Not counting the odd maverick like Stone or a comparative softie like Baz Luhrmann (Romeo+Juliet), the assaultive style that emerged in the '90s (and never went away) was associated with the decade's series of ultrachaotic blow-'em-ups, many of which emerged from the Jerry Bruckheimer stable, home to such jock auteurs as Tony Scott and Michael Bay. Yet '90s action cinema is a wasteland when it comes to fight scenes. Most of these frat-metal spectaculars, obsessed with scale and volume, were too busy detonating asteroids and dropping fireballs on major metropolitan areas to bother with anything quite as puny as one-on-one combat.

The curious thing about these movies—in particular Bay's (The Rock, Armageddon)—is that they are constantly moving, always in overdrive, and yet often seem lumbering if not completely inert. Which is perhaps why the weightless acrobatics of The Matrix (1999), after years of heavy-machinery action, were so wildly popular. Here were fights (choreographed by martial-arts veteran Yuen Wo-ping) that defied time and space. CGI was not new, but The Matrix introduced the sense that anything is possible and, what's more, could be conjured from nothing. The way you feel about most contemporary movies—and their fight scenes—probably depends on whether you find that prospect thrilling or alarming.