Classic Movie Review: 'Last Action Hero'

Last Action Hero (1993)

Directed by John McTiernan

Written by Shane Black, David Arnott

Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dylan O'Brien, Charles Dance, Anthony Quinn, Mercedes Ruehl, Tom Noonan

Release Date June 18th, 1993

Published June 19th 2023

In the history of Hollywood debacles, Last Action Hero has quite a reputation. With massive budget overruns and egotistical executives pushing for an extremely misguided schedule and release date, Last Action Hero was a doomed and cursed production. Having began life as a parody of Arnold Schwarzenegger style action movies, the film had to be radically retrofitted when Schwarzenegger chose to star in the film. No longer could the star be the subject of the jokes, he was now the one making the jokes. With Schwarzenegger aboard, the original screenwriters were booted in favor of Shane Black and David Arnott who were tasked with solving a tricky tone of meta-humor and action movie tropes.

That a movie vaguely watchable came out of the mishmash or rewrites and revisions, that included something like 7 writers, including rewrites by William Goldman and Carrie Fisher, on top of the original duo of Zak Penn and Adam Leff. Both the director and star each offered insight on the script and well, you know what they say about Too Many Cooks? Yeah, way too many cooks took their turn in trying to boil up a workable version of Last Action Hero and the result is a bland, tasteless, pile of gruel, a little salty thanks to Schwarzenegger's star power, but mostly a forgettable and moderately distasteful meal.

The concept is really the only thing anyone seemed to like about Last Action Hero. In the plot, a 12 year old boy named Danny Madigan (Austin O'Brien), receives a magical movie ticket as a gift from his friend, Nick the Projectionist (Robert Prosky), who has gifted Danny a preview showing of the new Jack Slater movie, Jack Slater 5. Jack Slater (Arnold Schwarzenegger), is an action movie hero in an action movie universe where he's an indestructible action machine who kills bad guys and cuts mad quips at their expense, all while rock music plays on a loop.

It's everything an adrenalin fueled 12 year old could want, bullets, babes, bad guys, and our hero always wins in the end. This Jack Slater adventure however, is going to be a little different. Thanks to Danny's magic ticket, Danny is transported inside the movie. After dynamite seemingly blows up the movie theater, Danny wakes up in the back of Jack Slater's car, mid-car chase and shootout. Slater is as surprised as Danny to find a young boy in his back set, but that doesn't stop him from finishing off the bad guys and finishing the action scene.

From there we explore the world of Jack Slater with Danny as our audience surrogate. All the while, Danny tries to convince Jack that they are in a movie in a series of jokes that diminish in comic returns each time. When Danny starts telling Jack that he saw the bad guys set up Jack's favorite second cousin Frank (Art Carney), Jack starts to take Danny seriously, a little bit. Things ramp up when the baddies realize Danny is on to them and the evil Mr. Benedict comes into possession of Danny's magic movie ticket and takes the chance to escape into the real world.

The attempts at satire in Last Action Hero are deeply hit or miss. There are funny ideas like Jack switching out mini-disks of rock songs during a shootout and a cartoon cat who provides back up to Jack, voiced by the beloved Danny Devito. But, for every inspired idea there is another thudding bore of an idea. Most egregious a running gag about Jack's screaming, swearing, lunatic police captain, played by Frank McCrae. The first time his bellowing angry scream for Jack Slater breaks his office windows, it's cute. Then the overbearing gag becomes deeply obnoxious.

Then, there is the Leo The Fart portion of the movie. This labored fart gag lasts for about 20 million years. The character of Leo the Fart is a gaseous gangster who was recently murdered. His funeral is set to be turned into a bloodbath by Mr. Benedict after he stuffs the corpse full of nerve gas. This exists to allow for Schwarnegger to say the line "Leo the Fart is going to pass gas one last time." And it exists for the lame visual gag of Dance starting the timer on the bomb by pulling the corpses finger. These aren't terrible jokes, they are just rendered obnoxious by the contextual obviousness and poor delivery of the gags.

I'm not prudish about a good fart joke but when that joke goes on for ages without having been particularly funny or necessary to the plot, it becomes hard to enjoy. That's really Last Action Hero in a nutshell. Tediousness sets in as the mechanics of the plot click through taking Jack into the real world, a gag where he meets Arnold Schwarzenegger and insults him, and a final showdown that mirrors the movie within the movie. Somehow, a very original premise arrives at a spectacularly predictable finish without any kind of interesting twists on convention.

As with many 1990s movies I have written about lately, the behind the scenes story of Last Action Hero is far more interesting than the movie itself. The drama surrounding the script, one producers insistence on a doomed release date, one week after the record breaking box office debut of Jurassic Park, and a movie that was not fully completed until two weeks before it had its gala Hollywood premiere. Even the premiere is more interesting than the movie as everyone in attendance slowly became aware of the expensive dud unfolding before them while Jurassic Park tore up the box office next door.

Perhaps the best, and most symbolic failure of Last Action Hero came when executives made a deal with NASA to send Last Action Hero to space. The studio paid NASA an ungodly sum of money to put the image of Schwarzenegger as Jack Slater on the side of a rocket set to be shot into space not long before the film release. The rocket malfunctioned and the mission was delayed and then scrapped after the film had come out. NASA did not give the money back. A rocket failing to launch via a massive malfunction could not be a more apt metaphor for this would be blockbuster, Last Action Hero.

Last Action Hero is the subject of an episode of the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast spinoff, Everyone's a Critic 1993. On this show, myself, along with co-hosts, teenager M.J and Gen-X-er Amy, watch the movies of 1993 in chronological release order. Then we chat about the movie and how movies and popular culture have changed over the past 30 years. You can listen to the Everyone's a Critic 1993 Podcast on the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast Feed, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Find my archive of more than 20 years and nearly 2000 movie reviews at SeanattheMovies.blogspot.com. Find my modern review archive on my Vocal Profile, linked here. Follow me on Twitter at PodcastSean. Follow the archive blog on Twitter at SeanattheMovies. Listen to me talk about movies on the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast. If you have enjoyed what you have read, consider subscribing to my writing here on Vocal. If you'd like to support my writing, you can do so by making a monthly pledge or by leaving a one time tip.

New offer: I am now accepting requests for movie reviews via my Ko-Fi account. For a $10.00 donation, I will review the movie of your choice. I cannot promise a positive review, but I will make it as entertaining and informative as possible. All donations will go to support my book project, Horror in the 90s, an exhaustive history of the horror genre in the 1990s. I've already begun writing pieces for the book that I have been serializing on Horror.Media. But I cannot finish the book without support. Make a donation to Horror in the 90s on my Ko-Fi page or here on Vocal and I will give you a shout out in the book when it comes out. Thanks!