I'm a little late to the party on this thread.

Something that is hardly mentioned is the difference in sound design between shaky-cam and more conservative scenes.  I find that I often enjoy the sound in the shaky-cam scenes more.  I guess the lack of coherent picture to match allows more creative freedom on the sound end.  It really allows the sound effects to shine.

- Branco

I've mentioned here before how I love Quantum of Solace and think it's the best of the Craig Bonds... to the agreement of no one. Part of it, I'm sure, is that I never had any problem understanding what was going on in any of the action sequences. Am I the only one? I've seen review after review and post after post complaining about how incoherent these scenes are, but I never had any problem following them.

That said, it's not my PREFERRED style of shooting action. I like it better than Sam Mendes' action cinematography, which just kind of sat there for me. But I think Casino Royale strikes the best balance on the action front. The camera is frantic and participatory when appropriate, but Campbell also gets back with a wide and lets you know the geography and find your bearings. I think the parkour chase is one of the better action scenes in modern film.

For my money though, nobody does it better than Spielberg in his prime. All three Indiana Jones films are shot perfectly when the action rolls around. Saving Private Ryan, as bullet said. Hell, even Duel. Jurassic Park's action feels a little dull now, but I'm going to chalk that up to technological restrictions.

Casino Royale really might be the best american action film of the 2000s forward. The airport chase is also outstanding, clear geography but very intense.

The editing rhythm is part of that, I think another thing that really makes it is the way the sequences are allowed to build. That Parkour sequence is probably close to 10 minutes, which is very long by modern movie standards. A fight or chase scene in the Bourne mold tends to be very short, the Quantum car chase is 2 minutes. The added length lets the action scene breathe and have its own 3 act structure, and makes it a memorable set-piece that stands out in your mind. This is something that Speilberg absolutely mastered with the Indiana Jones series, every action set-piece is memorable and stands out in your memory.

A movie like Quantum, or the Transformers flicks, has tons of action in volume, but it tends to be lots and lots of short sequences. Quantum probably has like 10 different action scenes, maybe more, and they're all under 3 minutes, whereas Casino Royale has maybe 4, but more in the 6-10 minute range.

I think this is why a lot of modern action films feel monotonous, none of the action stands out or is memorable enough to make an impression, so all you end up remembering is kind of a fog of explosions. That's certainly my experience with the Transformers series.

It's an old argument. In the animation world, where something is written in one country, storyboarded in another, and animated in the third, how do you describe its nationality? Is a Japanese movie only released with English dialog with US actors no longer an anime? In general, I go with who does the writing/storyboarding. Applied to live action, this would mean The Fifth Element is a French film

Sorry, I guess the more accurate statement would've been "Western" action film. The main distinction was versus Asia, where they know how to stage great action scenes and do it on a regular basis. It's only in the West that its unique lately for an action movie to actually have good "action" you can follow in it.