Hasbro is a big American toy company—only rival Mattel is larger. Hasbro sells Monopoly, Scrabble, Pictionary, Clue, Trivial Pursuit and dozens of other household brands—Tonka, Tinkertoys, Nerf, Mr. Potato Head, Play-Doh, Transformers and so on. The people who run Hasbro are very, very rich.

In 1963, jealous of Mattel’s success with Barbie, Hasbro launched a line of 12-inch soldier dolls for boys—Action Soldier, Action Sailor, Action Pilot and Action Marine (hence action figure). The original G.I. Joes flew off the shelves until America flew into Laos and Cambodia—preventing both Hasbro and the White House from selling war for the next decade-and-a-half.

G.I. Joe redeployed in 1985 with smaller molds and smarter marketing (to be copied by George W. Bush after 9/11)—now they were an elite international force defending “human freedom against a ruthless terrorist organization.”  There were comic books and a TV show, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, which ran weekdays on the networks. (Washington prefers to demonize al-Qaida in prime-time.) Once again, Hasbro couldn’t stamp the plastic figurines fast enough.

A Real American Hero was everything the rest of the world (that’s us!) dislikes about Americans—loud, simplistic, disingenuous and culturally tone-deaf. For instance, the ethnic-cleansing names for some of the white characters—Cutter, Torch and Sgt. Slaughter—juxtaposed with the Native American Joe, code-named Spirit (what else?), who sported braids, epigrammatic English and a pet eagle, Freedom. The Joes were not scared high-school dropouts of all races from low-income towns (like the real American “heroes”), but fearless, steroid-pumped Aryan musclemen.

Of course, racist war propaganda will only entertain children for so long. The American Hero line was retired in 1994. Which brings us to Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Hasbro’s Hollywood honcho, the man responsible for the two Transformers movies just past, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra right now, and millions of toy sales in the future.

The Rise of Cobra can best be described as a wall of noise and sound for people who like to bang their heads into walls, transporting a team of Joes from a green-screen Sahara Desert to a green-screen underwater base to a green-screen North Pole to, well, it doesn’t even matter. Channing Tatum, who plays Duke, defends the movie’s awfulness this way: “It’s a huge, 170-million-dollar movie. It’s just a big, kid sort-of driven film.” Oh. Okay, then. Paramount, who made and promoted the movie, refused to even screen the film for American critics. It’s as if your husband said you didn’t look fat, and then traded the car for a forklift.

To answer the absurdity question, the movie is worse, even though in one episode of the TV show, a dog saves the Joes by using his paws to pump a handcar out of a mineshaft.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra centers around a swarm of nano-bug-things that can eat a city. Yes, you read that right. It doesn’t spoil anything to tell you they try to eat Paris. There are costumed freaks trying to spill the bugs—the Baroness, Storm Shadow, the Doctor—and costumed freaks trying to kill the bugs—Duke, Ripcord, Scarlett, Snake Eyes and Heavy Duty. They fight—in the air, on the ground, under the water. Nobody really wins, except Hasbro. Nobody really loses, except us.

All that’s left to say is: Go, Joe. Please go.

Such is the perverted delight of seeing Fighting, the underdog story of an underground street fighter in the underbelly of New York City. In a movie climate that panders to the lowest common denominator, the television ads and trailer showed hyperkinetic knockdowns set to rap music and baritone narration (“Now.” Pause. “Every fight.” Pause. “Brings him closer.” And so on.) The laws of box office returns also dictated the admittedly direct but misleading title. (If the film does well in America, copycat monikers like Chasing or Exploding may follow.)

Fighting isn’t really about fighting, at least not the kind with knuckles and bloody noses. It is about the way a big city makes you feel small, and a crowded nightclub reminds you that you’re alone. It’s about finding a reason to get up in the morning, and the strength to make it through the day, and someone to spend the night with. They should have called it Surviving.

The people trying to survive in Fighting are wrestling reject Shawn MacArthur (Channing Tatum), broken hustler Harvey Boarden (Terrence Howard, using his higher registers) and burdened waitress Zulay Valez (newcomer Zulay Henao). For different reasons, they all live in New York, dreams deferred until they can make the rent. Shawn doesn’t have to worry about that—he sleeps on a park bench, his clothes in a duffel bag.

