Last Action Hero: Arnold Schwarzenegger's Biggest Flop or a Secret Masterpiece?
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- Опубліковано 13 чер 2024
- Has any movie ever been as unfairly maligned as John McTiernan’s Last Action Hero? This 1993 Arnold Schwarzenegger action epic was hyped as the start of the next great action franchise in the summer of ’93, only for Arnie to run afoul of some pesky dinosaurs when it had the misfortune to open on Jurassic Park’s second weekend. However, the movie likely would have done fine at the box office were it not for the terrible buzz it received going into the opening. Hollywood declared it the most significant disaster since 1980’s Heaven’s Gate bankrupted a studio. All this is due to a few poor test screenings. In the years since its release, Last Action Hero, against all odds, has gone on to be remembered as one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s most beloved films, but why was it hated so much in the first place?
In this episode of Revisited, we dig into the movie’s origins as a dark screenplay written by Zak Penn that was heavily rewritten once McTiernan and Schwarzenegger got involved. One of the strikes against it, initially, was that it was Arnold’s follow-up to his biggest hit ever, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, so expectations were high. His fans did not like that he was again being saddled with a child sidekick (Austin O’Brien) and that it would be given a family-friendly PG-13 rating. Years later, folks can appreciate what the filmmakers were trying to do, with it being a knowing satire of 80s and 90s big-budget action movies, with Schwarzenegger’s Jack Slater a hilarious riff on the troubled cop archetype. Dig in with us on this episode of revisited (written by Cody Hamman, edited by Juan Jiminez and narrated by Travis Hopson) and let us know in the comments if you still enjoy Last Action Hero!
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I think The Last Action Hero is a massively underrated film. In many respects it’s like ‘Demolition Man’ in that it’s a film that wasn’t appreciated when it was out, but is now getting a reappraisal
Demo Man is one of my favorites too! Scary how a lot of what happens in Demo Man is happening now!
I hope Demolition Man gets a sequel. I still do.
Loved demolition man from day one.
no, Demolition Man didn't have a crappy child actor in it. movies are almost always worse when a child plays a major role. there are just too few capable of acting competently compared to the number of roles. plus they have a fixation on casting brown-haired white boys with certain hairstyles. it really limits things.
@@perfectallycromulent Bullshit
I loved how the villain discovered that murder in the real world didn’t result in immediate police response. “I shot him on purpose!” always gives me a chuckle.
"Hey, shut up down therre."
You just reminded me of that part! And Benedict was totally shocked to be in a world that was just as cold as he was. We're desensitized to it, but it totally blew his mind. Good writing through and through.
Benedict was a great movie villain.
My mate and I (still to this day) say... I just farted I did it on purpose... I said I just flatuated, and I want to confess.... shut up down there 😅
A movie ahead of its time. The moment the bad guy starts talking to the camera and the camera crew's reflection can be seen in the mirror....either the greatest stroke of genius or the biggest moment of zen ever caught on film.
"If God was a villain, he'd be me,".
I mean, if you only watch Hollywood blockbusters then yeah I guess it's a life changing moment or whatever
@@chickencharlie1992
@@jonathanfeldheim6554 I mean idk if it's the biggest moment of Zen ever caught on film, there are many films that are zenny. For example, "A Touch of Zen"
@@chickencharlie1992 IDK I mean, if I wanted a funny movie I wouldn't recommend Funny People, and if I wanted a scary movie ... you know where I'm going
I think it's genius. It played on all its own tropes and cliches. The moment he's firing his gun in the real world and runs out, realistically, after just the 7 or 8 shots and Tells Danny "Not one word... NOT ONE WORD!...." was hilarious. "My hand, it really hurts..." :D
The cars didn't blow up😁
Yeah, he didn’t run out of ammo, he was just shocked that shooting the car didn’t make it explode.
I saw this in the theatre in '93. Great movie. Very underrated. Action movie star in his prime makes fun of himself. Even the Simpsons made fun of it when Chief Wiggum said, "Magic ticket my ass McBain!"
And just like with the Broncos, fate would fix this film's reputation.
This really is one of the best Schwarzenegger movies ever made. It had heart, a really heartfelt message to it and was a lot of fun. It's a play on the genre and knows exactly what it is the whole way through, a really really smart movie.
