The stars of action movies have become surprisingly relatable. They still save the world, survive impossible odds, and walk away from explosions, but sometime over the last three decades, Hollywood quietly changed what audiences expected an action hero to be. The impossibly muscular titans who dominated the 1980s and ’90s gradually gave way to charismatic rogues, emotionally conflicted protagonists, and ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances.
Alan Ritchson feels like he wandered in from another era. Whether he’s playing Jack Reacher in Reacher, Anders Lassen in The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, U.S. Army Ranger 81 battling an alien invasion in Netflix’s War Machine, or the rough-and-tumble hero of the upcoming Motor City, Ritchson keeps gravitating toward the same type of role: an unstoppable physical force whose greatest weapon is simply walking into a room. 35 years ago, he would’ve fit comfortably alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Today, he feels almost like the last of a dying breed. That’s precisely why he’s become such an unlikely star.
That used to be the action hero fantasy. Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t become the biggest star in the world because audiences believed they could be him. They wanted to watch someone who looked capable of carrying an entire tree in Commando, taking on an alien hunter in Predator, and still pausing long enough to deliver the perfect one-liner. Jean-Claude Van Damme’s heroes didn’t outwit their opponents. He overwhelmed them with high kicks. These characters weren’t ordinary people who discovered extraordinary courage. They were extraordinary from the moment they appeared on screen — or after a cool ’80s montage.
Action movies never disappeared, they simply evolved. As superhero films became Hollywood’s biggest business, the genre’s priorities shifted. Heroes no longer needed to look capable of impossible physical feats, because visual effects could handle the impossible. At the same time, films like 2008’s Taken proved audiences would happily embrace older, more grounded protagonists who relied on experience and determination rather than overwhelming physicality.
The action hero fantasy changed. It went from “I wish I looked like that” to “I wish I could do that.”
Other franchises increasingly favored protagonists whose personalities mattered as much as their punches. Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man defeats villains with brilliance and sarcasm. Tom Holland’s Spider-Man wins audiences over because he’s awkward, vulnerable, and constantly in over his head. Even Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt survives through preparation, ingenuity, and relentless determination in the Mission Impossible movies rather than brute force. (He also has the ability to run and never get tired.)
Hollywood’s changing definition of a leading man accelerated that shift as studios stopped building movies around the idea that the biggest guy in the room should also be the hero. Timothée Chalamet became an action star through Dune, but audiences first embraced him in Call Me by Your Name and Little Women. Glen Powell may have the physique of an ’80s action star, but films like Top Gun: Maverick, Hit Man, and Twisters succeed because of his confidence, humor, and everyman charm. Today’s action stars are terrific, but they’re selling something fundamentally different than Schwarzenegger or Stallone ever did.
That’s why Ritchson feels so refreshing. Reacher creates tension before the first punch is ever thrown because his physical dominance tells the audience exactly how the confrontation will end. A perfect example comes just minutes into the Reacher pilot.
After arriving in the small town in Georgia, Reacher heads toward a diner as a couple exits in the middle of an argument. The boyfriend’s behavior toward the woman is threatening enough that violence feels possible, and the man initially tries to challenge the hulking stranger when he notices him watching. Then he takes one look at Reacher and immediately changes course. Reacher never throws a punch or says a word. His mere presence is enough to make the man back down and reconsider what he was about to do. Within the first five minutes, the series tells us everything we need to know about Reacher.
Ritchson isn’t selling modern day vulnerability or self-awareness, or. He’s reviving an archetype Hollywood quietly retired.
The surprising part is that audiences clearly never stopped wanting it. Reacher has become one of Prime Video’s defining series, and Ritchson’s career has increasingly been built around playing larger-than-life action heroes. Rather than asking him to become more relatable, filmmakers keep doubling down on the qualities that would’ve made him a blockbuster star in 1988.
Hollywood didn’t stop making action movies. It stopped believing audiences wanted heroes whose greatest superpower was their physical dominance. Alan Ritchson’s success suggests that wasn’t a trend. It was a misread.