What are the best portrayals of strength in a movie that doesn’t involve CGI or animation like in Marvel movies.
Arnie in Predator is my favourite example - the famous handshake and him lifting the truck. Also Dolph Lundgren as Ivan Danko in Rocky IV whacking Apollo’s gloves and lifting another guy with one hand.
What are some other good ones? (To be clear they don’t have to be examples where they actually do it - I know Dolph Lundgren didn’t really lift someone by the throat one-handed)
Unbreakable - the scene where him and his son are just testing out the newfound strength by piling on more weight to the benchpress and he is just as shocked as anyone that he can just keep going. Really great, grounded approach compared to what a more 'standard' hero flick would do (throw a truck at him)
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Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan in basically all their movies, for a different take on strength than your examples.
Jeff Goldblum in The Fly.
Sam carrying Frodo up Mt. Doom.
Also Frodo carrying the Ring in general.
Jackie Chan's characters usually display strength through endurance. They can stay on top of a fight after facing a bunch of difficult stunts and curveballs.
Anytime Ashitaka shows off his archery skills in Princess Mononoke.
Ouch, I can still hear that bone crack
Kurt Russell holding Scott Glenn from falling into the fire. His face was twitching & it made me think he was using every bit of his strength to hold him. Great scene.
Sam standing 69ing with Frodo before he leaves with the elves
Almost all of those 80s action films had non-stop absurdly over the top displays of strength. All of Commando probably works, but you could probably pick any Arnold film from that era
I know you said not Marvel, and there is some CGI, but the scene in Captain America:Civil War, when Steve Rogers stops Bucky Barnes from taking off in the helicopter by literally grabbing it and pulling it back towards the landing pad was an absolute masterpiece show of both Cap's physical capability, and mental strength of devotion for his friend 😭👍
the fight scene in they live
or the Tony Jaa in the protector
“You Go,We Go.”
Peter in Homecoming under the rubble gaining the strength to push the collapsed building up after crying and feeling not good enough.
Yes it’s Marvel and yes it’s CG but fuck you it’s a perfect scene.
Uggghhhhhh. He released his grip on the helipad just so he could flip his hand over, grab the helipad again and really flex his bicep for the camera. Are you kidding me?? Lame.
It's one of the only Marvel movies I've ever seen and I for some reason went to the theaters on Cinco de Mayo to see it with friends when it came out. I literally laughed out loud in the theater.
My Favourite is The Wheel of Pain from Conan the Barbarian. Starts of him as a teenager then slowly changes to Adult Conan.
Arnie in Commando walking with the log on his shoulder.
Rumor has it that the prop was so well engineered that it was actually incredibly easy to push, despite looking like a tortuous task.
So on his first attempt, Schwarzenegger gives it some oomph and sends the whole thing spinning, knocking himself on the back of the noggin with the next spoke.
That’s the thing about being earnest. If the audience is already on board, the moment is awesome. If they’re not, it’s ludicrous.
Speaking only for myself, I love that moment and the blatant over-the-top drama of it.
Yes it WAS gratuitous...but the musical score that accompanied it was just...just... 😑👌👌
Up until that moment I was trying to be a team player and was on board. I just have my limits.
Yes!! Exactly!
This thread should just be all Arnold examples.
Running Man: Telling a tied up Maria Conchita Alonso that he’s saying “Please” as he lifts the entire weight machine she’s bound to.
Commando: Tearing out car seats bare-handed to make room for his bulk in a tiny car.
Terminator 1: Boyfriend fight.
Terminator 2: Biker Bar intro or handheld minigun.
Twins: Lifting a car to turn off the alarm while Danny DeVito steals it.
And that’s totally fair.
The deleted scene that they did was also good but they thought two weight lifting scenes was redundant (probably right).
There is a Stallone movie where he plays a trucker and the plot revolves around arm wrestling competition.
Stallone picking up Hulk Hogan in Rocky III ( if I remember it right)
Neo pulling Trinity up with the rope after she leaps out of the helicopter
The Incredible Hulk, when Hulk and Abomination are going at it, and Hulk starts to rage and overpowers Abom. Awesome.
