Last Action Hero (1993)

Time has come around to be much kinder on Last Action Hero than it deserves. Every couple of years I decide “maybe this is the year I’ll finally see the merit of this film,” and then get stuck wondering how a movie directed by John McTiernan, written by Shane Black, and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger could have such little respect for the genre that made all of them huge names in Hollywood.

More than the insipid Arnold/child star anti-chemistry, that’s what sinks Last Action Hero: a basic lack of respect for the craft. Until Last Action Hero itself, Schwarzenegger had never made anything as low-rent as the Jack Slater films — they existed, obviously, and would become the norm after Jurassic Park, which came out a week before this, made it so that an action hero didn’t need 28-inch arms or a roundhouse kick to be successful, but the Slaterverse and the movie it exists within feel like the kind of thing Schwarzenegger should be bragging about having tricked Stallone into taking on, as opposed to a misfire from the team that made Predator.

That it’s possible to be so wildly disappointed before taking into consideration its other major character — a disillusioned kid who has seen so many movies that the fact that he’s been sucked into one leads him not to any sense of renewed wonder or awe, but to continuously, incessantly try to convince the main character of the franchise he loves more than anything that he’s just a figment of the imagination — really says a lot about how much Last Action Hero sucks. One must, however, salute the film for how much fodder it provided Arnold Schwarzengger soundboards of the early 2000s. Prank calls would have been a lot harder without it.