There are plenty of dumb action films (any straight-to-video effort with Steven Seagal or Jean Claude Van Damme) - just as there are dumb romantic comedies and dumb horror films. All genre films are dumb if they don't experiment with the formula and just offer routine cheap thrills. But there are plenty of non-dumb action films (the original Die Hard, for instance, is a work of genius; the Indiana Jones trilogy are bona fide classics; Speed's high concept suspense; the OTT tongue-in-cheek action in Face Off and Con Air; the stylish action of the James Bond franchise). I think anyone who dismisses action movies as dumb completely can't love cinema very much. Films have always been about action. When the first silent films were shown they showed a train pulling into a station. A year later they showed people on horseback robbing the train. That's what people want to see.