This movie has really inspired me to eventually start developing my animated film ideas with its good humor, action, and meta moments.
if you read the original screenplay it was a deconstruction of action movies. the theater guy was implied to be the devil
@@toomanyaccounts yeah you know honestly I agree with the guy in the video that the projectionist Nick ended up being good instead of bad I think that was better.
Also I don’t, really know what the heartfelt message is unless it’s that your better off if your self-aware.
The message was that sometimes you can get caught up in fantasy so much that it hurts the ones you love. It's also about embracing reality and having a world to live in between the two instead of being consumed by only one. Even if real life is terrible and hard, you can still push through and become something or someone you want to be.
Mr. Benedict is one of the most underrated villians of all time
"I've just shot shot someone."
Cam't go wrong with Charles Dance
One of the movies I rewatched so much as a kid. The soundtrack really put me onto some good tunes
Hell ya i was acdc crazy after this
One of the funniest action comedy movies ever made, and also one of the greatest action movies ever made, as well.
This piece of art captured the 90s era of movie making. It can never be replicated or duplicated. It literally was in a league of its own. Watching this movie in theaters left me in awe as a kid. It really felt like you were part of the movie!
Such a great movie! I rewatched it recently and it holds up so well.
The sarcasm, self-awareness, fourth-wall-breaking and the plot which is both insanely over the top 80's action movie style, and pretty deep with the relationship between Arnold and the kid (bad with character names). It's a weird combo which shouldn't have worked, at all, but did so perfectly.
Same goes for The Last Boyscout, which is super underrated but an absolute gem.
Love Last Boy Scout
This movie has really inspired me to eventually start developing my animated film ideas with its good humor, action, and meta moments.
Charles Dance has the best line. "If god was a villain, he'll be me
>bad with character names
He’s Danny Madigan. He’s a kid.
@@DurkMcGerk 1. Cool profile picture
2. Who are you responding to?
One of the best Schwarzenegger movies overall, and definitely the funniest. The puns. The cameos. The off color jokes. The clichés. The whole premise of the movie. I laughed until I could barely breathe the first time I watched it. One of the more underrated movies ever, and I think that's mainly due to the crappy release and lack of exposure, even over time. So many people just never knew about it. When they do watch it for the first time, it's almost always "this is awesome ! How have I never seen this before ?!" Let's not forget the EPIC soundtrack. One of the best ever. Still one of my favorite albums. With so many total garbage movies that have made it big, it makes it that much more of a shame that this movie didn't get its proper due.
Such an underrated film and really was ahead of its time. One of my personal favorites from Arnold and it's a film me and my son bond over.
People just didn't understand it
@@jamesmorant1406 Agreed
Absolutely. The whole movie was a joke and so many didn't get it.
This movie has really inspired me to eventually start developing my animated film ideas with its good humor, action, and meta moments.
Isn't this being John malkavich or nick cage talent movie today
The part where Benedict didn't load one of the chambers on the revolver is a legitimate genius piece of cinema.
This movie has really inspired me to eventually start developing my animated film ideas with its good humor, action, and meta moments.
Cause here in this world, the bad guys can win.
One of my favorite parts of the movie. "Did you make a movie mistake? You forgot to reload the damn gun."
“Ha! Did you make a movie mistake! You forgot to reload the damn gun!”
@@tazinboor3913 no Jack, I just left one chamber empty.
I watched my parents old VHS cassettes. I LOVE this movie.
It's brilliant.
Not every beloved movie is reckocknized as a masterpiece at it's time.
A true masterpiece, I don't know where to begin with how complex the writing is for this film, imagine an actor seeing the character he plays in the same room with him, but has his own conscience, the idea of this is so beyond what we had seen on film, it's the same person but not the same person at the same time, wow! I've been a movie lover all my life, no movie has been more thought provoking, not even The Matrix, which is the only movie I've watched maybe more times than this, for different reasons of course, Arnold is the only one who could've made it work the way it did, the ultimate "character" that he is.
