Cobra (1986)

This movie is every bad cop movie cliché rolled into an hour-and-a-half of bad quips, totally unrealistic action, over-the-top (pun intended) violence, and bad 80s hair. When Ivan Drago's wife witnesses a grisly murder committed by a group of New World Order, axe-clicking psychos, only Marian Cobretti, a renegade cop who doesn't play by the rules, can keep her safe.

Sounds like every cop movie ever made, right? Yup. BUT THIS ONE HAS SLY STALLONE IN IT WEARING TIGHT-ASS JEANS!

I like that Stallone is such a rebel that he can't even wear cop clothes or drive a cop car. You know why? BECAUSE HE DOESN'T PLAY BY THE RULES!

And the quips? Oh man! They are truly LEGENDARY!

"You're the disease. And I'm the cure."

"Cobretti, do you know you have an attitude problem?"
"Yeah but it's just a little one."

"Hey, dirtbag! You're a lousy shot. I don't like lousy shots."

And if the cliché dialogue wasn't enough, the final dramatic shoot-out might as well have been copy-and-pasted into the movie. Stallone literally kills, like, 30 guys by himself...some of them with grenades. His accuracy during the firefight is a respectable 100%. Every time he fires the gun he either kills a guy or makes a motorcycle fall over. His opposition, however, chooses much less effective approaches that include driving through the door of a hotel room and falling over and failing to hit a man standing stationary in the back of a pick-up truck.

As the movie, Commando, can attest, a movie is only as good as its villain. Sly's opposition in this flick is a true badass in The Night Stalker (played by Brian Thompson). Man does this guy look insane ("Let's go to hell, pig!"). He's basically the evil version of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sly handles him, though, by impaling him on a giant hook and setting him on fire...so yeah...

In conclusion, Cobra is the kind of cliché action movie that I think of fondly when I remember the peak of the action genre in the 80s and early 90s. Where have all the action heroes gone?

Why It's Awesome: Renegade cop? Check. Hot 80s chick? Check. Badass villain? Check. Totally unrealistic action? Check. Flimsy plot? Check. Yup. It's an 80s action movie.

Best Quote:

{A gun-toting psycho is threatening to blow up a grocery store.}

Gun-toting psycho: I got a bomb here! I'll blow this whole place up!
Cobretti: Go ahead. I don't shop here.

The Expendables (2010)

Here's the greatest premise for a movie ever: stick every kick-ass action star in a single movie and have them kill things.

DONE.

As a fan of uber-ridiculous action flicks of the 80s and 90s, The Expendables served as the perfect escape from lame modern action abortions littered with CGI bullshit...or basically anything directed by Michael Bay. Leave it to Sly Stallone to assemble the greatest line-up of action stars in a single movie (sans the sequel). The Expendables would totally slice through The Avengers or The Justice League easier than Arnold throwing a pipe through some pussy wearing chain mail.

And the names of these guys? The character names in this movie make Shakespeare look like Katy Perry song lyrics:

Jason Statham = Lee Christmas
Jet Li = Yin Yang (racist)
Dolph Lundgren = Gunnar Jensen
Randy Couture = Toll Road (what?)
Terry Crews = Hale Caesar (clever...)
Steve Austin = Paine (they just gave up)

The plot of the movie is pointless and awesome. Sly falls for some chick who is trying to save her small island country from her corrupt dictator father and a rogue CIA agent. So he and the rest of the badass crew travel to the island, spend a half hour planting plastic explosives at the capital, get the chick's father killed, blow up most of the island, and murder half of the entire country's population.

You're welcome, bitch.

It's a good thing this movie kicks ass and features showdowns between Jet Li vs. Ivan Drago and Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Rambo because there are certain parts that simply don't make any sense. There's the totally pointless love story between Jason Statham and Charisma Carpenter, who, although hot, does not get naked and serves no logical purpose in the film. There's the pointless story tangent of Jet Li complaining about needing more money. For what? Who knows...

