The following is rather self-explanatory. I wrote it last year when I 
was between scripts and thinking about writing an action movie.

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I agree with you about most action movies being bunk and that the 
old formula is fading. I couldn't agree with you more, actually. I've 
often said that the best gun chase I've ever seen was the one in 
"Seven". I look at sex and violence in movies like sugar: It tastes 
good so people often think that more is better. So they take a piece 
of bread and then see how much sugar they can get to stay on top of 
it and then try to serve it to you. Now as you know, sugar is a tool 
and an ingredient that needs to be used as such. If you cook around 
it you can enhance it.

As I was telling my buddy Chuck, I think that Hollywood is 
constantly trying to push the envelope up to increase the action 
capacity of a flick, but I think that real masters can push it out. At 
some point bigger explosions and more bullets just don't work. 
Again with the Seven chase, they fired less then one clip between 
them. David Fincher increased his envelope size in a different 
capacity by using some real directorial skill.

The other thing about action movies that I think is poorly handled is
the matching of the nature of the violence to the kind of movie. The 
vampire script which I mentioned would work in the capacity of 
ultra-real violence because you're dealing with immortal fiends. The 
sheer volume of s**t that goes down in any modern cop flick is 
absurd. Or to go in the other capacity I was thinking about trying to 
max out the action in a gun-limited arena like a western (six 
shooters aren't machine guns) or a swashbuckler movie.

Another quick note: (in sticking with the sugar metaphor) there are
directors that make marza pan, pure sugar works of art. Right now 
these guys are the HongKong guys like John Woo and Jackie Chan. 
But the thing about those guys is that those flicks are more like 
watching amazing stage shows than experiential movies. Neither is 
more valid, but I just think that people are mistaking one for the 
other since they do lie on a continuum vs. separate scales.