Movie explosions need blasts from past

There was once a simpler time, a dumber time, when a heavily armed, monosyllabic hero could single-handedly crush a sizable nation. When explosions mattered.

Well, good news. The ’80s action film is having another moment in theaters these days: “The Expendables,” “The Other Guys,” “Predators,” “The A-Team,” “MacGruber.”

Each suggests a yearning for a louder day, when a film’s worth was valued by its booms.

The movie explosion has fallen on hard times. Computers do it cheaply. Blasts are devalued.

But remember when an explosion could be stunning? With the Fourth of July here, it’s time to honor a fading tradition with, yes, our favorite movie explosions:

• The house explosion in “Kiss Me Deadly” (1955). A suitcase opens, a woman screams, a light glares, a woman catches fire, a house explodes.

• The nuclear explosions in “Dr. Strangelove” (1964). Slim Pickens famously rides an H-bomb, cueing “We’ll Meet Again.”

• The Death Star exploding in “Star Wars” (1977). Even better is the half-second of anticipation before it happens.

• The gas station exploding in “The Birds” (1963). A man is attacked while pumping gas, which flows over to a fellow striking a match.

• The military base exploding in “Commando” (1985). Ah-nold pulled the trigger. Who cares if everything looks made of balsa wood (and probably was)?

• The napalm drop in “Apocalypse Now” (1979). Jaw-droppingly big. But Robert Duvall does love the smell of napalm in the morning.

• The exploding fat man in “Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life” (1983). He can’t eat another thing. He eats a mint (it’s wafer thin) anyway.

• The shark exploding in “Jaws” (1975). Roy Scheider squints, takes a final shot at the oxygen tank in the fish’s mouth. One word: chunks.

• The exploding FBI helicopter in “Die Hard” (1988). Or as the deputy police chief quips, “We’re going to need some more FBI guys.”

• The concluding rooftop explosion in “White Heat” (1949). James Cagney empties his gun into propane tanks, shouting “Top of the world!”

• The bridge exploding in “The Bridge on the River Kwai” (1957). Shot, Alec Guinness slumps sideways and falls on the detonator. The movie’s bridge took eight months to build.

• Robert DeNiro exploding on Joe Pesci in “Raging Bull” (1980). Bobby strolls through the apartment, grabs Joe, tosses him through a window.