Customer Reviews

Writing the Action Adventure Film: The Moment of Truth

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book is what every genre writer needs, not just action- adventure writers. I don't think there is a book like it on the market. Neill is an accomplished screenwriter with real action-adventure credits. He shares his knowledge and insights, and on top of that, he really does know what the heck he is talking about. This is a must book for any screenwriter.
- Christopher Wehner, Editor, ScreenwritersUtopia.com

Not a lot of substance here. I did not find this book at all useful, a waste of money over all. A lot of talk about nothing specific, writer wonders around willy nilly, and no real how tos. Information such as formatting of action elements, or just how specific you should be when writing action scenes would have been much better served here, but alas, not to be. Books such as Crafty Screenwriting or Screenwriters Bible go much, much further.

Writing The Action-Adventure Film: The Moment Of Truth by professional screenwriter Neill D. Hicks ("Rumble in the Bronx"; "First Strike") is a straightforward, sensible, "user friendly" primer for creating a solid screenplay specifically for one of the most popular movie genres in America. Individual chapters specifically address issues of characterization, plot structure, pitfalls, and the strengths of the Action-Adventure film genre, as well as what the audience expects when they go to see the latest action movie. If you are contemplating, or already involved in, scripting an Action-Adventure screenplay, then give Neill Hicks' Writing The Action-Adventure Film an immediate and careful reading.

I was very disappointed by this book, I thought it would have something very specific for writing in the action genre--hence the title. I would pass on this title specifically because there is more information in a general screenwriting book, and the writer self-references to his other screenwriting book too much for me. Oh well...

This book seems to be written by amatures!

It is unorganized, I could not follow the subject that the author is explaining.

It is a research book rather that intended for eduaction.

If you want to write a film, please ignore this book.

If you are a regular movie goer, take it, if you have a spare of 10 $.Probably you will know more about the dynamics of the action film

The positive reviews here obviously come from Hicks' pals (check out his website). The book is poorly-written, incoherent, and gives no specific (or recognizable) advice on how to write an action film. It is basically a rambling (and very odd)discourse on the history of war movies.

I can highly recommend Tobin, Epstein, Martell, and Walker if you want to learn how to write action--or any other--films.

Recognizing there are "no magical formulas", Hicks uses a plethora of excellent examples to accurately define the intricacy of Action-Adventure films. Even more importantly, he consistently holds the writer accountable for gaining and maintaining an audience's trust. Hicks's enthusiasm, conviction, and recognition of a writer's responsibility overflows the genre of Action-Adventure films and makes this book crucial for ALL writers to better understand character development and story development

This book provides very little insight to action films. It talks all about the importance of story, which every screenwriting book does, most of them much more comprehensively. There are much more informative, better written and better edited works like Story or Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach which stress even more compellingly that protagonists & antagonists must each have their own moral code, actions must be motivated, blah blah. What I wanted from Mr. Hicks was to get into the mechanics of writing Action-Adventure stories, their tone, setting up action sequences, how to handle the interplay of different Action-Adventure characters, how to meet and defy the audience expectations...this book just skims the surface of all this.

Not to mention, Mr. Hicks is far too firmly grounded in the films of yesteryear. Three Kings doesn't fit his narrow requisites so it isn't a good movie? Come on. The Action-Adventure protagonist should remain free of emotional entanglements? What would Mr. Hicks say of Bond in Casino Royale....

Finally, his history of the genre, going back to Westerns and plotting their development as a result of societal trends, is pure overgeneralized BS. As is the analysis of foreign action films. He obviously hasn't been watching Asian films from the last two decades, only early Jackie Chan films.

Don't waste your money like I did.

If you want to understand the Action Adventure Genre, this is THE book. Great models, insights, rules to use or break.
Neill Hicks is a screenwriter who's written scripts that have been made into successful hit movies -- Rumble in The Bronx, First Strike. There are a lot of books on screenwriting written by people who are still trying to see their script go to production, let alone be a hit. This book's wisdom, insight and practial observations and advice shows why Hicks made it.
He has a very nice across genre model of protagonist characteristics which he also mentioned more briefly in his previous book, Screenwriting 101-- another excellent source.