But the BEST and LEAST LOGICAL part of the movie is the fact that Ivan Drago betrays the rest of the team, tries to murder Jet Li, and then gets shot in the heart by Rocky Balboa. Not only does Ivan Drago survive the bullet to the heart, but then Sly and the gang FORGIVE HIM at the end. Does it make sense? No. But who gives a shit? Five guys defeat an entire country so let's not think about this too hard.

Oh, and the biggest badass in the entire movie?

Terry Crews' automatic shotgun/grenade launcher.

Why It's Awesome: Do I even need to explain how hard I jizzed in my pants when Sly, Arnold, and Bruce Willis all crammed their steroid-riddled bodies onto a single screen? If an explanation is necessary, the answer is HARD! I jizzed hard.

Best Quote:

Church (talking to Arnold and Sly): You two aren't going to start sucking each other's dicks, are ya?

Cliffhanger (1993)

Now this is classic 90s Stallone and one that often falls under the action movie radar...CLIFFHANGER!

Easily one of the best openings to any action movie ever (so famous Ace Ventura 2 parodied it in its opening sequence) where Stallone has to go save his best friend's bitch from the top of a mountain because his friend is a pussy and hurt his leg and the dumb bitch is too lazy to climb her fat ass down. So Sly comes up there climbing 10,000 feet with his bare hands and sends this dumb cunt over to a helicopter on a long wire and her safety equipment fails, sending her dangling from her safety harness over miles of nothing but air and certain death. So Sly, like the pimp that he is, goes out there to save her and when the dumb bitch falls anyway, his friend blames HIM for her falling, which completely kicks logic in the balls because she was falling long before Sly went out to get her, but you know what? Who cares about logic?! It's fucking CLIFFHANGER!

This movie is so balls-out awesome that it's in the Guinness Book of World Records for including the most expensive stunt ever performed in a film. In what can only be described as ludicrously dangerous, a zip line is connected from one plane flying in midair to another and some FUCKING INSANE guy zips from one plane to the other plane flying exactly 210,000 miles in the stratosphere! That guy got paid a cool million to do that shit. If they made this movie today, instead of paying some stuntman with balls of steel to perform a stunt that will instantly murder him, they'd have some pussy on a computer create the scene with blue cat people dancing around looking like fucking cartoon characters on a green screen. That's the difference between hardcore 90s action movies and the computer-generated bullshit of today. The 90s had balls, but we've got a sopping wet pussy generated on a computer.

In addition to all THAT, you've got a stalagmite (or is it stalactite?) kill, some of the best "action running as something in the background explodes) shots ever, and John Lithgow playing one of the most cliche "elegant but deadly" bad guys in cinema history. GOD THE 90S KICKED ASS! Everyone was rich and employed and action movies consisted of actual real-life ACTION. In conclusion, I just wanna say one thing...God bless America!

Why It's Awesome: Stallone is so hardcore he fights off the effects of hypothermia wearing nothing but a wet t-shirt in -11 degree weather. Jackets are for PUSSIES!

Best Quote:

Travers: FETCH!!! (screaming into Sly's face like he's a dog).

Over The Top (1987)

If you see only one arm wrestling/child custody movie in your lifetime, make it...OVER THE TOP! It's basically Kramer vs. Kramer...WITH ARM WRESTLING!

Seriously, Stallone has been in some amazing, classic movies, but he's also made some super dog shit that would make regular dog shit gag and vomit. Over the Top is one of his most ridiculous POS movies with some of the WORST 80's music you will ever hear. Just listening to "Meet Me Halfway" by Kenny Loggins will make any real man's penis shrink and shrivel to the size of a millipede. Meet me halfway...across the sky! Umm...no thanks, Kenny. I'm fine right here.

