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Why do action-type movie have to be so loud? You are caught between a rock and hard place I find. If you turn the volume down you can't hear the dialouge. If you turn it up hear the dialouge, the explosions and such are way to loud. Is there a solution to this problem?

Gunshots and explosions are much louder than even sound reproduction can reproduce. And loud is exciting.

That said, the better the sound system, the louder you will be able to play it without listener fatigue and audience complaints.

I run an art house and my audience doesn't like it too loud. I run just a bit lower than the commercial theatre in town. My audience appreciates it. Although if I am listening to a film with them, I will sneak upstairs and push the volume up just a bit.

If you are serious about reducing the volume in your theatre, here are a couple of tricks. When the theatre is having its b-chain, ask the technician to lower the subwoofer by about 3 db.

Then, and I cringe to tell you this, Smart makes a bandwidth limiter or compressor called the afterburner that will boost the low volumes and attenuate the high volumes. I find the whole idea abhorrent.

http://www.smartdev.com/aft.htm

Many feature mixes are very "dynamic", especially for action films. I agree with Ian that a good, well-tuned sound system will help reduce the shrillness and distortions that can wear on the ears.

Interestingly, the loudness of trailers is now regulated by TASA (received an Academy Award of Commendation in 2001), but those making feature films have resisted any attempt to regulate sound levels:
http://www.geocities.com/ps971100/technical.htm
http://www.thx.com/mod/services/tasa.html
http://www.boxoff.com/issues/feb01/tasa.html
http://www.mpaa.org/jack/2001/2001_05_09.htm

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Customer Technical Services
Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Eastman Kodak Company
Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Telephone: +1 585-477-5325 Cell: +1 585-781-4036 Fax: +1 585-722-7243
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Website: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

I use a commercial pro-sound product in my rack for the front three channels which is commonly known as a GC Leveler. It is both an expander and compressor. It functions as a boost to the softer passages in the film. You therefore don't have to set the overall volume quite so high and the leveler will boost the dialogue and softer passages so the audience doesn't have to strain to hear. It also serves to add remarkable clarity to horn driven older speakers systems such as the VOT A7's (I am using my own designed modified versions of these).