“While watching this with my partner, Poonmaster Flex (her anonymity-maintaining online nickname), Flex commented that she kind of loved this because nobody makes movies like this.
And I think what she means is, it’s kind of unusual to see a big budget movie that has such a frankly bizarre plot, but…it also kind of works.
Why was this movie a bomb at the box office?
Well, on the Hollywood side, directors/writers/crew say the movie was great, but it was also thrown together in about 5 weeks after shooting wrapped, which seems awfully quick for something on this scale. So maybe the plot and other aspects would’ve been tighter if the movie had a little more time. I tend to believe this because William Goldman and Shane Black were involved, and that seems like the perfect pair to do this, as well as a duo of writers who Hollywood could’ve listened to a little more.
But I think there’s more to it.
Because when you watch it, there’s a lot to love. The action set pieces are pretty great. The stunts are good. The explosions are there. It’s all there on the screen. Not everything is a home run, but that this is known as a bomb seems odd when it’s at the very least a solid base hit.
Terminator 2 is probably part of it.
That was the movie Arnold was coming off of before Last Action Hero, and I’d argue it’s the pinnacle and best example of an action movie from the era. It has everything. The effects, the action. When we talk about “perfect” movies, T2 is always in the conversation.
And Last Action Hero kind of makes fun of T2. In a loving way, but a significant portion of LAH is all about send-up of movies like T2.
I’m not sure if people wanted that in 1993. I don’t want to use the phrase “nobody was ready,” because that makes it seem like this is a more prescient movie than it is. I just mean that I think this movie would’ve been a lot better received if it came out in 1997, when people were a little more over the action movies of the late 80’s and early 90’s.
I mean, True Lies came AFTER Last Action Hero, and True Lies, while awesome, is in a pretty similar vein to the kind of movie Last Action Hero is mocking.
I think there are a few missteps as well.
Too much time is spent in the movie universe, and while I wouldn’t say too little time is spent in the real world, the proportion seems off. Because while we’re in the movie realm, we’re kind of just spinning wheels, waiting for a plot to start.
There’s also a very odd scene in the movie world portion: Arnold’s apartment in movie world is sad. There’s nothing in it, not a stick of furniture, nothing on the walls, and it’s RIGHT NEXT TO the highway. It’s a sad, pathetic apartment, and this doesn’t jive with what the movie presents us. He should definitely be living in a lavish apartment that a cop couldn’t possibly afford in Los Angeles, a Beverly Hills mansion or something, and we get a scene where everyone walks in and is like, “This place is a dump,” even though the kid is like, “This is the most amazing place I’ve ever seen.”
I also am not sure why we wouldn’t put Jack Slater back into the entry in the series where his son was killed. Give him a second chance to save his son. That seems like where you want to go, right? Or, like, we have the kid use the ticket again, and he rushes in and saves the other kid, something like that? I would put hard money on that being an aspect of this, and it got left on the cutting room floor.
The real world stuff is super fun, and it’s also…a little disappointing. I understand why it is the way it is, and at the same time, it would’ve been fun to see a little bit more fish out of water stuff with an action hero coming into our world. Seeing what kind of apartment he could afford, coughing when he smokes a cigar, not being able to run down a speeding car, shit like that. I think that’s where the balance is off most for me.
But I LOVED the part where Arnold says, “I never just talked with a woman before. It’s neat!” How great would it have been to get more of that kind of thing? I’m not big on the lessons learned in a movie, but I think we could’ve had a lot of fun with Arnold in the real world, kind of telling the kid how some things in the real world are much better, you know? You can’t survive explosions and shit, but there are pleasures and nice things about the real world that don’t exist in movies. “I like just sitting and watching people walk around. Everyone is so interesting. They are all doing something, like, they’re not just passing by in the background.”
Oh, and I wouldn’t have minded a few more trailers like the one for Hamlet. That shit was amazing.
The other bomb factor I could see: This movie is kind of hard to explain. You get 90 seconds or so to make a trailer…how do you explain it? It kind of comes off like trying to combine Top Gun and Hot Shots, which of course doesn’t really work.
Because the conceit is, admittedly, pretty stupid. But that’s okay, this is one of those movies where you just have to nod and accept the setup, and then go from there.
Look, Robocop asks us to accept that a human/machine hybrid is easier to manage and work out that one or the other. Jurassic Park brings dinosaurs back to life, and you just have to accept it to get to the movie (in fact, it’s got one of my favorite “fictional science explanations” of all time, where the characters are all on the ride, learning how things work, and we see just enough to get the picture, then they break the ride, get off, because they want to see dinosaurs. Because the filmmakers know we want to see fucking dinosaurs).
Last Action Hero is messy and imperfect, but it’s nowhere near the bad movie that it’s credited as being. It’s fun. It’s pretty good. And especially, in the post-action-movie-era of today, the jokes work, AND you can appreciate the action sequences for their level of bombast and craft. They’re ridiculous and over the top, and if nothing else, the filmmakers came up with the perfect way to do over the top action sequences. THEY MAKE SENSE because the whole point of the movie is that action movies are ridiculous.
If you’ve never seen it, and you have a love for 90’s action, I think you’ll like it. Are there better movies out there? Totally. But you could do a lot worse on a movie night.”