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===Critical reception and awards===
===Critical reception and awards===
The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics.<ref>{{cite news|title= Last Action Hero|work= [[Entertainment Weekly]]|date=July 9, 1993|url= http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,307121,00.html|accessdate=December 7, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title= Last Action Hero|work= Variety|date=December 31, 1992|url= http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117792450.html?categoryid=31&cs=1|accessdate=October 28, 2010}}</ref> As of August 2015, it holds a 37% approval rating at [[Rotten Tomatoes]].<ref>{{cite news|title= Last Action Hero|publisher= [[Rotten Tomatoes]]|date=August 15, 2015|url= http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/last_action_hero/ |accessdate=August 8, 2012}}</ref> The site's critical consensus reads, "Last Action Hero has most of the right ingredients for a big-budget action spoof, but its scattershot tone and uneven structure only add up to a confused, chaotic mess." Audiences polled by [[CinemaScore]] gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.<ref name="CinemaScore"> {{cite web |url=https://m.cinemascore.com |title=CinemaScore |work=cinemascore.com}}</ref>
The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics.<ref>{{cite news|title= Last Action Hero|work= [[Entertainment Weekly]]|date=July 9, 1993|url= http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,307121,00.html|accessdate=December 7, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title= Last Action Hero|work= Variety|date=December 31, 1992|url= http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117792450.html?categoryid=31&cs=1|accessdate=October 28, 2010}}</ref> As of December 2017, it holds a 35% approval rating at [[Rotten Tomatoes]].<ref>{{cite news|title= Last Action Hero|publisher= [[Rotten Tomatoes]]|date=December 6, 2017|url= http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/last_action_hero/ |accessdate=December 6, 2017}}</ref> The site's critical consensus reads, "Last Action Hero has most of the right ingredients for a big-budget action spoof, but its scattershot tone and uneven structure only add up to a confused, chaotic mess." Audiences polled by [[CinemaScore]] gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.<ref name="CinemaScore"> {{cite web |url=https://m.cinemascore.com |title=CinemaScore |work=cinemascore.com}}</ref>


[[Vincent Canby]] likened the film to "a two-hour 'Saturday Night Live' sketch" and called it "something of a mess, but a frequently enjoyable one".<ref>{{cite news|title= Review/Film: Last Action Hero; A Hero Within and Without|work= The New York Times|date=June 18, 1993|url= https://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/18/movies/review-film-last-action-hero-a-hero-within-and-without.html|accessdate=October 27, 2010|first=Vincent|last=Canby}}</ref>
[[Vincent Canby]] likened the film to "a two-hour 'Saturday Night Live' sketch" and called it "something of a mess, but a frequently enjoyable one".<ref>{{cite news|title= Review/Film: Last Action Hero; A Hero Within and Without|work= The New York Times|date=June 18, 1993|url= https://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/18/movies/review-film-last-action-hero-a-hero-within-and-without.html|accessdate=October 27, 2010|first=Vincent|last=Canby}}</ref>

Revision as of 00:15, 7 December 2017

"Jack Slater" redirects here. For other uses, see Jack Slater (disambiguation).

Last Action Hero
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJohn McTiernan
Screenplay by
Story by
Produced by
  • John McTiernan
  • Steve Roth
Starring
CinematographyDean Semler
Edited by
Music byMichael Kamen
Distributed byColumbia Pictures[1]
Release date
  • June 18, 1993 (1993-06-18)
Running time
131 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$85 million
Box office$137.3 million

Last Action Hero is a 1993 American fantasy action comedy film directed and produced by John McTiernan.[2] It is a satire of the action genre and associated clichés, containing several parodies of action films in the form of films within the film.[3] The film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Jack Slater, a Los Angeles police detective within the Jack Slater action film franchise. Austin O'Brien co-stars as a boy magically transported into the Slater universe. Schwarzenegger also served as the film's executive producer and plays himself as the actor portraying Jack Slater, and Charles Dance plays an assassin who escapes from the Slater world into the real world.

Though the film was a box office disappointment during its initial theatrical release, it became a cult film among fans and critics.[4] The film also features Art Carney's last appearance in a motion picture.

Plot

Young Danny Madigan (Austin O'Brien) is a teenage boy living in a crime-ridden area of New York City with his widowed mother. Following the death of his father, Danny takes comfort in watching action movies, especially those featuring the indestructible Los Angeles cop Jack Slater (Arnold Schwarzenegger), at his local movie theatre owned by Nick, who also acts as the projectionist. Nick gives Danny a golden ticket once owned by Harry Houdini, to see a early preview of the new film, Jack Slater IV, before its official release.

A short while into the film, the ticket transports Danny inside the fictional world where he finds himself in the back of Slater's car, who is being pursued by a number of henchmen. The two manage to escape and return to LAPD headquarters. Danny insists that they are both in a film by pointing out numerous inconsistencies, such as the presence of a cartoon cat detective called Whiskers and several fictional characters from real-world films, but Slater believes Danny is just an imaginative kid. Danny is assigned the role of Slater's partner by supervisor Dekker and attempts to help solve Slater's current case by leading him to the mansion home of the villain Tony Vivaldi, having recognised the location from the beginning of the film. Vivaldi's henchman Mr. Benedict (Charles Dance) persuades them to leave, becoming suspicious of Danny after overhearing him speak about Benedict's past activities. Slater and Danny return to Slater's home, being greeted by his daughter Meredith. Benedict and his henchmen follow them to the house and, while Slater is out, holds Danny and Meredith hostage and steals the ticket in the process. Slater returns and kills the henchmen in a shootout as Benedict flees. Later at the mansion, he discovers the ticket's magic properties.

