Adventure film

Adventure films are a genre of film that typically use their action scenes to display and explore exotic locations in an energetic way.

Overview
Subgenres of adventure films include swashbuckler films, survival films, superhero films and pirate films. Main plot elements include quests for lost continents and exotic setting; desert, jungle, sea, mountain, outer space, and wilderness epics, the creation of empires, characters embarking on treasure, and heroic journeys, travels, explorations, quests and searches for the unknown usually also having to overcome an adversary. Adventure films are often set in a period background and may include adapted stories of historical or fictional adventure heroes within the historical context. Kings, battles, rebellion or piracy are commonly seen. Adventure films may also be combined with other movie genres such as action, animation, comedy, drama, science fiction, family, horror or war.

History
Adventure film popularity peaked in the 1930s and 1940s, when films such as Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Mark of Zorro were regularly made with major stars, notably Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power, who were closely associated with the genre. Saturday morning serials used many of the same thematic elements as high-budget adventure films.

In the early days of adventure films, the protagonists were mainly male. These heroes were courageous, often fighting suppression and facing tyrants. Recent adventure films have featured heroines, such as Lara Croft, as protagonists.

Popular concepts
Adventure films can contain stock characters and stereotypes. In some cases, this has been accused of going as far as implicit racism; claimed examples of this are Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, First Blood and James Bond "kicking third-world people around" in Dr. No.