The pain of going through a plate glass window, getting a chair cracked on your back, or receiving any kind of non-lethal bullet or knife wound is enough to lay up any one of us for days, weeks even. These are typically the first in a series of progressively harrowing ordeals a great action hero must endure, stifling woe over their boo-boos in order to tear the baddies a new cornhole. So here's our hat tip to the heads of the class, the ones who persevered beyond this mortal coil, dancing on a wire of unlikely fortune and less likely skill, to earn our awe.
5- Harrison Ford "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull"
It's a good thing Indiana Jones benefits from "cartoon character reset"--healing of all injuries and maladies before the next escapade a la Wile E. Coyote--because homeboy would be torn up as of the most recent film. Years of horrifying tumbles down infinitely deep ravines, poisonings, and hundreds of SS beatdowns should have left him in his 60s with torn ligaments, internal infections, and a prizefighter's mental vegetation. Not to be outdone, Lucas saved the last implausible cherry on top for "Crystal Skull" wherein Dr. Jones survives an atomic blast by hiding inside...a refrigerator. Imagine the lawsuits if the Beavis and Butthead copycats had gotten their hands on weapons-grade plutonium.
4. Arnold Schwarzenegger "Total Recall"
Interesting to note: "Total Recall" is one of the only classic Schwarzenegger action films where he plays a mere mortal. Not a cyborg, or a superhuman hero, or even a cop; just a really big, buff dude. But yeah, he's Arnold Fucking Schwarzenegger and for all the grief he (deservingly) gets as Governor of California, the man was arguably the most compelling action hero of his time. One look at him and it's quite believable that any character he portrays should be impervious to harm. In "Total Recall," he parlays his character's construction experience into protecting himself from murderous Martian colonialists. He survives close-range shootouts via human shield (you know, given the proven strength and velocity of a gunshot, I'd like to call bullshit on the whole idea of a human shield, right here and now), a scrape from a ginormous, 10-ton mechanized drill, and asphyxiation via decompression on a planet with no atmosphere. Keep all that in mind whilst reading about this ouchie the real Arnie suffered in 2006.
3. Sigourney Weaver The "Alien" Series
The perfect killing machine? Well, almost. H.R. Giger's stealthy extra-terrestrial hunter bests his human prey with unmatchable strength and speed. Yet he proved no match for a relatively unremarkable but spirited woman named Ellen Ripley. Besides the fact that she outwitted these guys in numerous chases, firefights, and even head-to-head in close quarters, it's a true marvel that she was never so much as singed by the copious amounts of caustic acid that drips from her adversary's mouths, the same stuff that burns through about 4 floors of a ship. Over three films, she rips a good half dozen aliens to shreds. When they finally manage to drop their pernicious seed up in her, she offs herself...only to be resurrected in the next installment and with some alien powers (hello super-speed and acid spit!), to boot. Regardless of any whims the Alien series producers may have in the future, she has wasted all known aliens as of this writing, including her own half-alien offspring. Hell hath no fury like a cloned humanoid/xenomorph hybrid scorned.
2. Mel Gibson "Lethal Weapon 2"
I miss Mel Gibson. Regular, funny Mel Gibson before he became a slightly addled, extremely megalomaniacal, Jew-bating film director obsessed with martyrs. It was truly fun to watch him play Detective Riggs, a jokey, semi-suicidal, vengeance-feuled LA cop running the gamut of abuse inflicted via the "Lethal Weapon" films. Reaching its apotheosis with "Lethal Weapon 2," Riggs 180s from "I'm gonna start keeping my nose out of this shit" to being full-on out-for-blood when he finds out that LW2's South African antagonists were responsible for running his late wife's car off the road. Said antagonists could be forgiven for assuming that drowning Riggs in a straitjacket was an adequate means of disposal. Never underestimate the moxy of a man with the strength and will to painfully dislocate his shoulder in order to wrest himself free, even after a couple minutes underwater. Later, he dukes it out with the baddies' resident mixed martial arts expert (unfortunately, homeboy was crushed by a crate--where's your jiu-jitsu now?) and gets shot in the torso by some South African douche who thankfully, like all super-villians, missed the marksmanship class on aiming for vitals. To be fair, Mel didn't look rared up for filming the sequel by the end of this one. Here's him getting vengeful on his captors after his near watery death:
1. Bruce Willis "Die Hard"
Bruce Willis' portrayal of off-duty cop John McClane is pretty much ground zero for the sub-genre of action we're talking about here. There's nothing we admire more than ordinary people who kick tremendous ass sans the proper resources and preparation. Even more so when his enemies DO enjoy the benefits of said preparation. We cheer for McClane's success because he embodies the realized potential of an everyman who, given extraordinary circumstances, will rise to the occasion, own some stupid Euro-terrorists, and liberate an innocent crew of partygoers (even if he doesn't succeed in ordinary circumstances like his career or marriage, natch). Consequently, our vicarious endorphin rush through his journey veils the ludicrousness of watching an out-of-shape, balding dude in a wife-beater persevere in the face of a Nordic jock with a machine gun (hell, tons of dudes with machine guns), the entire LAPD, and an utterly improvised leap from the top of a skyscraper. McClane made it all look easy, while still showing a believable amount of sweat on his brow. Actually, what really makes us wince is watching Bruce Willis do all of the above while walking barefoot on broken glass. Here's Annie Lennox expounding on the subject:
Look death in the face, and these articles right in the headline:
8 Fictional Characters Who Died Too Early
8 Famous Film Villains who Died by Melting
The 009 Nastiest Bond Villian Deaths
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