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Well, here’s
where I know I’m going to get into
a little trouble… or at least give
people the impression that I don’t
know a darn thing about movies. This can
be suicidal in this business, even though
it doesn’t ever seem to be for studio
suits. But today I plan to talk just a little
bit about “The Last Action Hero.”
That’s right, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s
1993 highly priced, yet critically panned
action adventure blockbuster. It was the
movie everybody hated, or at least didn’t
admit to liking.
I wasn’t writing reviews back then,
so I won’t have to backpedal when
I say that I… here it comes…
actually liked “The Last Action Hero.”
(If you stop reading now for fear of your
sanity slipping, I understand…) That’s
right, while I never thought it was a fantastic
movie, I still liked it enough to see it
a couple of times in the theater and own
it on VHS.
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I think I understood more than most that it was
meant to be a comic book, a satire, farce if you
will. It was not an action movie to be taken seriously,
it was supposed to make fun of the genre and it
did it admirably.
Directed by John McTiernan, who gave us “Die
Hard” decided he liked the script that made
fun of the genre he was forever linked to. Having
Schwarzenegger on board was icing on the cake
as he was the top ranking action star at the time.
Why not have a little fun with the genre? So they
did.
In “The Last Action Hero” we meet
little Danny Madigan (Austin O’Brien), whose
love of action films takes precedence over just
about every other aspect of his life. He spends
every moment possible hanging out in an old dilapidated
movie theater in order to watch his favorite hero,
Jack Slater (Schwarzenegger) kick bad guy’s
butts. His friendship with the theater’s
projectionist (Robert Prosky) lands him a chance
to see a pre-screening of the new “Jack
Slater IV” movie, which he immediately jumps
on. He is given a ‘magic’ ticket to
use to get in and before you know it, Danny is
pulled right into the movie and so begins his
quest to take down the villains at Jack Slater’s
side. Unfortunately, the villain (Charles Dance)
is smarter than the average bear and realizes
that the ticket will also allow him out of the
movie to wreak havoc on the ‘real world.’
And there you have it, the plot in a nutshell.
As I mentioned, it was not a fantastic movie.
The over the top scenes that take place while
inside the movie world are terrific and take loads
of potshots at the action movie genre. But when
we go back to the real world, it begins to fizzle
a little bit. Though I still loved that all of
the things Slater could do in his world, didn’t
work so well here. To be honest, the only real
factor that brought the movie down was Austin
O’Brien. Had they cast a much stronger young
actor, I believe it would have gone a long way
to making the experience as whole much, much better.
Everyone else in the film gave it their all and
really sold it to me. Critics and audiences in
1993 however had other ideas and the film became
universally panned.
Sony has opted to bring it back to life and put
it back into the hands if viewers with an all
new Bluray release, in the hopes that audiences
might be a little more forgiving these days. I
only wish they could have given the transfer a
little more restoration. There are a lot of scenes
that look fantastic, but more than I care to count
are a bit murky. Not horrible mind you, just not
the perfection we’ve come to expect from
Bluray. The same goes for the audio. It sounds
really, really good… just not great. I was
also a little disappointed to see that there were
no extra features aside from ‘Movie IQ’,
which is little more than a little bit of trivia
that you can access while watching the film.
Those who really want to give the movie another
chance, or haven’t seen it in the first
place, might want to at least rent it. Then you
can decide if you liked it enough to add it to
your collection.
Directed by: John McTiernan
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, F. Murray Abraham,
Art Carney, Charles Dance, Frank McRae, Tom Noonan,
Robert Prosky, Anthony Quinn, Mercedes Ruehl,
Austin O’Brien
Extras: Movie IQ
Specification: 1080p (2.40:1); DTS HD Master Audio
5.1
Studio: Sony
Release Date: 01/12/2010
MPAA Rating: PG-13
http://www.sonypictures.com/bluray
We'll give The Last Action Hero (Bluray) a C+.
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