Best car chase sequences

One essential scene in any good action movie must include the ubiquitous car chase. Every bond film has a car chase scene in it and there are a large number of car chase scenes which stick in the memory from other movies. Firstly lets reminisce a little then lets look at some of the essential elements and the drawbacks of car chase scenes.

Most Bond film car chases are well choreographed with Bond (nearly) always managing to evade capture. I guess the gadgets fitted to the car make the Bond sequences stand out and certainly make us all wish the parts list on new cars included ejector seats, oil slicks, smokescreens and rockets. Some of these gadgets would help with combating daily traffic issues like heavy traffic, road blocks and taking the mother in law out (only joking!)

The Jason Bourne films take a different approach with a hand held camera giving very shaky and blurry footage but it is cut together in such a way that we can make sense of the scene and actually follow the action at a personal level imagining that we are there. There are no gadgets but some slick defensive driving techniques.

Fast and Furious films portray the glossy side of cars and the chase scenes are usually more glamorous and race related. Complex camera angles and special effects are combined to give the impression of speed and 10 second races are stretched to an impossibly long 10 minutes at times.

Every car chase should end in a crash and reflect what happens in real life. The compelling thing about watching them is the continual feeling of an impreding major smash up. We also deep down like to see a £100,000 worth of car written off and this takes us back to when we were children and we used to smash up, crash and even burn our toy cars. Often though this never happens and the "hero" car usually drives away.

Movies often portray cars as indestructible and worse still gives the impression that drivers can walk away from serious crashes. During a typical chase scene often a number of identical cars are written off as 1 car would not be able to take the punishment. If the movie studios showed a more responsible and realistic approach to car chases and the consequences perhaps we would see less deaths and injuries on the roads. Then again perhaps people are more sensible than to try and copy what they have seen in a movie!