If you ever needed a way to explain why Hulu is better than Disney+ for movie lovers, just bring up the action movies. Disney+ is largely limited to Marvel and Star Wars movies when it comes to action, while Hulu has the freedom to load up on hard-hitting R-rated mayhem. Even superheroes from outside of Marvel are welcome to show up on Hulu and start kicking butt.
Our picks for the three action movies on Hulu that you need to watch in March are all new arrivals. But you’ll have to wait until March 15th to watch Liam Neeson is his signature action movie. The other two picks are available right now.
Salt (2010)
Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) is having the worst day of her life in Salt. As a member of the CIA, Salt interrogates a defector, Oleg Vassily Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski), who claims that she is a Russian sleeper agent who is going to kill the President of Russia, Boris Matveyev (Olek Krupa), and spark a war between his country and the United States.
When Salt flees the CIA compound, her colleague Darryl Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) has no choice but to assume that Orlov is telling the truth. Salt’s subsequent actions also seem to indicate that she really is a Russian asset, but there’s a larger mystery in play. Orlov also left out a lot of critical info in his debriefing, including the identity of another Russian sleeper agent.
Watch Salt on Hulu.
Taken (2008)
Taken was the movie that launched Liam Neeson into the stratosphere as an action star, although few of his follow-up action flicks have been as good as this one. Bryan Mills (Neeson) is a former CIA agent turned bodyguard who can’t quite figure out how to connect with his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace), or his ex-wife, Lenore (Famke Janssen), whom he clearly still has a torch for.
When Kim and her best friend, Amanda (Katie Cassidy), are kidnapped in Europe by human traffickers, Bryan gives the abductors one chance to release Kim and escape his bloody retribution. Much later, the kidnappers learn the hard way that Bryan does not make idle threats. However, Bryan only has a short time to track down Kim before she’ll be out of his reach forever.
Watch Taken on Hulu on March 15.
Batman Begins (2005)
The Dark Knight gets all of the glory, but Batman Begins is easily among the best superhero movies and a great action film in its own right. It’s easy to forget just how badly Batman & Robin damaged the franchise eight years before director Christopher Nolan came along and treated the material with the respect that it deserves.
This film is a true origin story for Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), who finds a mentor in Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson) and a place among the League of Shadows. However, Bruce refuses to embrace the League’s lethal tactics and only manages to save Ducard’s life in the ensuing fight. Bruce subsequently returns to Gotham City and creates his Batman persona, only to discover that Ducard isn’t the man he thought he was. The plan to destroy Gotham from within may be too big, even for Batman to stop.
Watch Batman Begins on Hulu.
