The action film is being dismissed too easily here. You could point to a
number of important themes in this genre that have nothing to do with
evaluating the 'goodness' of the film based on its number of corny jokes
or stunts.
 
Consider the fact that most action films deal with issues of nationalism.
Specifically, the genre works through issues of regulation and the
individual.  Note the many action films in the past couple of years where
the U.S. government, military, and even FBI are powerless to stop
dangerous threats. Perhaps in an X-Files modus operandi, the more secret
a government department is, the more effective it is.
 
I'm not going to elaborate some large hypothesis here but I really object
to this idea of classifying good and bad films/genres (particularly
because my area is the musical).
 
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Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
University of Alabama.