Forget Tom Cruise; Steven Seagal Is The King Of Weird Movie Running

At this point, we've all been made aware that Tom Cruise loves to show off his signature running style, bounding up and down exotic locales like a cyborg looking for a Starbucks to plug in his travel charger. But all Cruise's showboating has done is overshadow another icon of action movie sprinting, the stationary legend known as Steven "Puffy" Seagal.

Throughout his movie career, Steven Seagal has carved out a niche as the only action star who seems to hate any kind of physical activity. Even his martial arts style, aikido, is all about using his opponent's energy against him -- a form we assume Seagal chose because he has all the energy of a man who has never eaten a vegetable in his life. 

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Unsurprisingly, this mantra means there are only scant moments throughout his movies where the martial arts master breaks into the slightest of sweats. But some eagle-eyed fans have managed to assemble comprehensive montages of all the scenes where Seagal's coltish legs take off into a sprint, supercuts which clock in at under two minutes.

Many armchair sprinters have described Seagal as running "like a girl." This in no way accurately describes the action star's idiosyncratic form, a chaotic mess of stilted bounds that make him look like he's crapped his pants on set again. His feet barely leave the ground with every step; he sweats so much his lips curl up like a desiccated mummy, and his arms flop around with the desperate energy of a man trying to shake off an ominous tingle, all while the chaotic camera angles try to hide the fact that he's running at the speed of a geriatric T-rex trying to catch up with the other mall walkers. 

Steven Seagal is so bad at running ("How bad is he?") he can't even do it figuratively, having failed to run for office in two different countries. And before you start feeling bad for the goatee'd, rolly polly Steven Seagal we all know and dislike today; all of his running scenes happened when he was a blockbuster action star in the prime of his life. After only five years in Hollywood and some brief runnings-in with running in Above the Law and Hard to Kill, Seagal never chased a bad guy for another day in his acting career. 

In fact, he becomes such an inert action movie presence directors have let him stay perfectly still in every action movie he's been in since the late '90s -- probably aware they'd have to edit him jogging down a hallway like they did with 60-year-old Liam Neeson jumping a fence in Taken 2. No wonder no one has offered him a role in a decent movie for over 25 years – not even a walk-on part.

Cedric Voets wished he could run like Steven Seagal on a good day. You can find his lazy ass over on Twitter.

Top Image: Warner Bros.