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Amazon.co.uk Review
John McTiernan (The Hunt for Red October) imaginatively directs this action comedy, which is an interesting failure with some fascinating ironies that make it well worth seeing. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays both a character named Jack Slater--a fictional cop hero who exists only in the movies (ie, the movies seen by the characters in this movie) and the actor who plays Jack Slater in the real world (ie, in the movie we're actually watching). McTiernan's hall-of-mirrors effect is fun, though Last Action Hero never quite identifies itself as a pure action movie, science fiction, a kid's movie, or anything else. (The expensive film suffered at the box office as a result and was roundly criticised for this ambivalence.) What lingers in the memory, however, is Schwarzenegger, playing himself, being confronted by Slater for having created an alter ego for film in the first place. It's a provocative moment: how often have we seen a major star blatantly wrestle with his actor's legacy in this way? --Tom Keogh
Amazon.co.uk Review
Jack Slater is an action-film hero played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. An old projectionist (Robert Prosky, Gremlins 2: The New Batch) hands a magic movie ticket to Jack's biggest preteen fan (Austin O'Brien, The Lawnmower Man), and the kid steps right inside the latest Jack Slater film, becoming the actor star's sidekick in gunfights and car chases. But when Jack's nemesis (Charles Dance, Space Truckers) gets his hands on the ticket, the fight busts out into the real world and Jack (à la Toy Story's Buzz Lightyear) refuses to believe he's a fictional character. Director John McTiernan churns some nifty scenes out of this setup, although the fiction-to-reality shuffle is not as deft as in, say, Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, and the plot needs the kind of logic and discipline found in that classic when-worlds-collide film Back to the Future. Still, Schwarzenegger has moments of wit and smashing action, and we get a faux-movie trailer advertising an intriguing new shoot-'em-up: "Something's rotten in the State of Denmark--and Hamlet is taking out the trash! --Amazon.com
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enormous fun - why did the critics hate it?,
By Martin Turner "Martin Turner" (Marlcliff, Warwickshire, England) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)
This review is from: Last Action Hero [DVD] [1993] (DVD)
This is a piece of rumbuctious post-modern fun - Arnie satirising himself in a film which is cleverly plotted and just as cleverly executed.I enjoyed it in the cinema, I've watched it several times on video, and, as I write this, it's just come up on Cable and I find myself captivated again by the last half hour. So why did it get panned by the critics? To be honest, I don't really know. Maybe people like the idea of Schwarznegger as a plain talking, plain thinking, plain thumping action figure like Conan or the Terminator. My guess is that if Bill Murray had made this movie, it would have sat easier with the Hollywood machine. (By the way, great cameo from Bill Murray - "I'm not really a fan of Arnold...") In a lot of ways this _is_ Schwarznegger's 'Groundhog Day' - experimenting with the medium, challenging perceptions, generally just turning the world upside down. To be fair, this isn't in the same league. Nonetheless, Arnie is wincingly perfect as himself, embarrassing his partner while he plugs his own restaurants at a film launch. It leaves you wondering if the Governor of California really does have this much self knowledge. Maybe he does. Anyway, great fun, you can enjoy it on all kinds of different levels, and you won't be embarrassed to watch it with a four year old or a sixty year old.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Quick Reviews!,
By
This review is from: Last Action Hero [DVD] [1993] (DVD)
This is quiet an underrated movie, even amongst Arnie fans, and one which few people understand, or try to. Last Actio Hero is a spoof of action movies, primarily those starring Arnie and Stallone, ones which director McTiernen has made a living from: The films that have loose plots built around stunts, explosions, fights, and spectacular and over the top set pieces. That said, the action, stunts, and effects are good; the cast, especially Arnie, ham it up as much as possible, the cameo appearances are witty and accurate, and the plot is pretty clever.
