This article originally appeared onDen of Geek UK.
Those 40 years of filmmaking experience are the pillar of Armstrongs book, theAction Movie Makers Handbook.
Your book gave me a new appreciation for what second unit directors and stunt coordinators do.
I didnt realise how much design work you do when it comes to action scenes, for example.
Yeah, it is true that a lot of people dont realise how much development goes into action.
Especially nowadays, its such a complex business.
That becomes a huge part of it the technicalities of it and the storytelling part of it.
A lot of what Ive made a living doing is really creating action that is appropriate for the movie.
You get a lot of movies that actually have too much action in them.
Then what happens is, you cant appreciate it.
Thats like so many action movies theyd actually benefit from having some of the action taken out of them.
Im always fascinated when you see an audience in an action movie.
Its interesting to see people chatting to each other or doing something else.
You should never have that in an action movie.
Action should be like sex or violence you want to be left just wanting a bit more.
That gets forgotten in a lot of movies, which are just relentless.
Stuff going on the whole time.
Its a weird thing.
They have to build, action scenes.
They do have to build, absolutely.
You have nowhere to go with it.
Some of them are very long as well.
Far, far too long.
Keeping somebody in a seat for more than two hours youd better have a really good tale to tell.
And I dont think many of these modern ones do they just have lots of stuff in them.
So what filmshaveimpressed you recently in terms of action?
I thought it was absolutely brilliant, a really good take on it.
And for the same reasons, really, I love theTakenseries of movies with Liam Neeson.
I loved them, particularly because theyre grounded in reality, or set just above reality.
Obviously,Kingsmanyou go more above reality, but theyre still grounded with real gravity and real people.
I quite liked both theREDfilms.
Dean Parisot is a very good friend of mine, I didGalaxy Questwith him.
Thats one of my favorites.
But a lot of movies Ive seen lately, Ive been underwhelmed by some of them.
I like tight little movies.
I think its a shame weve not had more John Frankenheimers making things likeRonin, you know.
Great action but well placed the right action in the right place.
Again, grounded in reality, real people.
Do you think stunts go through trends?
Obviously, youve recently been doing a lot of wire work on superhero movies lately.
Thats what we spent a lot of time doing on that first Spider-Man is the way he jumps around.
I based it on real physics.
Some of the stuff on the firstAmazing Spider-ManIm really very, very proud of.
I said, Yes, absolutely, we can do it.
We did a lot of testing.
They were good enough to give us a lot of time to test.
Then they grab the next bar and it happens again.
Its the massive variation in velocity that made me realize, I get it.
Then you’re free to tell its a real guy.
Its something I spend a lot of time doing, making things organic and real.
When youve seen something done for real, then you might make anything as fantastic as you want.
How strong is Spider-Man?
Can he throw cars or push a building over?
Can he just pick up a sofa?
You have to have a yardstick of what people can do.
Otherwise its all over the place.
Weve seen those movies, where the power of the superheroes [varies].
One minute he gets knocked out by someone in a bar, the next hes pushing a house over.
It has to have some kind of internal logic, doesnt it.
We had it onThor: how powerful is Thor?
How much can he do with a hammer?
What happens when the hammer really hits something?
You have to have all these mad conversations at the beginning of the movie.
You need a yardstick to go to.
I was interested to read what you said aboutCatwoman, and the idea you had for the big fight.
Yeah, that was a classic case.
In the end I was proved right.
The movie could have been fantastic.
Halle Berry in the outfit, she could stop traffic.
And she was such a perfect choice for Catwoman she had all the abilities.
The movement down, the whole thing.
It was such a waste, because the script got crappier and crappier.
There was a rewrite every week or so.
Each one was worse than the last one.
It was like someone was drinking and writing worse and worse versions of it.
I feel sorry for Halle as well I dont think it did her career any good.
Shes such a trooper anyway.
But Im quite strict about only doing good stuff.
The moment I saw that first commercial, and it was nearly all motorcycle.
I remember shouting at the screen that I was absolutely right.
You know when they put that in the trailer that its the only good thing in the movie!
You hear about it quite a lot.
Oh, God knows.
If you could answer that I think youd be a gazillionaire.
A lot of these rewrites just get worse and worse.
That happens so often.
That happens a lot.
In the end, for right or wrong, a film has to have one real author.
If it doesnt… theres the old saying that a camel is a horse designed by committee.
Thats what happens to movies.
And if its aCatwoman, they can distance themselves from it as if it were a disease.
Thats a real thing a fine line executives work.
Its a funny game, that.
In the end, who knows whats going to be successful?
Whod have thought movies likeFast & Furiouswould still be successful?
Yeah, theres gonna be eight or nine of them.
But wed just startedThorso we turned it down.
I think in the end we kind of made the right choice.
Im proud of the stuff Ive done.
When you think of how advanced the look ofHighlanderwas Russell invented that look.
The very long lenses, the very wide lenses.
Fantastic cuts between things.
I watched it again recently.
Its as good now as it was when we made it.
And its a beautiful looking movie.
Im really proud of the stuff Ive done on it.
Its amazing to think its 30 years [old].
Theres a lot of funny stories about Highlander.
He couldnt speak English.
But hes such a lovely guy.
And theyd already cast him!
The deal was done!
It was fantastic, you know?
It just shows you.
He was so charismatic in that movie.
He learned English during the movie and was brilliant.
Hes also incredibly short-sighted, Christopher.
I did some really cool sword fight sequences with him.
He couldnt see the sword!
Ive never met anyone like it.
You look at those sword fights, and hes better than most stuntmen doing them.
Yet he could hardly see his opponent, let alone the sword.
Clancy Brown, who played the villain, hes still a friend.
A couple of funny things happened on that, I think theyre in the book.
The Cadillac was my choice originally it was written as a big four-wheel drive.
I wanted something classically American that would slide around.
Now, meanwhile, the cameras are rolling.
Im not really arguing with the cop, but Im a bit pissed off to say the least.
So I got back on the camera car.
And that was just him playing around.
It was actually in response to me arguing with a New York cop, really.
Anyway, Russell, when he was putting the chase together, loved that little moment.
So thats when they re-recorded their version ofNew York, New Yorkand it became a hit record for Queen.
It started as a mild confrontation between me and a rather aggressive New York cop!
[Laughs] Whenever I see Clancy, we still laugh about it.
It wasnt in the script or anything, it was just one of those things.
Andy Armstrong, thank you very much!
Action Movie Makers Handbook isavailable from Amazon now.