Danny and Slater uncover a plan by Vivaldi and Benedict to kill their mob rivals at a funeral by inserting a lethal gas into the deceased's corpse. Slater and Danny arrive and are betrayed by Slater's colleague, John Practice, however they are rescued by Whiskers who kills Practice. With the help of Danny, Slater infiltrates the funeral and safely disposes of the corpse, before they are picked up by Meredith. An irritated Benedict betrays and kills Vivaldi at the mansion, before being confronted by Slater and Danny, who inadvertently send Benedict into the real world with the ticket. Slater and Danny follow him and appear in Nick's theatre, where Slater becomes despondent upon finding out that he is just a fictional character. He spends time at Danny's home with him and his mother and gradually learns to becomes more sensitive as a person.

Finding that a villain can win in the real world by literally getting away with murder, Benedict hatches a plan to eliminate Slater by killing Schwarzenegger the actor, after which he can bring various villains out of their respective films and take over reality. He summons the Ripper, the main antagonist from Jack Slater III, to kill Schwarzenegger, but Slater saves the actor and kills the Ripper atop a rooftop by electrocuting him. Benedict returns and reveals his scheme to Slater and Danny. After a fight with the two, during which Slater is shot, Slater takes out Benedict by shooting his explosive glass eye. Danny attempts to return Slater to his world, knowing that Jack Slater as the main protagonist wouldn't be allowed to die, but discovers they are unable to enter the movie screen without the golden ticket. Death, another fictional character who escaped from his movie The Seventh Seal, reveals to Danny that he will need the other half of the ticket, which he succeeds in doing. Danny brings Slater back into his movie, where he is able to shrug off his wound, and Danny departs back to the real world. A recovered Slater then enthusiastically embraces the true nature of his reality when he talks to Dekker about his new plan, appreciating the differences between it and the "real" world.

Cast

  • Arnold Schwarzenegger as Jack Slater / himself[5]
  • Austin O'Brien as Danny Madigan[6]
  • Charles Dance as Benedict, Vivaldi's right-hand man. He is a supporting antagonist of Jack Slater IV, but becomes the true antagonist of the main film.
  • Robert Prosky as Nick the projectionist.
  • Tom Noonan as The Ripper / himself, the main antagonist of Jack Slater III.
  • Frank McRae as Lieutenant Dekker, Slater's immediate supervisor who's always screaming at him.
  • Anthony Quinn as Tony Vivaldi, the main antagonist of Jack Slater IV until Danny's interference changes events.
  • Bridgette Wilson as Whitney Slater and Meredith Caprice. Whitney is Jack's daughter, and Meredith is the actress who plays her in the Slater films.
  • F. Murray Abraham as John Practice, Jack's friend, revealed as a traitor. Danny says not to trust him saying he killed Mozart, referring to Abraham's Oscar-winning role in Amadeus.
  • Mercedes Ruehl as Irene Madigan, Danny's mom.
  • Art Carney, as Frank Slater, in his last film role.
  • Professor Toru Tanaka as Tough Asian Man.
  • Ryan Todd as Andrew Slater, Jack's son who is killed in "Jack Slater III" by The Ripper.
Cameo appearances

Background and production

Last Action Hero was an original screenplay by Zak Penn and Adam Leff, meant to parody typical action film screenplays of writers such as Shane Black. Penn noted himself that it was ironic that the studio then had Black rewrite the script.[7] The original screenplay differs heavily from the finished film and is widely available to read online. Although it was still a parody of Hollywood action films it was set almost entirely in the film world and focused largely on the futile cycle of violence displayed by the hero and the effect it had on people around him. Due to the radical changes Zak Penn and Adam Leff were eventually credited with the story of the film but not the screenplay, which is unusual for a film based on an original screenplay.

Schwarzenegger received a salary of $15 million for his role in the film.[8]

Years after its release, the film was the subject of a scathing chapter called "How They Built The Bomb", in the Nancy Griffin book Hit and Run which detailed misadventures at Sony Pictures in the early to mid-1990s. Among the details presented in this chapter were:

  • Universal moved Jurassic Park to June 11, 1993 well after Sony had decided on a June 18 release date for Last Action Hero.
  • The movie was rumored to be the first advertisement placed on a space-going rocket.[9]
  • The film was capsized by a wave of negative publicity after a rough cut of it was shown to a preview audience on May Day. Sony then destroyed the test cards and the word-of-mouth proved to be catastrophic for the film.
  • The shooting and editing schedule were so demanding and so close to the June 18 release date that after the movie's disaster, a source close to the film said that they "shouldn't have had Siskel and Ebert telling us the movie is 10 minutes too long".
  • Sony was even more humiliated the weekend after the film opened, when the movie lost 47% of its opening-weekend audience and saw TriStar's Sleepless In Seattle open as the #2 movie at the box office.
  • The final declared financial loss for the film was $26 million.
  • Last Action Hero was the first film to be released using SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound), but only a few theaters were set up for the new format, and many of those experienced technical problems with the new system. Insiders at Paramount reportedly referred to SDDS as "Still Doesn't Do Shit".[10]

