Review of Last Action Hero (1993) by Stephen S — 19 Aug 2011

A hilarious Schwarzenegger film that is extremely entertaining. I remember seeing this when I was younger and enjoying it, and honestly, it holds up remarkably well. Last Action Hero is like a commentary on Schwarzenegger films, and 90s action films in general.

It points out and laughs at every action/cop movie cliche' you could possibly think of. That alone is incredibly entertaining, but the fourth wall references, as well as the dual stories occurring in the film and real worlds simultaneously, make this a really cool film.

It fails somewhat towards the end...the film Schwarzenegger having to protect the real Schwarzenegger is both confusing and stupid, and the abundance of unnecessary cliche's during the premiere sequence detract from the film in general.

..I can't tell if they're being serious, trying to needlessly promote the film, or just trying to clarify the line between cinema and reality (which gets broken yet again within a few minutes of this, so what's the point?).

Another element of the film's dropoff towards its end stems from the fact that the villain has this really cool idea to use the magic ticket to bring in villains from other movies to cause anarchy and mayhem, with the eventual goal of ruling the world.

This is a great new exciting idea, and the audience is drawn in with the promise of seeing bad guys from tons of different films...an idea that's almost uncomprehensively awesome. Yet, instead of doing this, the villain just monologues to Arnold instead of doing this, which, according to the film's storyline, would be incredibly easy; in the time it took to mention the villains he could probably summon them (yes, he even mentions famous baddies like Michael Myers and Freddy Kruger)! Maybe this is the film's attempt at showcasing another deliberate, mock-cliche', but this may just be an attempt to cover up lazy writing at this point.

This aside, Last Action Hero is thoroughly enjoyable overall, and I'd recommend it to anyone.