Arnie plays Jack Slater, a ficticious cop/action hero who lives in movie land- a place where everything is super sized, and hyper real (a little punch in the gut of Hollywood). His daily routine, usually involving chasing bad guys, and wrecking huge portions of cities is disturbed- mid chase, by the mysterious appearance of a teenage boy called Danny. Danny is from the real world- our world, the world which gorges itself on the exploits of such larger than life characters as Jack Slater. Danny is just about Slater's biggest fan, and no-one could be happier than he to be meeting his hero for real. Slater, naturally is less than pleased. Danny explained how he was given a magical golden ticket which opens a gateway been the real world, and the movie world, and tries to convince Slater that his life is a movie. This leads to some inspired jokes about the film industry, and Arnie's own career- the 'I'll be back' scene and the scene where Danny tries to make Slater swear. Meanwhile, Big Bad (English) guy Benedict hears about the golden ticket, and sees the potential for chaos, and the psychotic Ripper plots more carnage against Slater. Tons of in-jokes make this an entertaining film, and I'll admit that's all it is. But that's all it is trying to be. There is no need to criticize it for lacking artistic merit, character development, internal meditations on life etc. It's an action movie, where the bad guys are supposed to die, cars are meant to explode when scratched, the good guy is untouchable, and it doesn't pretend to be anything else. The soundtrach, featuring AC DC adds to this thoroughly enjoyable throwback to 80's action classics. Extras unfortunately are light- a trailer, a music video, and a short featurette. The nineties was a revisionist time for movies, and this film was one of the best examples of the movement- self referential, self mocking, while pushing the boundaries of what was expected from the genre. A documentary discussing this and the making of, or a commentary or interview with cast would have been great.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Underrated film on an underspec disc,
This review is from: Last Action Hero [Blu-ray] [2010][Region Free] (Blu-ray)
Last Action Hero was Sony's big 1993 summer movie and up against Universal's Jurassic Park - and we know how that fight turned out.
Okay, so this film took a real beating in critical terms, but I still really enjoyed it and it's a great piece of entertainment, but due to the occasional violence in it, it ended up getting a 15-certificate which stopped it from appealing to the kind of 10-year-old kids we see in Danny (Austin O'Brien). As such, while it's great that it doesn't compromise, this means it also falls between two stools as a lot of adults will see a whiny kid and avoid it, while a lot of kids will want to watch a film where someone of their age becomes part of a blockbuster movie, but won't be allowed because of the age rating. Still, about the film itself, young Danny Madigan is a massive fan of action hero Jack Slater (Arnold Schwarzenegger playing a rather neat parody of his then-massively popular screen roles). He knows projectionist Nick (Robert Prosky) like a best mate and gets the chance to see the character's fourth outing before the general public do - and who wouldn't want to do that? Better still, Nick's a bit... well... odd isn't a kind word, but for some reason he has a magic ticket which Danny soon finds transports himself into the film itself, where Jack is doing battle against baddie Benedict (Charles Dance) and the heroine of the hour is Meredith (Bridgette Wilson). However, things change when the action ends up in the real world and consequences are soon felt, which provides an interesting twist to proceedings as well as comic effect, such as when Jack 'opens' a car by punching through the window and is surprised how much it hurts. The film is presented in its original 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio and looks well-detailed, but it's also a bit gritty against certain backgrounds and it seems a bit random in how it turns out. Still, it's certainly an improvement on a DVD and doesn't impact on the film too much, but it certainly could've been avoided. For the record, I'm watching on a Panasonic 37" Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player. The sound is in DTS-HD MA 5.1, although I only had access to it in DTS 5.1, and as you'd expect there's gunfire and explosions and it does a stirling job when these scenes occur. There's certainly no complaint there. However, when it comes to the extras, there is one big complaint - there are none. Why not? Another complaint goes to the cover. The original movie poster, which also featured on the video and DVD, shows a muscly Arnie swinging out of a movie screen with Danny under his arm. This one? Erm... well, look and see. It's rubbish. What on earth were Sony thinking? The menu mixes in a piece of music from the film with clips of the film. There are English subtitles plus 10 other languages, but the chaptering is ridiculous with only 16 throughout the 131-minute film. Film: 4/5 Picture: 4/5 Sound: 5/5 Extras: 0/5
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