Cineworld is your must-visit destination for an adrenaline fix this April. That's because we're bringing a host of classic action movies back to the big screen for our Action Movie Season, so if you're a popcorn film junkie, do not miss out.
Hot on the heels of our Sci-Fi Season, we're now honouring the genre that gave birth to the car chase, fist fight and daredevil stunt. And the good news is you can enjoy each movie for just €5.
Big-screen nostalgia at a fraction of the price – who could ask for more? Don't forget about our Early Week Special that allows you to enjoy one small soft drink with one small sweet or one small salted popcorn for just €5 (valid Monday to Wednesday).
Scroll down for all the essential details of the movies and screening dates.
1. Predator (screening April 3)
Get to da cinema! This immensely quotable eighties classic is an assured mixture of brawny testosterone workout and ruthlessly escalating suspense horror. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays the leader of a group of special forces operatives who find more than they bargained for amid the steamy jungles of Central America: a humanoid, intelligent alien killer that collects the spinal trophies of its victims.
Directed with verve by John McTiernan, who would later go on to direct Die Hard, Predator is filled with memorable lines ("If it bleeds, we can kill it"). The tense film is further distinguished by placing the usually impervious Schwarzenegger in a position of genuine vulnerability, particularly during the climactic showdown with the Predator itself, and Alan Silvestri's propulsive score ratchets up the atmosphere even more.
2. Speed (screening April 6)
You've all heard the meme from The Simpsons about "the bus that couldn't slow down". Well, it's time for the real deal: our Action Season presentation of the seminal nineties blockbuster Speed, which is back on the big screen where it belongs. Keanu Reeves was catapulted into the A-list stratosphere off the back of this fast-moving, high-concept thriller about a booby-trapped bus that will explode if it drops below 50 mph.
Director Jan de Bont milks that slender premise for all the suspense and thrills he can muster as Reeves' stoic cop bonds with Sandra Bullock's reluctant stand-in bus driver to defeat the efforts of Dennis Hopper's maniacal bomber. Several of the set-pieces from Speed have gone down in pop culture history, most famously the freeway gap jump sequence, and now you can revel in its rollercoaster ride of thrills all over again.
3. The Rock (screening April 11)
The Jerry Bruckheimer/Don Simpson standard was cemented in this much-loved nineties blast of action mayhem and buddy comedy. Director Michael Bay brings his signature excess to this story of rogue soldiers positioned on Alcatraz and their proposed chemical attack on San Francisco.
However, the film's reputation stands on the superb dynamic between chalk and cheese heroes Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage, variously gruff and quirky, and whose frequent verbal smackdowns pack the same punch as any number of fistfights and gun battles. Lending the gravitas is a memorably conflicted Ed Harris whose nominal baddie is far more nuanced than one would expect from this kind of movie.
4. Demolition Man (screening April 15)
Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes bring bullet-ridden carnage to a George Orwell-esque dystopian future in this quick-witted action adventure from 1993. Stallone plays John Spartan, a 20th-century cop framed and cryogenically frozen over a crime he didn't commit. Snipes plays the psychotic Simon Phoenix, the criminal who framed Spartan and who re-emerges in the disquietingly perfect environment of 21st-century Los Angeles to wreak havoc on the bemused citizens.
There's only one thing for it: thaw out the bruising Spartan and let him go hell for leather with his old nemesis Phoenix. While Stallone and Snipes bring their trademark physical intensity, Sandra Bullock gets big laughs as an earnest do-gooder police officer in this assured mixture of action and satirical comedy set in a world where bad language is a punishable offense.
5. Con Air (screening April 19)
Who's up for a second helping of Nic Cage? The singular actor cemented his unlikely 90s action status with this roaringly OTT thrill ride in which Cage's hair swishes to the sound of electric guitar licks while his accent ranges all over the Deep South.
Directed by Simon West and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Con Air's sheer eccentricity and exuberance put it a cut above much of its 90s brethren, taking place on a prison transport plane that has been hijacked by John Malkovich's gloriously fiendish Cyrus 'The Virus' Grissom. Only Cage's Cameron Poe, along with John Cusack's man on the ground Vince Larkin, can stop him. The supporting cast is a who's who of scene-stealing players including Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi and Colm Meaney.
6. Mad Max: Fury Road (screening April 22)
If you're revving up for Furiosa's release this May then treat yourself to another big-screen rewatch of Mad Max: Fury Road. This movie acted as our introduction to Charlize Theron's fearless Imperator Furiosa, the war rig operator who forms an uneasy alliance with Tom Hardy's drifter Mad Max amid a merciless scorched earth landscape.
Veteran Mad Max helmer George Miller expands the canvas of his classic series with all manner of eye-widening sights and sounds, plus impossibly dangerous stunts and practical effects that take the breath away and plant us in a truly dangerous vision of the future. Winner of several Oscars, Mad Max: Fury Road has established itself as a modern action classic and shouldn't be missed on its return to Cineworld screens.
BOOK MAD MAX: FURY ROAD TICKETS
7. Commando (screening April 29)
We're concluding action movie season with another Arnie staple, one that convinces us that brawn will win out over brains any day of the week. The Austrian Oak plays ex-soldier John Matrix, father to a kidnapped daughter who must take on the baddies at their own game if he wants to see her alive again.
Made just one year after Schwarzenegger's breakthrough role in The Terminator, the delightfully campy Commando cemented all of the idiosyncrasies we've subsequently come to expect from a Schwarzenegger movie. From the seemingly endless body count to the hardware and the enjoyably daft one-liners ("Forgive my friend, he's dead tired"), this is a piece of eighties cheese that has remained resolutely fresh.
If you're an Unlimited member, you can enjoy all these landmark action movies with your Unlimited card. And if you're feeling inspired to sign up, be sure to do so via the link below. For less than the cost of two tickets per month, you'll reap the benefits of advance screenings, 10% off your favourite snacks and drinks and a whole lot more.
Need more action movies in your life? Click on the following link to discover 2024's must-see action extravaganzas.
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