By Alexander Wood

Like any great journey that follows a heroic firefighter-turned-noble-assassin, it all begins in Long Beach, California, in a burning building. No one is hurt, and the one thing saved from the flames is a 100-year-old case of spirits. The crowd erupts into applause; enter our hero, Jeremy Coleman (Josh Duhamel) who sees a murder, is placed into witness protection, escapes and evades the most complex government organisation in the world – the FBI – saves the day, gets the girl and lives happily ever after.

‘Fire with Fire’ is painfully mainstream. It makes little or no attempt to challenge expectations, let alone capture the imagination of die-hard (pun intended) action fans who, while they might not expect avant-garde filmmaking, at the very least they hope for quality action scenes that are true to the genre. The predictable story suffers from a total lack of originality from beginning to end, engages in blatant foreshadowing and avoids any hint of character development. There are points in the film where any action-loving audience could be offended that the film doesn’t try harder to mask its intentions, from an attempt on Jeremy’s life by a gang of white supremacists to the ‘you complete me’-esque line that ends a film, which is equal parts bad melodrama and disappointing.

Bruce Willis is a legend in film, pulling shards of glass from his feet atop a high-rise in John McTiernan’s ‘Die Hard’, killing Zed with a katana in Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Pulp Fiction’ and holding down the tumultuous streets in Frank Miller’s ‘Sin City’. Here, however, Willis’s legacy is lost. In his role as Mike Cella, he plays little more than a detective – adding nothing of note to the already uncomplicated narrative.

Having few redeeming features, ‘Fire with Fire’ might be just cause for arson; but don’t trouble yourself calling the fire department … just let it burn.

Let’s stop discussing a film that isn’t very good. Here’s a selection of the best action films of all time.

Bourne Trilogy by Paul Greengrass, 2002, 2004, 2007

Die Hard by John McTiernan, 1988

The Dirty Dozen by Robert Aldrich, 1967

Escape from New York by John Carpenter, 1981

The Fifth Element by Luc Besson, 1997

Kill Bill 1 and 2 by Quentin Tarantino, 2003, 2004

Nikita by Luc Besson , 1990

North by Northwest, by Alfred Hitchcock, 1959

The Matrix by Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski , 1999

Oldboy by Chan-wook Park, 2003

The Professional by Luc Besson , 1994

Total Recall by, Paul Verhoeven 1980

RoboCop by Paul Verhoeven, 1987

Taken by Pierre Morel, 2008