The characters reacting to things not in the script, giving the impression that there's no cameras filming them, that they are real people, with their own conscience, being able to think outside the lines written for them, like they're in another dimension, not on a movie set, when the kid talks about things in the movie, the characters can't understand how he knows this stuff, I could go on and on dissecting each actor/character relationship, but I'll just say again, a true masterpiece, a true work of art.
One of my top 10 movies of all time. We just weren’t ready to get meta on action movies at the time and poke fun at ourselves for liking them.
I wouldn’t say ready, more like unprepared. This movie really was perfect. We just didn’t realize what it was perfect AT. Demolition Man has gotten a fresh perspective because its content and themes are becoming more relevant, but this one is different. Its resurgence and reevaluation is due to us the audience finally being in on the joke.
This is literally my first ever favorite movie and I was only 3 or 4 when I watched it. I love this movie and it defined me and my childhood soo it means a lot to me. Lol It's my earliest memory's as a kid so I can't help to feel nostalgic about it. 🙂 Sorry I know it's cheesy it was just a huge part of my life! Kick started my love for action movies for sure. 😅
It's literally the same for me, every point. I've watched it countless time as a kid, at least 2 times a day. It's the movie that ignited my love for cinema and made me wanna be an actor thought it was brilliant then and as an adult it's just a timeless classic.
I saw this when I lived in Germany. Fun movie. Everyone loved it. I thought this was going to be another hit for Arnold. Then a few weeks later. I fly back to Oregon to visit family. And I was blown away to find out that Last Action Hero was a boy office bomb in America. And Jurassic Park was the blockbuster smash. Oh well.
I saw this when I lived in Germany also!
Hard to compete with JP during that time, but they made fun of that too.
I like Last Action Hero but of course Jurassic Park was the box office smash. It was an incredible achievement and a fantastic movie.
I never understood all the hate this movie got when it came out. I remember seeing it in the theater when I was in college, had a great time watching it, and came out thinking it would be a really big hit. I still like it a lot today!
Well Stacey, the rest of the comments seems to concur with your sentiment here. Looks like you’re in fine company indeed. 👍🏽✌🏽
A filmmaker once said it is bad if your film is behind in the times or ahead of it's time because audiences will deride it for being passe or shunning it because it is not being understood. LAH is strangely in the middle, but time has been kind to this actioner and I enjoy it for what it is an absurdly entertaining movie.
I was the same age as the kid in the movie when this came out and this one holds a special place in my heart to this day‼️
I really loved this movie. I remember how cool it was to see the regular life of an action movie star - like when he got home to his small apartment and killed an assassin in his closet so casually and how lonely and empty his life was away from the insane action scenes.
Definitely underrated, and not at all a bad movie. It's worth watching every couple years or so.
In 1993, I saw both Jurassic Park and the Last Action hero in the space of a weekend. The former was a silly kids movie with prehistoric animals and the latter was a misunderstood gem. One of my top three favourite movies with Arnie.
I watched it countless times on VHS and loved it back then. Watching it now it is pretty silly but still enjoyable. Charles Dance is amazing as Benedict, a performance that always stuck with me.
You described my situation perfectly. I was about the same age as Danny at the time, and my family even called me Danny back then. I was obsessed with movies like him, and I had fantasized about being able to do the same thing. This movie was one of my favorites and I I think it holds up really well.
This was my first movie ever seeing in theaters at 5 years old. I already loved action movies. All 3 Rambo films, Rocky terminators predator and this cemented my love for the genre even more. It really hit home with a boy who didn't have any father figure and looked up to action heroes for examples of strong male role models. The character of Danny was living out my fantasy I'm sure many fatherless young boys of teaming up with your favorite action hero💪
i will always stand by my opinion that this film was just too ahead of it's time, and had it come out in todays market, that loves anything meta, it would have been successful. the film is such a blast, and the script is so smartly written. it had a great cast, a great premise, has wonderful pacing and set pieces, and is insanley rewatchable. the movie deserves so much more love. it is truly a wonderful love letter to the magic of movies, and the love of the action adventure genre. im really glad it seems to have gotten a growing cult following in recent years. i mean, its really a movie lovers wet dream. which one of us wouldn't love to get sucked into our favorite movie, and join our favorite hero in a rip roaring adventure. there are so many great easter eggs and nods to movie history, and iconic film moments. god, i just love this film
I've always enjoyed the Last Action Hero since seeing it in theaters and buying the cd. I enjoyed the Meta Humor and sight gags. Alien 3 & this was my intro to Charles Dance.
same here
The soundtrack was great!
