but we sure loved watching these ’80s action heroes blow the world to smithereens — happy, too, to walk out of the theater letting all those cinders fall on someone else.
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