Robert Downey Jr. Labels THIS Movie From His Filmography As The ‘Worst Action Movie Of All Time’; DEETS
Robert Downey Jr. called the sequel to The Fugitive, in which he starred in the early years of his career, "worst action movie" and didn't indulge in that genre for a while in the aftermath!
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Robert Downey Jr.’s career reached its peak when he grabbed the Best Actor Oscar for his role in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. However, like every actor, he regretted saying yes to certain films, and one of them was U.S. Marshals— the sequel/spinoff to Harrison Ford's The Fugitive. Despite getting to work with Tommy Lee Jones, one of the best actors at the time, Downey dreaded going to the sets of the film.
Ben Falk's book Robert Downey Jr.: The Fall and Rise of the Comeback Kid (via Far Out Magazine) featured a quote from the Iron Man actor in which he talked about the film he hated more than prison. The quote said he’d “rather wake up in jail for a TB test than have to wake up another morning knowing I’m going to the set of U.S. Marshals.”
The actor continued to take digs at the film’s quality, labeling it as "Possibly the worst action movie of all time.” Although he didn’t go into specifics, he recalled him and Ford running around the set and “pretending to hold a candle to The Fugitive.”
In the 1990s, Downley was constantly working, but his career trajectory remained bleak. US Marshal not only felt like a great opportunity at the time but also a film he could take his son to watch. Quoted again in The Fall and Rise of the Comeback Kid, the Oscar-winning actor stated, "I thought maybe there was something I was missing, and what I really needed to do was to be in one of those films that I love taking my kid to."
Apart from that, the actor didn’t find any point in working on the sequel because playing and running around as Johnny Handgun felt “unfulfilling.” As a result, he stayed away from the genre for a while. The Fugitive, centered around Sam Gerard (Lee Jones) chasing after a wrongfully convicted murderer, Richard Kimble (Ford), could be considered one of the best action thrillers of all time because of its strong storyline.
Although the sequel focused on the central theme of an innocent man being chased by Gerard and special agent John Royce (Downey Jr.), the story wasn’t as gripping as the first one. Strong characters and storylines are just as vital as chase scenes and actions in this genre, which the U.S. Marshals majorly lacked.
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