@@JoBloOriginals First....you are a Idiot and I hate you a EU big Brother 1986 Channel...
Now the real Fakt and but your lie orwen wells big Brother 1+1=18 bullshit...
1+1=2....the Film was great,and so many actors play later in Others Films or series. Like Dr WHO ,etc...
but how do you should knoew this ? Even the wirst z movie is better as you lie Channel...
The t 1000 ....all charactzer and ironice.....
Even Wonderfull...
To say this Film a Flop ....
Haha.....alle people i know Love Last Aktion Hero...
Because this Film ist great.
And 1+1=2.
So to make a Video Like this
Whit this title....
Blame you.... but what ever
Oh...the earth is round....Not flat....
@@JoBloOriginals Angry Again - Megadeth \m/
I loved this when it came out and would sing its praises to a mostly underwhelmed audience. I still love it today though I find when I speak to people about it its actually fairly fondly remembered by a lot of Arnie fans despite it being a flop back in the day.
Edit: I do acknowledge that nostalgia is definitely part of how I feel about this film but it was also one of those cases of me liking it back in the day despite the bad press. In fact Id argue that the bad press is part of why I liked it. My dad used to run a video store back in the day and when this came out we had both read the bad reviews but of course got it for the store anyway (it was Arnie) and when we watched it we were both surprised how good it was. It got such a panning we went in with super low expectations and were pleasantly surprised.
Here's the thing though. I've NEVER seen this movie before today. It works SO WELL because it plays with the tropes, wrote the playbook for pointing OUT the tropes, and it even has a real world that's all too familiar. Heck, all it's missing is people being seen making fires and the cops being hurt by New York's citizens. It's SCARY accurate. Like looking at the current times from an older perspective. It even has theaters being SHUT DOWN. I'm like dumbfounded at this movie.
I remember watching this over and over as a kid. The thought that I, as a fan, could actually get into the screen with the characters entraced me. A fantasy. I love this movie, and I always will. Even the flaws make it charming somehow.
If they can ever get VR to work properly, it could be made to happen.
I watched this movie a lot when I was a kid. Always loved this movie.
There are so many things about this movie that make it dope. How tf did this movie flop, it's got everything an 80's 90's blockbuster film needs, plus so much more. AND Danny's Reeboks were so sick!
I saw this movie in the theaters. I enjoyed the title sequence of the movie in a movie that I added my own version of it to the beginning of our family vacation video titled “Last Action Family Vacation” since I was going to college in a few months. I even used the same music from the movie soundtrack. I used my Mac LC to create slides of “bricks” and the titles that “exploded” by switching to the next slide. I setup the video cam, started the audio tape, and hit play on the app. I was very proud of my work. My brother thought it was funny (we saw the movie together) but my parents were very confused. I still have that tape somewhere…
For me, it felt like a bit of a good send off for Arnold's golden era with Terminator and Junior. It is highly underrated and ahead of it's time. It's a little existential as well with the implications of the actors more or less being responsible for the pain and suffering the characters would have to go through (besides the writers of course). It felt natural in a way. I would definitely recommend this to someone that h
My 5th favorite Arnold flick. Grew up on his movies and when this came out when I was 9, I thought it was the greatest thing ever. A movie about a kid being magically transported into an Arnie flick and going on adventures with him? Sign me up!!!
It's a masterpiece. Saw it in the movies back then and loved it.
I absolutely loved this film when I was a kid. I was 10 when it came out and I have watched this movie dozens of times over the years.
This movie is definitely one of my favorites! Arnold has always been sort of hero to me. As a kid I always wanted to have an adventure like this. I was born in the 80s so yeah.
Carrie Fisher? I had no idea haha!
This is genuinely one of my most favourite movies of all time. Just love it. Charles Dance is brilliant as the villain. It's still rather underrated.