Writer-director Dito Montiel creates a strong sense of place for his troika—no easy task with a city as photographed as the Big Apple. His New York feels familiar but foreign, modern but worn, built by men but inhabited by animals. He captures the untamed energy of a Brooklyn night and the ironic quiet of a midnight subway car, roaring along rusted rails past abandoned buildings. This is not the sunny yuppie-paradise version of New York in The Proposal or the middle-class traffic hub of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. The people in Montiel’s Gotham have pretty faces that hide ugly pasts, and neat clothes that hide messy identities.

Channing Tatum, with his thick nose and small ears, has the appearance and the emotional range of a brick wall—to get angry, he just gets loud. Fighting gives him top billing over Terrence Howard, a consistently brilliant and underemployed actor. Here, Howard’s performance is too mannered, but still enjoyable. The real gem is Zulay Henao, whose onscreen beauty is irresistible. Never mind that she can act—she reminds you why the cinematic close-up was invented: to create sculpture from a cheekbone, and a masterpiece from a smile.

So don’t let the ads fool you. Fighting has everything going for it—compelling characters, a unique vision of New York, and Zulay Henao. And, of course, some knuckles and bloody noses.

The 1984 original, The Terminator, and its 1991 sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, both became instant classics, not least because of their innovative director, James Cameron (who would later helm Titanic). Sequels to sequels cannot budget for innovation, however, so cheaper talent gets subbed in (e.g., Joe Johnston for Steven Spielberg in Jurassic Park III). McG, a man best known for obnoxious music videos and noxious Charlie’s Angels movies, directs Terminator Salvation.

Better men than McG have been crushed under the canonical weight of their franchises, done in by expectations or a desire to leave their mark. Joel Schumacher killed Batman & Robin after taking over from edgy A-lister Tim Burton (Batman, Batman Returns); Sylvester Stallone self-destructed Rocky IV. And the recently cancelled TV spinoff The Sarah Connor Chronicles exposes Warner Bros. as a negligent caretaker (unlike Sarah Connor herself).

The series also leaned heavily on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s beefcake bad-guy (Terminator), turned good-guy (Judgment Day), turned both (Rise of the Machines). Now that the Austrian is too old to play an ageless robot (or, as an American politician, has become one), Christian Bale provides the testosterone as resistance leader John Connor. This makes Bale the face of two concurrent blockbuster series, Terminator and Batman, as well as Michael Mann’s upcoming gangster flick Public Enemies, risking overexposure.

But Terminator Salvation doesn’t go wrong—it shows respect towards its predecessors without being sycophantic, it rejuvenates the series for a generation that considers the muscled Arnold a punchline, and it’s a good story to boot.

John Connor has become that which the earlier films tried to prevent: de facto leader of a de facto resistance (because most of humanity has been killed). The genocidal enemy is Skynet (a kind of evil, self-aware Internet), whose unstoppable land, air and sea machines are mopping up the last bands of survivors.

In the first film, a member of the resistance, Kyle Reese, is sent back in time (to 1984) to protect Sarah Connor, future mother of John. They fall in love and Kyle unwittingly becomes John’s father. In Salvation’s 2018, the adult John must now find and protect a teenaged Kyle, yet to be sent back in time, and who doesn’t know that John, his idol, is his son.

The subverted father-son dynamic forms the core of the film—as they both search for each other—around which many digital action sequences are built. Those sequences, and the film’s overall aesthetic, are heavily influenced by Alfonso Cuarón’s 2006 dystopia Children of Men (in turn influenced by the 1960s French New Wave)—extended single-shot takes and a desaturation process called bleach bypass lend the footage a cinéma vérité feel (although the effect is tempered by all the killer robots).

So McG redeems himself. Christian Bale, juggling franchises, tries to become Harrison Ford. And for now, Terminator lives on.

But their future is not set.  Cue percussive bombast.

Which explains the new, fourth installment in the franchise, Fast and Furious, which returns Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker) to their original Los Angeles haunt, recapturing and even surpasssing the original film in danger and drama.

This is not to say that Fast and Furious lacks ludicrous moments (though, thankfully, this time it does lack Ludacris)—the opening sequence, set in a tropically-generic version of the Dominican Republic, includes fishtailing pickups and a CGI (computer-generated) escape from an enflamed runaway gas tanker. Nor does it avoid cheesy, forgettable and offensive dialogue— like multiple tired parallels between the curves of women and vehicles.

