In the past five years or so, budgets have risen and with it has come a mass of films relying on effects and stunts to pull in the crowds at the box office. Naturally, big budgets demand big returns, but how long will it be before the focus of a movie shifts away, possibly permanently, from characters, whether it's Mel Gibson's unstable Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon or Tom Cruise's superspy Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible.

Ethan Hunt is certainly a good example of the changes in film making. In Mission: Impossible, the movie was plot driven, with twists and turns, and whilst in hindsight slightly predictable, still dramatic and with a terrific ending. The ending itself features fantastic special effects, and with a little stretch of the imagination, you could quite possibly seeing it happen as the events unfold. Jump forwards ten years to the release of Mission: Impossible III, and you see that, whilst the movie at times is gripping and highly entertaining, special effects and stunts play a major role in drawing the crowds.

That is not to say that stunts and special effects are necessarily a bad thing; the scene in the first Mission: Impossible where Cruise's character abseils into a locked room at CIA headquarters possibly one of the most memorable movie scenes in the past decade. Yet critics were quick to attack it for having such a complicated plot for summer blockbuster.

The eighties and early nineties was the place to be for films that focused on plot that twisted and turns, and characters that were flawed and human. The aforementioned Lethal Weapon, with its grit, Gibson's terrific portrayal of the dark, unpredictable Riggs, and casting of two terrific villains in Mitchell Ryan and Gary Busey, brought in three times its budget, in addition to breaking even.

Die Hard is often considered one of the best action films of its era, reinventing the genre, and leading the way for movies such as Speed, The Last Boy Scout and Under Siege in the nineties. Again, there was little reliance on special effects or stunts, and it thrilled audiences worldwide.

Maybe directors aren't as adventurous as they once were? Die Hard director John McTiernan later went on to make The Hunt for Red October, Last Action Hero and then the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair around making two more in the DH franchise. Martin Scorsese is still making movies worthy of Oscar's, not that he seems to be able to win one, thirty years after the success of now-iconic Taxi Driver. And that's even before you consider Tarantino.

No, it's not the directors.

The nineties saw an surge in blockbusters which relied on the appeal of the stars themselves rather than the quality of the movies. One of the few exceptions to that is The Fugitive; with Harrison Ford on top form yet again as Richard Kimble. Ford's performances in the first (or should I saw last) Star Wars films and the Indiana Jones trilogy were fantastic, but nothing quite got close to his portrayal of Detective John Book in Witness, possibly his all time best.

Blockbusters such as Bad Boys, Armageddon and Terminator 2 drew in the crowds in greater numbers than ever before. This continued on into the twenty first century, with sequels to Bad Boys and Die Hard. But the magic that had been, the character driven plots that gripped audiences worldwide, had declined in favour of the spectacular stunts we now see.

They may not necessarily be bad movies; indeed, if the box office figures are anything to go by, they certainly aren't. They also see to the audiences' need to be entertained. Though at the end of the day, maybe Hollywood hasn't lost its way. Movie makes know what people want to see, and their accommodating that. Very few directors are willing to take a risk and defy the codes and conventions of the contemporary cinema goes.

They're dumbing down. And so are we.