I loved this movie as a kid. Was disappointed when I grew up and realized it was a "bad" movie
I saw this movie in theaters. And I loved it. I considered it to be an interesting sci-fi alternate reality take. And, as we call it today, rather "meta". I could tell what they were trying to do with it, and though there may be misfires, it worked for me. Especially given that there wasn't really anything like it at the time.
Charles Dance was fantastic in this movie. He reminded me of Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor in a good way.
And I still think about "how do you get to Carnegie Hall" as a traitor reveal from time to time.
I have no idea why it didn't do better at the box office. It was better than Eraser and on about the same level as Commando. It was better than Cobra (which took itself too seriously).
Was it just because it went up against Jurassic Park? I don't know. I didn't see either movie in the theater, but watched them both on cable many times.
Ngl. I liked Eraser. Robert Pastorelli was a great actor, was just thinking about him yesterday in this role & the one he played in TV’s Murphy Brown in fact.
RIP Mr. Pastorelli. You were taken from us far too soon.
I love Last Action Hero, the best! The problem is, some critics want to analise it from a point of view of God Father or something like that.
I only remember snippets of the movie but I also remember loving it back in the day.
2 decades later I was pretty baffled to read that it was deemed mediocre by critics.
Last action Hero wasn't that bad of a movie in my book. The whole idea of going into a movie or taking things out of one, would be an interesting idea for a TV Series.
Oh, for sure, a secret masterpiece. I have always wanted to see Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Hamlet since watching this movie lol
I watched it as a kid in the early 2000s and I loved it. I watched again yesterday and I loved it even more. I never would have imagined that it flopped in its day.
I loved Last Action Hero. Even back when I saw it in the movie theater at the time. I could never understand why it was a flop.
Arnold Schwarzenegger said in 1 interview how he felt this film’s failure was the beginning of the end of his film career
But didn't he do Eraser and True Lies after this movie??? Some of his best stuff.
@@Wyndamn his real decline began when he did Batman and Robin
@@rarevhsvault9975 now that I can't argue against.
@@rarevhsvault9975 that film is when people realize that Arnold can do wrong
One of Schwarzenegger’s best along with Jingle All the Way. 90s classics. I watched this on HBO countless times back then. I thought Last Action Hero was made pretty well, super Hollywood action flick. How can you not love the cheesiness? They got Arnold friggin Schwarzenegger, arguably one of the biggest and greatest action move stars of all time. Love this movie🎉
I love jingle all the way, last action was very publicised with no so good reviews. But i love this movie too, everytime i see it i love it even more
Who are you?! This is a crazy Arnie list
Tbh I don’t think this movie would’ve worked with anyone but Arnie so I’m surprise that it bombed
This is my favorite Schwarzenegger movie. Adds a "Twilight Zone" feel to it. It is my most watched of his movies - on VHS & DVD.
This was a kick ass of a movie, brings me back to the good old summer of the 90's vibe. I remember watching it with my girlfriends best Freinds brother. I remember him telling me that it was the last VHS movie you could copy to another VHS.
This has been one of my favorite Arnold films since I saw it in theaters back in 1993.
My other favs are True Lies, Predator, Twins, and Total Recall.
I think a lot people misunderstood this film. It's only watching it back now and realising the little details that make it. Excellent film. Thanks for the video!
It's not a hard movie to get
Always have wanted to see the original and/or Shane Black versions of the Script put to screen. It's far too late now, but some days I wonder what we could have gotten...
Are those scripts around for reading?
Personally I liked the movie and Arnold in it, I was used to see him as the Terminator, it was always* refreshing to see him in other roles, End of days 6 years later was special as well imo.
I'm aging myself here but I still remember the summer of 1993 movie season. It's heavily promoted as Sly vs. Arnold, the so-called box office "experts" all predicted that both Cliffhanger and Last Action Hero were going to be huge hits. No one predicted the biggest hits of that summer, Jurassic Park and The Fugitive, were going to be hits. I enjoyed Last Action Hero but it's an uneven and McTiernan was the wrong choice to direct the film.
One of the most entertaining movies ever, great music, great bad guys, great cameos, it is genius 🔥
Always regarded this as a masterpiece and one of his best.
This movie is so underrated.
Great movie, got to see there about 3 times in cinemas back in the day. The difference that is portrayed between the real world and the hollywood world is brilliance!
