Last Action Hero
Intended to be a paean as to why we all love going to the movies and watching mindless action films, this 1993 release was slammed by the critics when it came out and garnered less than impressive box office results, but has since endured over the years to at least become recognized as somewhat of a cult classic. They certainly had the balls to cast one of the biggest action stars of the era (or of all time) in Arnold Schwarzenegger to star as the lead character Jack Slater, and Arnold seemed to enjoy spoofing the conventions of the genre he made his name in. Unfortunately, Austin OāBrien as the kid who enters the movie world via a āmagic ticketā and gets to take part in Slaterās over the top adventures, comes off as pudgy, unlikable, and totally unappealing, seeming like a kid who failed miserably while taking cute kid acting classes and taking any viewer out of the idea of relating to him in any remote way. That being said, once you take the kid and his performance out of the equation, what we get is an enormously entertaining, action-packed thrill ride, coupled with a super-intelligent, well crafted script that seems to embrace the clichĆ©s with a brilliant irony right down to making a point in the dialogue that Slater should NOT trust a dirty cop played by F. Murray Abraham simply because he ākilled Mozartā (a reference to the actor Abrahamās Oscar-winning turn in Amadeus). The movie really kicks into high gear when Slater and the kid must travel to the kidās āreal worldā (where Arnold Schwarzenegger is the worldās biggest movie star) in order to stop the villains who have decided that killing Schwarzenegger The Movie Star is the only way to defeat Slater (since with Arnold dead there will be no more Jack Slater movies, natch), and the premise of a fictional movie character both finding himself in our world AND finding out that heās fictional (along with the proper psychological trauma) has never been played better in any other movie before or since. Admittedly, there is a smattering of bad supporting performances among the all star cast, from Art Carney looking completely lost as Slaterās ill-fated second cousin, to Frank McRae reprising his belligerent police captain from 48 Hrs (and Loaded Weapon) to the point of imbecilic stupidity, to Robert Prosky hamming it up ridiculously as the quixotic movie theater projectionist (and best friend of the kid), but we also get Charles Dance nearly stealing the show as the sharpshooter henchman who graduates to lead villain when he obtains the ticket and realizes the differences between his movie reality and our own (where the bad guys at least have a fighting chance to win), and Tom Noonan turning on the extra creep mode as another old rival of Jackās called The Ripper, plus about 20 or so cameo appearances from major stars, ranging from brilliant (in particular the two who walk out of the police station early on) to unintelligible (Van Damme) to just standing there in front of the camera for a few seconds (everyone else). The elaborate action sequences on display are mostly a joy to behold in their intentional ludicrousness, and of course a hard driving rock n roll soundtrack punctuated by the instant classic AC/DC song Big Gun makes this one that every fan of the genre should see, with the overall appeal coming from how much you can tolerate that damned kidā¦
8/10