The premise is just plain stupid. A trucker tries to reconnect with his wet, sopping pussy of an estranged son when his ex-wife contracts super AIDS and does so by kidnapping him from his military school (where apparently being a pussy is tolerated) and driving him cross-country in his semi-truck...oh yeah, did I mention that this trucker, Lincoln Hawk (or Hawkes as he's called in the middle of the movie for no reason) is a member of an underground trucker's arm-wrestling circuit? No? I left that little nugget of chocolaty crappiness out? My apologies. After all, the arm-wrestling is at the heart of the movie...that is if this movie had a heart. Bull Hurley arm-wrestled the movie's heart in a double-elimination tournament since it had no shittin' business being in the same room as him.

The best part of the movie is watching the actors' sweat stains grow and expand faster than the super AIDS infesting Hawk's wife's immune system. Like in the scene where Bull enters the diner. When he walks through the door, his shirt is speckled with sweat. Then he walks over to Hawk's pussy of a son and there's a pool of sweat on his shirt. When he finally confronts Hawkes, his shirt has gone from gray to dark gray because the entire thing is nothing but sweat! I got ten bucks says that set smelled worse than the set of Babe.

Why It's Worth Watching: Definitely one of the top three arm-wrestling movies ever made.

Best Conversation:

The Smasher: You Hawkes?

(No response)

The Smasher: I said, are you Hawkes?

Hawk: Who wants to know?

The Smasher: Well I'm the Smasher.

Hawk: Nice name.

The Smasher: Word on the road is you're the man to beat.

Hawk: Can't believe everything you hear.

The Smasher: I DON'T! I DON'T BELIEVE ANYTHING! I got a grand says I can rip your arm off. Do you want it? I SAID, DO YOU WANT IT?!

Hawk: Why not?

The Smasher: All right! Let's get this table set up!

Demolition Man (1993)

In the future, all restaurants are Taco Bell...

When I think of "fun" action movies from the 90's, the movie at the top of my list has to be Demolition Man. I challenge you to find a better sci-fi action comedy out there. Enhance your calm! You can't find one because there isn't one. The "fish out of water" premise of placing a badass criminal and cop from the 90's in a pussified version of the future makes for more laughs than you'll find in most comedies. They make the future so goddamn annoying you can't wait to see John Spartan and Simon Phoenix tear it apart.

Check out what we have to look forward to in the future:

1) You'll be fined for using profanity. Shit... (*Captain 69, you've been fined one credit for violating the Verbal Morality Statute*)

2) You'll have to have to sex using a virtual reality machine because of the dangers of Super AIDS or something like that.

3) You'll wipe your ass with three seashells (Although, it's never really explained how they work)

The movie is also somewhat prophetic since some of the events mentioned in it are either on the way to becoming true or have already happened:

1) Taco Bell is winning the franchise wars since they've merged with KFC and Pizza Hut.

2) Arnold will eventually be president...watch and see...

3) John Spartan's wife dies in "The Big One" of 2010. Could she possibly have been Haitian? Hmm...

The cast in this one is just top notch from leads to supporting roles:

Good guy: Sly Stallone...need I say more...

Bad guy: Wesley Snipes (he's blonde AND actually knows martial arts...for real)

Sidekick/Love Interest: Sandra Bullock (Was there a better sidekick/love interest in the 90's than Sandra Bullock? Whether you're in the future or on a bus, Sandra's gotta be there.)

Annoying Funny Guy: Rob Schneider (He's bumped up to Sly's sidekick in Judge Dredd...)

Supporting Funny Guy: Dennis Leary playing...well...Dennis Leary

Plus you've got Jesse "The Body" Ventura playing one of Phoenix's thugs AND Jack Black playing a non-speaking role as a Wasteland Scrap. Awesome...

By the way, I never write spoiler alert because if you haven't seen these movies yet, you should kill yourself for being so lame. Complaining about it would be something you regret for the rest of your life...both seconds of it.

Why it's awesome: Sly Stallone teaches the future why the 90's rocked ass and why violence and irresponsible behavior are timeless traits of awesomeness.

Best Quote: John Spartan - "You're on TV!" (as he hits Simon Phoenix with a television set...you have to see it to really appreciate it)