I do like a good old Rambo throat rip. That sure took myself and others by surprise when we saw that in theatres.
Can I just say that I hate how super strength or a strength difference is shown in most movies especially when it's bad guy fighting good guy?
You don't whack someone and they fly across the room. If you were super strong or faster or whatever you'd hit someone and cave a hole in their chest or completely crush their face in like it was Riki-Oh.
Because he can curl more than he can row at that angle (IE chin-ups are easier than pull-ups).
Oh that’s a good one!
Love every single one of these.
Riki-Oh punching through the fat guy's gut in the shower.
The Coolie in Kung Fu Hustle kicking bags of grain up onto his shoulder and walking out.
Over the top - Stallone
Slashers are also probably pretty rich with these.
Jason Voorhees and Michael Meyers are always committing feats of ungodly strength to emphasize how fucked their victims are.
Good one! I almost put that but didn’t think many people were aware of that movie.
Superman crushing Zod’s hand after the switcharoo at the end of Superman II.
The Civil War shot of Cap holding the helicopter immediately came to mind when I saw the questions, but thats mostly all CGI too.
Cheesy in a way if you watch it now, I loved it as a kid though
>Riki-Oh
Up vote for rare Riki-Oh reference.
Look at that fucking bone
The Ultimate Male vs The Ultimate Meatball
His name is Thunderlips
Also Predator. When they're working as a group to lull that tree down to create their trap.
Commando when Arnold flips the car back on its wheels.
This is an excerpt from the wikipedia article about the 1970s documentary "Pumping Iron" with Arnold Schwarzenegger. The article is talking about Franco Columbu, another body builder. Arnold got him a small part in "The Terminator" as the terminator who gets past the barking guard dog into a human refuge in Kyle Reese's flashback.
Columbu impresses his family with a display of strength by lifting up the back end of a car and angling it so it can [get out of] a tight parking spot.
Road House when Swayze rips the guy's windpipe out of his throat.
Conan pushing the wheel.
Andre the giant in princess bride
Albrecht swinging three galleons by their anchor chains in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
The Rock flexing his arm out of a cast in F&F7
Goddamn magnificent.
Michelle Yeoh has nearly died so many times I feel like she deserves an honorable mention here
Rocky doing hanging situps and shadow boxing in Rocky IV.
Steve holding down the helicopter in Captain America Civil War.
Arnold flexing in [Insert 80s or 90s Movie]
Love that movie.
Leaving to the side the various obvious Arnie and Stallone and Lundgren picks:
The infamous skull-crushing scene in the original Blade Runner. In fact the movie is replete with scenes that demonstrate the unearthly physical power of the NEXUS-6 Replicants, but that one is the most terrifying and memorable and Rutger Hauer and Joe Turkel work together to sell the emotional freight of that horrific moment to perfection.
Highlander, the original film. Clancy Brown's Kurgan is frightfully strong, as he particularly demonstrates when he runs a man through the gut with his sword, lifts him up by it like he was a feather, and casually tosses him aside.
Fezzik in The Princess Bride for a more comedic and light-hearted version. He tosses boulders around like baseballs, can knock an oak door down with a single blow of his fist, can haul a group of people up a cliff face with raw power, and even knocks a guy out cold when he's just trying to gently tap him.
Khan in Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan. Yes, Montalban's incredible physique in that movie is authentic, and helps to sell moments when he lifts fallen bulkheads off of downed comrades or effortlessly holds Chekov aloft with a single hand in a moment on Ceti Alpha V right before he does something much more horrible to him.
Unbreakable. I see that the weightlifting scene has already come up, but for me the more awe-inspiring moment is when he attacks and chokes out an absolute massive beast of a man (who is hammering him with elbows and slamming him into walls all the while) through sheer persistence. Honestly, for all its simplicity, this is actually one of my favorite movie action scenes, and sells the movie's premise all on its own.
Achilles in Troy. The power of Achilles clearly derives as much from extensive skill, practice and talent as much as raw power: but he has raw power aplenty. The spear-throwing scene when he's taken the beach and Hector is riding in on him is especially convincing and impressive (although it's obviously FX), and Brad Pitt equally convincingly sells the godlike power of Achilles every time he's in combat, as he both out-skills and overpowers his opponents.
Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. The chase scene where he pursues Sebastien Foucan's parkour-master antagonist through a construction site, specifically. There haven't been many Bonds (perhaps any other Bonds) who could sell the raw power that Craig's Bond brings to that sequence, which pits finesse against sheer brute persistence. One of the very finest action sequences of all time.
Bloodsport training montage that ends with Van Damme breaking the contraption that forces him into the splits!
Bradley Cooper trained to deadlift 400lb for American sniper.
Love that one. 80s JCVD movies rocked.
Best set of answers yet. All of these are excellent, but particularly Highlander and Blade Runner. This thread has also taught me that I need to watch Unbreakable.
There’s a WWII movie called Unbroken which is based off a true story of an Olympian war prisoner with a pretty crucial scene all about strength and endurance
Not a scene in the movie but the audience had to have a lot of strength to get through Morbius
Sloth going after the baby ruth bar in goonies …
Uh, hope I didn't spoil Unbreakable too much. It is definitely worth the watch, though.
(Fun fact: apparently, an over-excited Clancy Brown came alarmingly close to actually decapitating Sean Connery on-set. Which, not a great moment as an actor -- Connery stormed off the set and had to be coaxed back -- but it does hint that Brown is almost as frightening IRL as his character was.)
Basically any Arnold Schwarzenegger movie 😂
Oddjob crushing the golfball in Goldfinger
Warrior (2011). I can’t remember if they actually show it, but Tommy rips the door off of an armoured vehicle. He also shows great strength in his fights.
Really good one. Warrior’s such a great movie.
Awesome scene.
For the pacing of each scene, yes it would have been too much running time spent on both scenes.
And then they drive the car away and the crinkled up door now looks perfectly smooth 😬
Arnie holding Sully by his weak arm in Commando. And him ripping the hand dryer off the wall in True Lies.
I like how this thread is 60% Arnie.
Predator
"Dylan! You son of a bitch!!!""
Arm grab
This scene was just fucking dumb to me tbh. The idea that someone who was a former college football player had "never benched more than 250" is ridiculous. Even in the year 2000, there were probably high school players stronger than that. I could maybe see that if he were a WR, CB, kicker, or punter, but based on his frame that is extremely unlikely to be what he was
That Casino Royale scene really sets the tone for the entire movie. Sebastien is doing hardcore flips and shit to get around obstacles and Bond is literally just running through walls, driving forklifts through buildings, etc to get to him.
It just slathers on the screen "This version of Bond is a force of nature. He will come at you and plow through anything in his way to get to you."
The entire movie 300. I legit can't think of a scene where there aren't greased up men with rippling muscles doing something.
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Here's something different:
The massive Chief Bromden pulling the heavy drinking fountain off its foundation and throwing it through the reinforced windows so he can escape at the end of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.
Casino Royale. Bond is chasing a bad guy and he breaks straight through a wall to continue pursuit.
Predator: lifting the truck off the bricks to roll into the guerrillas
Commando: holding sully over the cliff edge... With his weak arm
Commando: lifting the phone box up with sully inside
Commando: flipping the yellow car back over from being on it's side (granted most people could do this)
Basically all of commando
Well that's the difference between Arnie and us mere mortals. He's so strong he can buff out dents and scratches simply by flipping a car
the Reacher TV series
when the cops decide to release him, so he pops his zip ties off
One of the best movies ever made. Great shout.
Everything in Commando, lol
The arm wrestling finale in Over the Top
Ellen Ripley going into hell and darkness to save Newt in Aliens is one of my favorite scenes ever because it shows that strength is not just physical, it is your will to act that is stronger!
Bruce Willis ripping the car door off in Unbreakable. For what it is its such a quiet film but in that moment I remember the music ramping up which drives a lot of the panic and emotion. Also I think he does it relatively effortlessly and it just sort of, happens? It's just there so you know he's always had this strength and he's just gotten on with his life with that knowledge.
How can you guys miss the wheel of pain ???
glovebox22 t1_ja9a3e3 wrote
Batman Begins - when Bruce saves Ras while sliding down the ice and does a full-body weight chest flye to stop him from falling.