Since 1940, a considerable amount of military operations have involved people leaping from aircraft into dangerous territory. Base jumping as a sport and hobby dates back to the 1100s and remains popular today. On the big screen, skydiving is a plot device, a set piece, and a tense action scene all at once.
Just about every risky activity has come up as an action set piece in a big movie. In the era of CGI and franchise media,a big brave stuntis the only way to establish a modern film as special. Blockbusters love showing off a movie star in free fall, and it truly seems to work every time.
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Point Break
Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 crime classic isn’t the smartest movie she ever brought to the big screen, but it is the most extreme.Keanu Reeves stars asJohnny Utah, an FBI agent tasked with infiltrating a group of criminals who see bank robbery as just another form of adrenaline high. Utah enters an unusual relationship with Patrick Swayze’s Bodhi, the leader of the group. After Utah’s cover is blown, Bodhi forces him into a plane at gunpoint and jumps out, leaving the FBI agent to take the blame. Utah is forced to leap from a plane without a parachute to catch his target. The scene is a mixture of real footage of Swayze skydiving and blue-screen simulations. On top of being extremely visually engaging, it’s also a deeply important scene in the film’s central relationship.Point Breaknails every extreme sport it shows off.
Iron Man 3
Every good superhero project has plenty of scenes in which the heroes fight the villains. Superheroes have to save people too. This thrill ride comes at the end of the secondact ofIron Man 3after the villainous Aldrich Killian’s plan to kidnap the president from Air Force One has largely succeeded. Tony Stark loses the president, but 13 innocent people are sent tumbling through the air without parachutes. Iron Man has to use his tech and his wits to pluck these people from the sky and make it to the ground safely. It’s one of the most technically complex scenes in the entire MCU. It makes the most of Iron Man’s capabilities as a hero while also creating a truly excellent action scene, without any of the fanciful elements that often lose more casual fans. It’s one of Marvel’s best sequences from beginning to end.
Godzilla(2014)
Whatever can be said aboutLegendary Pictures' Monsterverse franchise, they have a knack for putting awesome visuals on the big screen. Divorced from context, there are shots in theirGodzillaandKing Kongfilms that grant their kaiju a greater sense of magnitude than ever before. Their first effort, the second-ever AmericanGodzillafilm, was criticized for its lack of monster action, but there are a few great scenes buried in its two-hour run. Most of those scenes come right at the end. As the King of the Monsters and the MUTOs are locked in combat, a team of Navy operators is sent on a HALO jump to deactivate a warhead that threatens to kill millions. Their jump, marked by red smoke trails, takes them into close quarters with Godzilla. It’s a beautiful scene, partially shot in first-person, that allows the audience a long-awaited look atthe king’s new design. The scene is so central to the film that it’s a central figure of the trailer and the poster. Before anyone even knew it was aGodzillafilm, they saw this moment.
Kingsman: The Secret Service
This excellent spy movie spends its first half training young Eggsy Unwin to be a secret agent. One of the many tests he must undertake to prove his worth involves a stressful leap from an airplane. As Eggsy and his competitors take the plunge, they’re informed remotely that one of them doesn’t have a parachute. They have a small window in which to open their chutes, creating a tense test of willpower as the young candidates fall. It’s a spectacular way to raise the stakes in a training exercise. Eggsy can prove his mettle and question his place in a world that seems set against him. The film ispacked with excellent action set pieces, but this brief chapter does a lot of storytelling with one tense drop.
Mission Impossible - Fallout
TheMission Impossiblemovies have stories, but no one shows up for them. People go to these films to see whatabsurd death-defying stunt Tom Cruisewill undertake this time. Whatever the tenants of his bananas religion, he really does seem to have all the otherworldly confidence it’s supposed to give him. In Ethan Hunt’s sixth outing, he undertakes a HALO jump in full view of the audience. This scene deserves attention for the sheer work that went into it. The backlit helmet was specially designed to show off Cruise’s face as he really leaps from a plane. The film required Cruise to make over 100 jumps to get three shots.This franchise knows howto get the most out of its performers. Just have them jump out of planes hundreds of times on camera.
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