For me, trying to choose my favorite fight scene is like having a mother choose her favorite child, I just can't do it. I was lucky enough to be born in a time when fight cinematography, special effects, and editing really came into its own. Giving us, the movie-goer, some truly awesome fight scenes. I've listed my top five, in no particular order, greatest fight scenes of all time. Besides using the criteria before mentioned the number one trait all five scenes have is that "Wow Factor." I'll explain the "Wow Factor" as easily as possible, if I saw something in a movie that made me go...Wow, it possesses "Wow Factor," it's as simple as that. Now that I'm done rambling let's move on to the good stuff.
1. The lobby scene in The Matrix- When Neo and Trinity lay siege to the office building in order to save Morpheus, it all started in the lobby. This scene had everything you would want in a fight scene; fully automatic weapons, acrobatic moves, more fully automatic weapons, a body count easily above 50, oh and did I mention the fully automatic weapons? This scene was great from jump street, When Neo sets off the metal detector and shows the guards what he has under his coat...I nearly lost it. The way the Wachowski brothers showed what someone could do when they realized that "there is no spoon" was genius. It would be safe to say that I could do a top ten best fight scenes and just use scenes from the Matrix trilogy.
2. Yoda vs Count Dooku in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones- Growing up I couldn't understand why Yoda was so revered as a Jedi master. The Green dude needed a cane to walk around, proper sentence structure he did lack, and he didn't even use a light saber! But my attitude towards Yoda pulled a 180 after watching Episode II. The cool thing about that movie was that George Lucas foreshadowed what was going to happen. So when you saw Yoda's long shadow and heard the tapping of his cane, you knew the ish was going to hit the fan. There's no way to describe how I felt when Yoda pulled back his robe and brought his light saber to his hand using the Force. That's how awesome Yoda is, he doesn't even grab his own light saber, he summons it using the Force. Come on; how can you not like that guy after that?!?
3. Rocky vs Apollo Creed the rematch in Rocky II- After getting the holy snot punched out of him in the first Rocky movie, America's underdog was back once more to show that the first fight wasn't a fluke. Even though this fight scene is close to 30 years old it still ranks up there as one of the greatest. When I first saw this movie I kept asking my Dad if they were really hitting each other. It looked so real, I could almost feel every punch Rocky took a sense of relief washed over me when Rocky beat Apollo to his feet and became the heavy weight champ. Who doesn't like a feel good underdog story? And when the feel good underdog story has a great fight scene like it did in Rocky, it rates right up there with the greats.
4. King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans vs Xerxes and his Persian Army in 300- This whole movie was one big fight scene. Up against insurmountable odds, the warriors of Sparta decided to face Xerxes, his army, and certain death in order to buy enough time for the rest of the Greek city-states to organize and get ready for battle. Besides the killer special effects and fight sequences, this movie, as well as some of the scenes was based on a true story. The battle of Thermopylae was a historical event that, when brought to the big screen, smashed its way to my top fight scene list.
5. Neo vs Agent Smith's schoolyard battle in The Matrix Reloaded- I was hesitant to put another Matrix fight scene on my list, but I figured a Matrix fight scene sandwich would hit the spot. The Wachowski brother's once again struck fight scene gold with this battle. Neo truly showed off his power as "The One" while he fought Agent Smith's army of ones. The vacant school ground was Neo's playground as he used everything from a bench to an aluminum pole to fight off the ever growing army. Then to top it all off, when you think that Neo had lost, he just shrugs the guys off him and takes to the sky. Come on, that was AWESOME!
Well there you have it: a list of great fight scenes that would even entertain the great late Bruce Lee.