In fact, while the sex is modern (read: gratuitous girl-on-girl action), the film’s sexual politics are depressingly retrograde. Reveling in the misogyny of its cartoonishly muscular protagonists, Fast and Furious quickly establishes firm breasts and fan belts to be man’s playthings; the camera actually segments female bodies into their constituent parts for voyeuristic consumption. As a society, we want—almost demand—moralistic uplift from our leaders, but individually we are only too happy to sit in darkened rooms and stare at dancing derrieres. Jamaican women are denigrated enough without their husbands expecting to live out celluloid fantasies.

But beyond all that, beyond the silly lines and soft-core pornography, Fast and Furious succeeds. It succeeds by doing what Hollywood does best—sticking to a formula. Only it’s not Formula One. Fast and Furious is a Western in disguise—a souped-up, hyperkinetic Western, but a good Western nevertheless.

Vin Diesel’s Toretto rides into town, alone, after a long absence, with a score to settle and an unwavering determination to settle it. His past keeps chasing him (in the form of federal agents), forcing him to live life on the run, and extracting the ultimate price—losing someone he loved. Despite his experience, he is an outsider. The only tools at his disposal are his own skills and attributes—his physicality, his hands, his rough charm—and his trusted horsepower. Shane (1953), The Searchers (1956), Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)—there is no shortage of desert-backed films that share the same story kernel.

Unconvinced? Consider three more bits of evidence. During one chase, Toretto leaps from one car to another driving alongside him, in a new take on the old chestnut of switching horses. To pick up the trail of the man he seeks, Toretto studies a crash site. He bends down to the asphalt and rubs some residue between his fingers. Like any Western hero who knows his dirt, the residue points him in the right direction. And finally, the film contains an epic chase across the American-Mexican border desert, with Toretto and O’Connor (and even their names now seem to fit in the genre) pursued by a dozen or so men, riding in formation.

John Wayne might be spinning in his California grave, but only because Fast and Furious blew past it with a nitrous-oxide injection of speed, seduction and solid adventure.

It’s hard to imagine anyone other than those followers enjoying 12 Rounds, which is as ordinary as a multimillion-dollar movie can get. In 1896, Frenchman Louis Lumiére set up his camera beside a railroad track. The resulting shot, of the arrival of a train, was so startling that some viewers screamed or moved away from the screen as they watched. Today’s moviegoing public is pumped so full of high-octane footage that we yawn as a fireball rips through an apartment building or as a luxury car does somersaults on the highway. Flying under an overpass becomes passé; driving on the sidewalk becomes pedestrian. Movie studios compensate with bigger explosions and more elaborate chases, seeking to shock us even as they jade us.

Thus we have films like 12 Rounds, which zooms from one action sequence to the next but leaves the plot behind. Cena and Aidan Gillen (HBO’s The Wire) have little to do except play good-cop/bad-guy; there’s no characterization to help texture their line readings. Without a compelling story or compelling leads, the promotional materials fall back on credentials—‘From the director of Die Hard 2 and the producer of Speed’. To be fair, 12 Rounds does borrow from both films—there is a cop running around trying to save his woman from the hands of a terrorist, and there is a bomb on a bus.

To be really fair, the film copies elements from every action blockbuster of the last twenty-five years, from Commando to The Fast and the Furious. But we shouldn’t fault it for failing to live up to its obligations any more than we should fault ourselves for neglecting ours. John Cena is only the latest in a century-strong battalion of Aryan supermen projected onto screens around the world. The United States has a narrow definition of hero, and it looks like Charlton Heston and Sylvestor Stallone and John Cena. It always has, and for the foreseeable future it will.

So be it. It is up to us to recognize that America maintains her power most directly, and with the greatest accuracy, not with smart bombs, but with dull hits like 12 Rounds. Because of her relentless propaganda, half our countrymen and women want to emigrate to Florida; they will be the ones enduring the midday sun tomorrow outside the American embassy in Liguanea. Standing in the sun, dreaming about a place only the movies can hallucinate—the land of the freeze-frame and the home of bravado.

Here’s a suggestion for the next action film you should see: Arrival of a Train by Louis Lumiére. It’s an oldie but a goodie.

12 Rounds
Directed by Renny Harlin.
With John Cena and Aidan Gillen.
108 minutes. Action.