"Last Action Hero" (1993), Dir: John McTiernan
$70,000,000 in Budget vs. $49,946,994 in Gross
I used to watch this movie all the time. Re-watching it, I can't remember why. When the original writers of Last Action Hero couldn't properly imitate Shane Black's witty writing style, what started out as a spoof of Shane Black action movies (Lethal Weapon & The Last Boyscout) actually became a Shane Black action movie. That and Shane Black and John McTiernan (Die Hard & Predator) were in need of work, so why not spoof the genre they made famous? And make it for kids!
The movie opens as your typical 80s Schwarzenegger film. There's a hostage situation with children in the hands of an axe-wielding psychopath. (That's how they all were, right?) Suddenly, the scene goes completely out of focus and turns out to be a being played in a rundown, near-empty movie theater.....Stealing the plot-line from The NeverEnding Story, Last Action Hero is about an inner city kid who through f@$%ing magic gets sucked into an Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie. Its an appealing idea, but much darker than expected for a kids' movie.
Its first ten minutes takes place in the bleak reality of Danny's world where he spends most of his days in a dingy movie theater. Danny has no friends, no father, and is a constant disappointment to his overworked mother. And to emphasize how crappy Danny's life is, they even have a scene where he gets robbed at knife-point. The robber handcuffs Danny to the toilet and forces him to go fishing for the key... Now, how is this a kid's movie? The first fifteen minutes is the stuff of urban nightmares: psychotic murderers, crime-ridden neighborhoods, heart-wrenching poverty... Sweet Jesus. Is Danny addicted to heroine too?
So after a visit to the police station, Danny neglects the detective's advise to go straight home and wait for his mother, and goes to the theater instead to see the new Jack Slater movie (Arnie's character). There, he is bestowed by Nick, the old projectionist, with a magic ticket... Now, let's discuss the magic ticket for a second. Danny is regaled with the story of how Houdini gave Nick this ticket back when Nick was a child, and Houdini claimed to get it from "the best magician in India, and [that] he got it from the best magician in Tibet."
Harry Houdini was an active magician between the years 1891 - 1926. The first ever Indian film released was Shree pundalik, a silent film made in 1912. But, prior to forming The Indian Cinematograph Enquiry Committee in 1927, the few Indian production companies there were only produced on average ten films a year (and most weren't over 30 minutes long). So Indian film probably wasn't recognized internationally yet. Also, there is no mention of Harry Houdini having traveled to India when he was actively performing magic. This doesn't disprove that an Indian Magician gave Harry Houdini the ticket, just that it could not have been a ticket for an Indian film being as their industry was barely in existence yet. Also, Harry Houdini would have already been dead by a year by 1927.
So the ticket must be for an American movie. The first public exhibition of a moving photographic image was at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City in April in 1896, meaning movies were playing by time Harry Houdini was actively performing magic and prior to his death. So it's plausible that Harry Houdini might have seen a movie or several movies in his time, but due to the inherent racism of the era, I doubt any Indian Magicians would have been in an American theater with him. Also, Harry Houdini was a Jew, so his chances of seeing a matinee weren't so great either. But hypothetically, say that this Indian Magician and Harry Houdini got turned away at the door for the same movie. That might prompt the Indian Magician to give Harry Houdini his unused ticket... But to what purpose I am not sure...
Then there's this so-called Tibetan Magician. As far as the Tibetan Film Industry goes, try looking it up on wikipedia. You'll come up with nothing. The ticket would not have been for a Tibetan movie because there are and never have been any theaters in Tibet. And the Tibetan Magician probably would never have seen a movie theater before in his life, so would he even know what it is?
Then, of course, the Tibetan Magician would have to buy a ticket, not use it, then give it to the Indian Magician, who would not use it, then give it Harry Houdini, who would also not use it... You know what? I don't think Shane Black did any research into this claim. I think he just said "Hey, Houdini did magic and India sounds magical. How about we just put those two together? Then audiences will buy it! And for good measure, throw some Tibet in there too. It's mysterious." As Chief Wiggum said, "Magic Ticket my ass." Magic Ticket my ass indeed, Shane. Shoulda stopped at "I got the ticket from Harry Houdini. That's it."
Anyways, in the film's film-within-a-film, Jack Slater is caught in the middle of two powerful mobsters joining forces. First thing they do is kill Jack's favorite second-cousin Larry. Then a hit squad comes for Jack, throwing dynamite from a moving car. One of the TNT bundles comes straight off the screen and rolls down the theater aisle towards Danny. Questioning his reality, Danny runs for it - KA-BOOM!
Suddenly, Danny finds himself smack in the middle of the Jack Slater movie, experiencing all the action and AC/DC soundtrack close-up. (Click here for another gem with an AC/DC soundtrack.) But, from Jack's perspective, Danny has unexplainable knowledge about his world and personal life and becomes an asset to Jack and his current situation. Well, that settles it then. Jack's angry police makes Danny Jack's partner... Yep. That's realistic. It worked in Dick Tracy.
The intentions with this movie are very clear, just misguided. The producers wanted to tap the Arnold Schwarzenegger who had made audiences laugh with the hit comedy Twins, but thought it would be funny to spoof the hard-nosed action career that made him famous. Unfortunately, they didn't realize comedy wasn't a natural thing for Arnold. When Arnold killed somebody, slipped in a one-liner, and managed to get some laughs, was it because the audience actually thought he was funny? What was funny about Arnold's one-off's was how wrong they were. Murdering someone and making a joke about it is funny, but not for a kids movie. Imagine if PeeWee's Big Adventure suddenly turned into Natural Born Killers... Actually, that would be pretty great.
But it all just raises the question again of who this movie is really for? When you got a kids going to see a self-referential Arnie movie, in which Arnold kills lots of people, in a cartoonish PG fashion, and you got a whole lot of cameos (Sharon Stone, Robert Patrick, Pam Anderson, Odd Job, Jim Belushi, MC Hammer, Little Richard, JCVD, Tom Noonan) for movies that were rated R, and that kids couldn't even get into the theater to see, who is this movie really for? I've deduced that it's a film for kids who managed to watch movies they shouldn't have seen. We all were those kids, but Last Action Hero waters down the violence and grit to the point of losing the guilty pleasure action movies give the audience. And just because you add an animated cat in the movie voiced by Danny Devito in the mix doesn't make it a kids movie. Cool World had animated characters too.
That all said, some of the adult humor is quite funny. The most clever scene in the movie takes place in a Blockbuster Video where Danny questions the logic of movie phone numbers and how they all seem to start with 555. "How can everyone have a phone number with 555 in it?" Arnie brings up the crippling point, "That's why we have area codes." That was pretty funny, but kids won't get that. Neither will they get the joke when the real Arnie is at the Jack Slater premiere and his former wife Maria Shriver tells him not to plug his restaurant. That was pretty funny too, but I actually went to Planet Hollywood and that was no joke.
With a running time of over two hours, this movie is far too long, definitely losing steam by time the villains enter the real world and Danny and Jack go after them. Why the villains would even want to leave their fantastical movie world for a bleak, depressing reality I'm not sure. The villain Benedict says that he could open gates for other movie villains to enter the real world, but wouldn't he have already done that by now?
The movie was nominated for several Razzie Awards, but won none of them. It's not terrible. It kind of just falls into that era of Family Friend Arnold Schwarzenegger followed by Junior and Jingle All The Way. Of all those movies, this is probably the best one or maybe the least embarrassing. For those reasons, it's worth watching.
For your viewing displeasure, Danny's entrance into Jack Slater's world...
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