In the summer of 1993, Last Action Hero was released to financial disappointment (being released one week after Jurassic Park didn’t help) and critical distain. The movie was helmed by John McTiernan, who’s no stranger to the action genre (making classics like Predator & Die Hard) and starred Arnold Schwarzenegger; hot off the success of Terminator 2: Judgement Day.On the outside looking in, Last Action Hero appears to be an overblown dud that marked the decline of Schwarzenegger's appeal as a box office draw. Still, the movie has developed a cult following over the years and has been praised for its satirical look at the action genre. So is Last Action Hero a good movie? I lean towards "Yes" but I do think the movie has some issues that prevent me from listing it as one as my personal favorites.I'll start with what I liked. The parody/satire stuff is pretty good. Having Arnold Schwarzenegger as token action hero Jack Slater is like putting peanut butter and jelly together. It's just too perfect. Not to mention the ridiculous one-liners delivered by a true master of his craft.Plus, the Danny character (while not a very compelling or memorable character), gives us a lot of meta commentary such as Slater not being able to curse since the movie is rated PG-13 or how Slater's ex-wife isn't in the movie because her name wasn't in the credits. I also liked how Danny pointed out other roles actors in the movie have been in like how F. Murray Abraham was in Amadeus and he "killed Mozart."There's just so much fun to be had in the "movie world" like cameos from Sharon Shone as Catherine Tramell from Basic Instinct to Robert Patrick as the T-1000 from T2. Ian McKellen is also in here as Death from the Seventh Seal. There's also Stallone apparently being cast in all of Arnold's movies and the fact that every woman in action movies looks like a super model, including video store employees. Not to mention there's a scene where Jack Slater meets Arnold Schwarzenegger himself (alongside his then wife Maria Schriver) at a movie premiere and they exchange some humorous dialogue.Still, I have my problems with Last Action Hero. The movie feels too long and while a lot of the parody stuff is cool, the "movie world" still doesn't seem to be as stark of contrast as the real world. Granted you have weird stuff like the animated cat cop voiced by Danny DeVito but I feel like this movie needed a little more polish, a little more work. The concept is great but I don't think McTiernan or screenwriter Shane Black managed to fully stick the landing. Still an intriguing watch for action movie fans.What do you think of Last Action Hero? via /r/movies https://ift.tt/3s0SPdz
No comments:
Post a Comment