LAST ACTION HERO (1993)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
(Originally viewed in 1993 - why did I see this in a theater?)
Overbudgeted, useless, unimaginative and crude to the nth degree. The description is so apt for "The Last Action Hero," a truly moronic piece of garbage that stinks and spews vomit. Yes, it is that awful. Released in 1993, the film was doomed to be a fiasco. But not even action director John McTiernan can make any sense of the horribly boring story he has to direct. When the formidable and once exciting director of "Die Hard" can't even keep the audience awake, you know you are watching a vanity production of the worst kind.
The premise is promising. Arnold Schwarzenegger is the action movie hero, Jack Slater, whom a young kid named Danny (Austin O'Brien) loves. Danny has seen the Jack Slater flicks numerous times, and can't wait to see the new installment, unoriginally titled "Jack Slater IV." Danny's only friend is Nick (Robert Prosky), a ticket usher who gives the boy the opportunity to see a sneak preview of the latest Jack Slater flick, thanks to a "magic ticket." All fine and dandy, until at some point, Danny is magically inserted into the adventure in "Purple Rose of Cairo"-style. We learn in the movie world that obscenities cannot be uttered, that all phone numbers start with the prefix "555," and that teenage girls can deliver kung-fu kicks with style. We also see glimpses of Sharon Stone in "Basic Instinct" mode and Robert Patrick from "Terminator 2," not to mention an animated feline and "48 HRS.'s" own Frank McRae as a similarly loud lieutenant. Eventually, the plot requires Danny to take Jack Slater into the real world, which is of course so different from the movies. And wait until Jack discovers he is played by Arnold Schwarzenegger!
The postmodern concept is terrific in hindsight, particularly in focusing on the tired shenanigans of your average police action thriller. Director McTiernan and screenwriter Shane Black unwisely choose not to exploit the concept for what it is worth. The attempt is to deconstruct the cliches of the action movie genre, but "Last Action Hero" has no sense of fun in doing this. Gags are thrown at you, left and right, but mostly we are saddled with explosions galore and endless fight scenes with no pacing or style. It is as if the director was tired of the genre and showed how tired he was by making every scene as flat as possible.
Worse still, the movie does not make enough of a distinction between reality and fantasy. And when we learn that the magic ticket can bring any character out of a movie into the real world, it does not exploit its own clever conceit. We get the chess-playing Death from Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" leaving for the real world, which is not as funny as it sounds since it arrives as nothing less than a deus ex machina. How about those Universal Monsters, a dinosaur, Travis Bickle, or even the Terminator? No, "Last Action Hero" doesn't go the extra mile - it assumes its clever premise is enough.
The truth is this premise was handled with more wit and imagination in "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and Buster Keaton's own "Sherlock, Jr." Those films exploited the idea of reality vs. fiction and used it as a gimmick to tell a real story. "Last Action Hero" wrongly assumes that presenting an idea is enough without exploring it. It is saying something when the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man parading around New York City in the original "Ghostbusters" was both spookily funny and scary at the same time - qualities that would have elevated "The Last Action Hero" but it is too prideful to do so.
So we are further saddled with Anthony Quinn, Charles Dance and Tom Noonan as threadbare villains - the kind you may not find in an Arnie action pic. Austin O'Brien is a nice enough kid but with no distinctive traits outside of an obsession with Jack Slater. Mercedes Ruehl shows up as Danny's mother and has a nice scene with Arnie, but is barely given much to do. There are some curious homages to Laurence Olivier (including featuring Olivier's widow, Joan Plowright) and Hamlet, but nothing musters anything resembling a smile. The movie rings flat and antiseptic in every scene - I got the impression that nobody had any fun making this movie. And there is an inexplicable scene where Danny is threatened by some oily burglar in his own apartment building that leads nowhere.
"The Last Action Hero" was noticeably a troubled production with last minute reshoots at the 11th hour (and extensive script rewrites). It was designed as Arnie's own comment to the industry and to parents that he could make family-friendly pictures (Did anyone really want a family friendly PG-13 Arnie action pic?) It's as if he needed to apologize for making action films that emphasized the action, such as "Predator" or "Commando." From occasional missteps in his career to fun-filled action pics like "True Lies" to being Governor of California, Schwarzenegger has been on shaky ground ever since "The Last Action Hero." I think he should apologize for forcing us to endure it.