This movie is ahead of its time. It's funny, fast paced, has great dialog, great pace & full of action set pieces. And... its original.
Secret masterpiece! The metaness of it would work well today
Watched this a few months ago. Love it every time I see it.
I've been a fan of last action hero since I was a kid in the 90s and I NEVER heard anyone say anything but good things about that great masterpiece
I always loved Last Action Hero and True Lies for being able to blend comedy with a grade B action film plot. By not taking itself too seriously, it made the movie fun.
Masterpiece at its best
The movie wasn’t bad, it was alright. It had a lot of clever ideas and good parts, but there were still things which didn’t make sense like the animated cat, cameos from the T1000, Humphrey Bogart, and Catherine Tramell, and Death from Seventh Seal coming out of the movie
I'm on that boat too. People just chalk it up to the parody aspect, but unless this specific Jack Slater film was intended to be a parody itself (which the film didn't seem to make it be.) it really is nothing but surface level fluff that doesn't really make sense when his films have been played so straight. If I went into the movie world of Lethal Weapon, for example, wouldn't be expecting Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and a bunch of other WB properties just walking around at a big studio if you went far enough because nothing about the Lethal Weapon movie world makes sense to do that.
People praise Scream for satirizing the slasher genre but this did the same thing for the action genre imo. I grew up on this film as a kid and never knew it was a flop till I was an adult, i loved it. Its a secret masterpiece to me.
Claudius....*lighter flick. You killed my fada. Big mistake. 🤣💀
**That whole segment with Arnold as Hamlet is one of my favorites from any of his movies and as a whole LAH is criminally underrated. 💯
Last Action Hero is an underrated masterpiece
Last action hero was a totally underrated movie. I loved it! Plus it also had one of the best soundtracks to a movie of all time.
I'll answer the question for ya. Last Action Hero was a great movie that holds up 29 years later that combines fantasy and action and hollywood fan service references.
One of my favorites movies !!! So underrated ! One of Arny’s best performance !
Last Action Hero is a movie I definitely like. I'm not sure where it is on the rankings, but probably top 20 at least.
I would be a bit interested in a more serious take on the idea, namely the traumatic aftereffects of living through an 'action movie' experience. PTSD, long healing process from wounds (with physical therapy and possible acceptance that you'll never be 100% again, physically), etc. Like, a regular world human tossed into various over the top action movie scenes and are being compelled to advance the plot (for example, "If you don't, you'll cease to exist"), but unlike the movie characters actually have to deal with the consequences of surviving it, _if_ they survive it. Meanwhile, the action world people they're 'working with' are confused about this person's odd behaviour _"It's just a flesh wound, why are you screaming in pain?"_ or _"The bad guy is just down the hall that's totally not filled with obvious traps, why are you hesitating?"_
A greatly underappreciated movie. I loved it when it came out. The movie soundtrack helped move the picture. This type of movie spawned a lot of parody movies franchises like "Loaded Weapon", "Austin Powers", "Hot Shots", etc.
This movie introduced me to Ingmar Bergman, & although I didn't see his films until years later, I definitely knew of him because of this film when I did.
My high school was near Times Square so I was on my way home from school one day when they were shooting the "Jack Slater Premier" scene at the end. The cops asked me to walk an extra block or two to another subway station. I only heard the next day that they were shooting a Schwarzenegger movie and I was only a few feet from the hero of our youth.
