Hold onto your golden tickets, because Last Action Hero is (probably not) the Greatest Movie EVER!
Click on the movie poster or the title above to download our review of the film, featuring shameless Last Action Hero apologist, Sean ‘Hollywood’ Hunting.
Review in a Nutshell: Part meta-narrative. Part satire of violent Eighties action movies. Part heart-warming children’s film. Last Action Hero is a film with an identity crisis.
The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast 
Oh my god, Paul Chapman, you are NOT bashing this movie! I will hunt you down and Macho Man elbow drop you into oblivious. Last Action Hero is secretly one of the greatest comedy films of all tiiiiiiiime!
I knew someone was going to side with Sean on this one. Listen to the podcast before posting!
This movie should be used as torture in Guntamino
I’ve got a real love for this movie. There’s a real charm to it, and Arnie takes to the role well. It’s in a strange transition period in action movies, where the overblown 80s movie was dying out, but itvwas some years before the more intelligent summer blockbuster takes place. Many, many years in fact.
I remember this film being – disappointing. Like DEMOLITION MAN, there was enough good in it that you wished they’d just gone an extra step or two further, and done the kind of satire that the movie ultimately wimped out on.
The Last Action Hero wasn’t a big hit and it wasn’t done as seriously as it could have been but I really don’t see it as bad overall. I liked it and I was 22-23 when I watched it.
My favourite part is when the axe murder from the movie sees the nice straight laced successful actor who plays him. What I didn’t like was the over explaining of everything, not just the occasional joke.
The ticket was actually supposed to be Robert Houdin’s ticket, the magician who Houdini took his name. There are urban legends about him doing tricks with early projected images and had his own high class theatres. Supposedly they changed the name because nobody remembered how famous Houdin was.
A kids movie? Seriously? I can remember calling Last Action Hero several things when I saw it, but a film for kids wasn’t one of them.
I mean, by what measure was this supposed to be a kids film? Because it had a kid starring in it? That’s like saying Terminator 2 is a kids film because it starred Edward Furlong.
And it says a lot about the films of 1993 that Last Action Hero was nominated for six Golden Raspberry’s (including worst original song) but won none of them, this also being the year of Indecent Proposal and Boxing Helena.
“it says a lot about the films of 1993 that Last Action Hero was nominated for six Golden Raspberry’s (including worst original song) but won none of them”
No, it says absolutely nothing about the films of 1993 because the Razzies are the most culturally irrelevant thing ever for which the nomination or recipient thereof communicates precisely zilch regarding lack of quality. As always whenever anyone tries to dignify that tripe, I remind you that they nominated Kubrick for worst director for The Shining, and Al Pacino for worst actor in Scarface. Screw ’em.
Also worth repeating: ever since Paul started taking his screenwriting classes, his “is completely and totally wrong about the movie” percentage has jumped up from its previous 33% to its current value of 66%. For despite being one of Hollywood’s most massive fiascoes–the studio genuinely thought they’d beat Jurassic Park, which had also just come out–Last Action Hero is a fine film indeed. Thanks in no small part to Benedict, I saw this movie three times in the theater and own this: http://www.twitpic.com/8p5zs4
(if you must know, it was a gift, and one recently acquired)
Wow… I don’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree with Daryl. The Razzies are for people who think that popularity is a measurement of quality.
Paul, when you say, “Listen to the podcast before posting”, I know I responded pretty fast, butit’s not like I was twenty minutes into a two-hour deconstruction. Your podcast is only 40 minutes long. I could see where you were going.
Well before the end, I was already having flashbacks to your podcast for The Wizard, where you seemed to have inconsistent standards for nostalgia. The only thing we’re missing here is an epic Sean Hunting meltdown. (Funniest moment on the podcast ever, btw.)
I also agree with Daryl. The Razzies are at best an amusing anecdote; you can’t really use them as any kind of metric. There are plenty of Razzie nominations that I think are flat out wrong or even spiteful.
Nostalgia is by nature inconsistent. The only quality that makes something “nostalgic” is “I experienced this when I was younger”. You have to get away from that feeling if you want to talk about whether you think a film is good or not.
As for listening to the post before podcasting, it was physically impossible for you to have listened to the entire thing between the time I posted it and the time your first comment appeared, Neil. All I ask is that you listen to the whole thing before rushing to comment. Yeah, I still don’t like Last Action Hero, but I think the discussion was nuanced enough to take a careful look at the film and why it does or does not work. It did get pretty heated at one point; I cut out the boring bits that were basically just Sean and I going in circles making the same arguments for like nine minutes straight. The original recording was over an hour and six minutes long.
I think i prefer Charles Dance in this over Alan Rickman in Die hard.
He’s the kind of character that makes you forgive alot of problems in a movie. The sheer number of quotable scenes whit him is probably the films strongest point.
Also, someone needs to photoshop Sly into the poster of every Arnie movie ever made. Including Hercules in NY.
This came up when Projection Booth reviewed LAH, and here it is again. I had no idea this movie had defenders. Granted, I skew older than some of you and was in college when I saw it, but I thought this movie was just dreadful. Unfunny and unexciting. “Don’t shoot me. I’m Danny Madigan. I’m a kid!” is the stupidest line of dialogue ever.
It was still better than Ultraviolet though
Stage magicians?
DOUG HENNING!