Back in the Nineties Robert Altman released a droll Hollywood satire called The Player about a murderous studio executive, and included towards the end a parody action movie with Bruce Willis. A couple of weeks later Altman ran into the producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who told him he'd seen The Player and liked the Willis parody. "That's where you went wrong," he said. "You should have made it for real," he advised Altman. Bruckheimer's made them for real for decades: Top Gun, The Rock, Con Air, Pearl Harbor, and franchises, franchises, franchises - Beverly Hills Cop, Bad Boys, Pirates of the...