Anyway, I saw the movie when it owned the next summer and loved it! I couldn't understand why it got such a lukewarm or even negative reaction from audiences. I rented out a number of times on VHS and DVD over the years and always thought it was a great parody of the genre (particularly how action movies were made in the 80s and very early 90s) and it's silly tone helped keep it light until they enter the real world. As a kid, I think I was 15 or 16 when it came out, its willingness to mock kept things joyful until you need them to turn dark when he enters the real world in the final third. It was especially cool for me as a New Yorker because most of those cool action movies were made in LA and Chicago. I think that was the first time Arnold did anything in NYC! I've heard from industry people that it's just so expensive to shoot movies here, and because the land masses are so small and crowded with people, trucks cars and so much construction (hey real estate is big in this town) that it's difficult to make an action movie here. It's why you are so many more dramas, comedies and independent films made here. Smaller productions don't need to stop traffic, hire stunt drivers or clear blocks for explosions. Anyway, years later, as an adult, I'm listening to the Radio vs The Martians Podcast and in their episode on this movie, one of the guys says it perfectly. This movie was meta before there was meta. There was always parody but in the 70s it was the comedy writer and director taking on action movie tropes in movies like Airplane. John McTiernan helped revitalize and redefine the genre with Predator, Due Hard and Hunt for Red October and now he was mocking it! It was just too much for the public to bear in an area where people still took this genre very seriously and sincerely. Most of the movie going audience at the time just wasn't ready for a movie that was a meta commentary on its own genre. They were probably expecting a straight action comedy starring the biggest action star in the world at the time and felt betrayed. I still love this movie and recently when it was on Netflix I watched it with him with my own kids. 14 and 12 and they loved it! When I tried to watch Terminator 2 with them, they weren't scared or anything, but they just thought it was unnecessarily violent and not fun. That's the set of eyes of a new generation on movies that we took very seriously in the 80s and 90s. How could you enjoy movies about rogue, ruthless police commandos robots that are just going around cursing at each other and hurting people? The last Action hero's time... is now!
The problem that the movie faced was that it opened against major blockbusters. It's a fun movie.
The movie was totally ahead of it's time. It was meta before meta was cool and poked fun at the absurdity of what the industry was becoming. And look where we are today - they were right!
I liked VHS life where everybody would go to Blockbuster Video and rent movies that were on the shelf. After VHS was over, DVDs took over for VHS on the shelf.
man your review makes last action hero sound like it was rally going somewhere special. Having the right director for this movie and not so many peoples pencils on the paper wouldve helped it so much.
Secret masterpiece, for sure. I was 10 when this came out and I was obsessed with it. The soundtrack was amazing too which furthered my interest in metal and hip-hop. I so wanted to jump into an action movie with Arnold.
I love this flick. Watch it every time its on the telly. It's definitely outgrown the bad press of time & become a bit of a cult classic. Arnie is great & Tywin Lannister is menacing & hilarious...
I quite like the original script idea
I remember watching this as a kid and feeling very underwhelmed. I was a kid though who got very used to the rambos, the terminators, the vandammes, the seagals and wanted the same experience from this movie but it just didn't deliver.
I watched it when I was 10 yo and still love this movie. It is underrated and I never understand the hate.
Awesome Movie directed by the one and only John McTiernan and Charles Dance killed it as the Main-Villain.
one of my favs. so many cameos and references and puns and self-deprecating jokes of the genre, while still not being a total parody like scary movie
TLAH is one of my all time greats along with Big Trouble, fantastic underrated movies that are finally getting the recognition they deserve 😁
I still love Mr. Benedict’s line “In this world, the bad guys can win.” Very powerful stuff. His reaction to the mugging on the crowded street “‘Take his shoes’?” and how no one noticed or cared when he shot the mechanic. Really smart stuff that speaks volumes even in a goofy movie like this. I think I actually prefer how ridiculous the action world is because it shows how boring and awful the real world is. I’m also just a sucker for Alice In Chains. Overall, great movie.
I have been a fan of "Meta Humor" ever since Al Finney as "Tom Jones" turned to the audience for help with an argument. The moment in this when the movie villain kills in real life with no resistance is priceless. Life is hard. Movies are magic. Shane Black ROCKS... 'nuff said
This movie has really inspired me to eventually start developing my animated film ideas with its good humor, action, and meta moments.
I loved this movie. The villains are hilarious whilst also being scary. It's an awesome concept.
And then he asked Thanos: How exactly are you going to snap your fingers after I rip off both of your thumbs?
Absolutely love this movie... great soundtrack and a good story, plus Bridget Wilson
Bridgette Wilson in her prime 🤤👌
Always liked this movie. Never knew it was considered a dud until the last few years. I think it's a perfectly entertaining parody of 80s action movies.
Great video. I just turned 42 and I saw this movie for the first time a few months back... it was a fun ride However I feel it is a little to long for it's own good. Thanks again for the video.
Fuck that. This movie was like my favorite movie as a kid. IT WAS SPECIAL.