I wonder... Did any prescient movie journalists back during the "Arnold Era" of American action movies do any serious writing about the action stars of said era having a "bubble problem?" As in: So much of their appeal was bound up not in their performances but in their cartoonishly pumped-up "straight-dudes-can-be-gym-queens-too" physicality they were innevitably going to have much greater difficulty transitioning to the "aging hardcase" phase of their careers?
Case in point: The trailer for Arnold Schwarzenegger's (lead-role) post-Governorship comeback, "The Last Stand;" an apparent riff on "High Noon" wherein a very, very, very tired-looking Arnold plays a very, very, very tired-looking former big city cop living in very, very, very tired-looking semi-retirement as the very, very, very tired-looking Sherriff of a peaceful southwestern border town who must lead a team of local cops (plus some hastily-deputized local ruffians for comic-relief - why, hello there somehow-just-as-anachronistic-as-Arnold Johnny Knoxville!) in a last-ditch blockade against a Mexican Cartel Death-Squad looking to blow through their jurisdiction on the way back across the border.
I get the sense that "Border-Jumping Cartel Death Squads" are going to become the next omnipresent stock-villain for generic American action movies; partially because it sounds superficially relevant but mostly because it's an effective way to exploit Middle America's knee-jerk paranoia about the "browning" of America (aka "OH NOES! WE'RE BEIN' INVADED BY TEH HISPANICS!!!") without being explicitly racist or xenophobic about it.
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