by Corey Stringer

This weekend, as I was kicking back to watch “Red,” which has Bruce Willis doing what he does best — dropping one-liners and blowing stuff up — I found myself thinking about the state of the action hero in today’s movies.

As the end credits began to roll, I came to the depressing realization that the action hero is an endangered species.

It’s hard to believe, but Clint Eastwood is 80 years old. Meanwhile, Harrison Ford is 68, Sylvester Stallone is 64 and Arnold Schwarzenegger is 63. Let’s face it; with the exception of Willis, who is 55, our biggest action heroes are senior citizens. They can’t keep this up forever.

Hollywood is aware of this and has tried numerous times over the last 10 years to create new action heroes, but the results have been largely unsuccessful. (Exhibit A: Josh Hartnett)

I think I know why Hollywood has yet to find a true heir to the throne of Stallone.

The lightweight crop of blow-dried, manicured pretty boys they drop into big action movies today look more at home prancing around on the Disney Channel than they do running away from explosions.

Here’s another piece of advice I have for Hollywood as it continues to try and create new action heroes: charisma and talent are important.

This is something it should’ve taken into consideration before it decided to try and turn Channing Tatum into an action hero.

Tatum, like many of the young bags of hair gel who star in action movies today, has slightly less charisma than a bag of Cheetos, but he also appears to be completely devoid of acting ability.

I’m not saying that an action hero needs to be a master thespian capable of doing Shakespeare, but he should at least be able to deliver rudimentary line readings without sounding like he’s trying to lick peanut butter off the roof of his mouth.

While I’m on the subject of acting talent, it can be argued that Christian Bale, Will Smith, Nicolas Cage and Matt Damon were all successfully turned into action stars, but I counter that argument by pointing out that they have always been actors first and action heroes second – and there’s a big difference between an actor and an action hero.

Those guys are fine actors who manage to find success in the action genre whenever they dabble in it, but they don’t really feel like true action heroes.

Whenever they do an action movie, it feels like they’re playing “action hero dress-up” and throwing the audiences a bone so they can earn enough box office clout to go and make an “important” film.

We never get that condescending feeling from Bruce, Sly, Arnold or the rest of the old guard. They make action movies because they love action movies—not because they feel as if they have to.

Out of the new generation, only Jason Statham, Steve Austin and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson seem to be on the same wavelength as the older generation of action heroes. With few exceptions, their film choices have remained consistent within the genre, and they seem to have “it.”

The jury is still out on their ability to inherit the action hero torch from the current kings, but their chances of taking over are infinitely better than the weak-kneed, charisma-challenged, pretty boy meat sacks that Hollywood tries to make happen.

Until then, let’s all sit back and enjoy the old guard while we still have them. Nobody does it better, and they probably won’t be at it much longer. When they’re gone, there’s no guarantee we’ll ever see their likes again.

Here’s to the action heroes. May they live forever and blow up as much stuff as possible along the way.