Are Summer Action Movies Getting Bloated?

It is said that Steven Speilberg is a six-reel master. He always delivers his popcorn faire -- Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones -- in two film canisters. Each can holds three reels at 15-18 minutes a reel. In layman terms, Spielberg won't let his summer action movies go past two hours.

There are several reasons for this.

The shorter the movie, the more showings can occur in the local multiplex, and the more revenue can come in to boost profit over opening weekend.

Also, a shorter movie tends to bring back repeat business. Jurassic Park was a movie that you could see again and again, like a roller coaster ride that only whets your appetite the first time around. Each repeat viewing would allow you to see his CGI monsters in greater detail, as well as appreciate the nuances of Speilberg's action sequences.

But there is a final reason for the two-hour cap of action movies. And it is the most important reason.

STORY.

Two hours -- give or take ten minutes -- is about how long it takes to effectively tell a story in the action-adventure genre. Anything shorter and we feel robbed of story beats by an incompetent filmmaker. Anything longer, and we feel like we are repeating story beats at the hands of a self-indulgent filmmaker.

SPOILER ALERT! Dont read below if you do not want to read about important plot points of some famous summer action movies.

In Return of the King, were we not repeating the story beat of the conclusion to a nauseating degree? How many times, and in how many ways, do our heroes have to wrap up their saga and say goodbye? Peter Jackson had no less then five endings at the end of his trilogy.

In another Peter Jackson movie, King Kong, Jackson repeated another story beat -- escaping predatory creatures on the island -- to a similar excessive degree. Had Jackson cut that island sequence to a lean twenty minutes, with only the best of the insect and dinosaur footage, King Kong would have been nominated for best picture. Instead, I kept looking at my watch through out the movie, and when the ragtag troupe finally arrived in New York, it was already too late. For one hour of that movie, while the characters escaped from an infinite number of predators on the island, the emotional core of the story stood still.

Let's look at a tent pole feature from this summer: Superman Returns. After Lois Lane heroically lifts a sliver of dangerous kryptonite from Superman's torso, he goes on to save the world. So what do screenwriters Dan Harris and Mike Dougherty do for the next twenty minutes of the film? They cut to a melodramatic hospital scene where -- I am not joking -- Superman enters an episode of ER as he lies on a stretcher and doctors struggle to pluck yet another sliver of kryptonite from his body.

Repeating story beats.

George Lucas famously quipped during the filming of his first Stars Wars movie that most movies of the genre fail because they linger too long on their art production and special effects. Look at what we built! the filmmakers are saying. And instead of drawing us into their story, they only remind us that we are watching a big budget tent pole movie. Later, Lucas betrayed his own philosophy by committing exactly that sin with his new trilogy.

Lucas first Star Wars movie clocked in at 120 minutes. It was lean and tight, ensuring future VHS copies of the movie would get worn out from constant play. But Lucas last installment, Star Wars: Episode III, clocked in at 146 minutes. At that length, it isn't unusual to have to pause your DVD player to go mow your lawn, pick up groceries, take a nap, or even start another movie before you finish the first one.

Lucas new trilogy is essentially a study in arrivals and departures, where a high definition camera captures the verisimilitude of space jets as they navigate above pristine CGI landscapes. Lucas' new formula for Star Wars: Add one part complicated politico plot to two parts static CGI meditation.

Perhaps these longer movie are a perfect fit with the modern day TiVo sensibility, where you can put movies on hold while you make a Penne Vodka and make love to your mistress during the longwinded bouts of exposition, but if you are one of those die hard hold outs that love to watch movies in the actual theater:

Youre s**t out of luck.

So, if you are going to the multiplex this summer, make sure you take two shots of espresso, a meal, and perhaps a crossword with you (in the case of Superman), because these movies are LONG.

King Kong: 187 minutes

Superman Returns: 154 minutes

Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Mans Chest: 145 minutes

The

Return of the King: 201 minutes

Star Wars III: 146 minutes

The Da Vinci Code: 149 minutes.

The opening weekends are not being affected. The latest Pirates of the Caribbean just took the record as the biggest opening ever.

But I wonder if repeat business is not being affected by the running times of these movies. Would Pirates do even better if Gore Verbinksi cut fifteen minutes off of his magnum opus? Anecdotally, I know that I have not seen King Kong, Return of the King, or Star Wars III a second time, only because I know watching these movies a second time would be an arduous task.

I think the solution lies in the very problem facing film distributors today: how to differentiate theater releases from their DVD counterparts. Peter Jackson released an extended version of his Lord of the Rings Trilogy that included hours of additional material. What if filmmakers continued this trend and released two versions of their movies? They could release a short, fun, riveting roller coaster version that clocks in at just under two hours that is released exclusively in the theaters, and they could also release a directors cut that tells the ENTIRE story and is released only on DVD.

We could visit Krypton with Superman, follow those additional pirate storylines, and yes... we could watch King Kong fight all of those dinosaurs.

But all in the comfort of our own home, with our finger on the remote, just in case we... need to... nod off... zzzzzz.

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