Soundtrack

Untitled
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic link

The film was scored by composer Michael Kamen, and peaked at No. 7 on The Billboard 200 chart.[11] The album, which was positively received by active rock radio outlets, was certified platinum on August 24, 1993. [12]

Track listing

No.TitlePerformed byLength
1."Big Gun"AC/DC4:24
2."What the Hell Have I"Alice in Chains3:58
3."Angry Again"Megadeth3:47
4."Real World"Queensrÿche and Michael Kamen4:21
5."Two Steps Behind"Def Leppard4:19
6."Poison My Eyes"Anthrax7:04
7."Dream On" (Live)Aerosmith5:42
8."A Little Bitter"Alice in Chains3:53
9."Cock the Hammer"Cypress Hill4:11
10."Swim"Fishbone4:13
11."Last Action Hero"Tesla5:44
12."Jack and the Ripper"Buckethead, Los Angeles Rock and Roll Ensemble, and Michael Kamen3:43
Total length:54:19

Release

At the time of its release, the film was billed as "the next great summer action movie" and many movie insiders predicted it would be a huge blockbuster, especially following the success of Schwarzenegger's previous film, Terminator 2: Judgment Day.[13] It was released the same day the 20th Century Fox film Once Upon a Forest was released.

Box office

The film opened #2 at the weekend box-office behind Jurassic Park and grossed $USD15,338,241 on its opening weekend, for an average of $6,651 from 2,306 theaters, and ended its run with $50,016,394 in the United States, and an additional $87,202,095 overseas, for a total of $137,298,489 worldwide.[14] In an A&E biography of Schwarzenegger, the actor (who was also the film's executive producer) says that the film could have done better if not for bad timing, since it came out a week after Jurassic Park which went on to break box office records as one of the top-grossing films of all time.

Schwarzenegger states that he tried to persuade his co producers to postpone the film's June 18 release in the United States by four weeks, but they turned a deaf ear on the grounds that the movie would have lost millions of dollars in revenue for every weekend of the summer it ended up missing, also fearing that delaying the release would create negative publicity; he told the authors of Hit And Run that, while everyone involved with the production had given their best effort, their attempt to appeal to both action and comedy fans resulted in a film that appealed to neither audience and ultimately succumbed to heavy competition.[15][16][17][18]

The film was released in the United Kingdom on July 30, 1993, and opened on #3, behind Jurassic Park and Dennis.[19] The next weekend, the film moved up one place, before falling down to #10 by August 13, 1993.[20][21]

Critical reception and awards

The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics.[22][23] As of December 2017, it holds a 35% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes.[24] The site's critical consensus reads, "Last Action Hero has most of the right ingredients for a big-budget action spoof, but its scattershot tone and uneven structure only add up to a confused, chaotic mess." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.[25]

Vincent Canby likened the film to "a two-hour 'Saturday Night Live' sketch" and called it "something of a mess, but a frequently enjoyable one".[26]

Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4, writing that despite some entertaining moments, Last Action Hero "plays more like a bright idea than like a movie that was thought through. It doesn't evoke the mystery of the barrier between audience and screen the way Woody Allen did in The Purple Rose of Cairo, and a lot of the time it simply seems to be standing around commenting on itself."[27]

About the movie's failure and critical response, John McTiernan said: "Initially, it was a wonderful Cinderella story with a nine-year-old boy. We had a pretty good script by Bill Goldman, charming. And this ludicrous hype machine got hold of it, and it got buried under bullshit. It was so overwhelmed with baggage. And then it was whipped out unedited, practically assembled right out of the camera. It was in the theater five or six weeks after I finished shooting. It was kamikaze, stupid, no good reason for it. And then to open the week after Jurassic Park--God! To get to the depth of bad judgment involved in that you'd need a snorkel."[28]

The film was nominated for six Golden Raspberry Awards: Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Arnold Schwarzenegger), Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst New Star (Austin O'Brien) and Worst Original Song ("Big Gun"), but it did not win any.

Home video

On February 3, 2009, Last Action Hero was reissued on DVD by Sony Pictures Entertainment in a double-feature set with the 1986 film Iron Eagle.[29] It was released on the high-definition Blu-ray Disc format on January 12, 2010. The Blu-ray release presented the film in its original widescreen format for the first time in the United States since the LaserDisc release.

See also

References

  1. ^ Weinraub, Bernard (June 22, 1993). "Columbia Ponders The Fate Of 'Hero'". The New York Times. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
  2. ^ "Last Action Hero". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved March 7, 2016.
  3. ^ "'Last Action Hero' Can't Deliver As Action Flick, Parody In One". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
  4. ^ Andersen, Kurt (July 5, 1993). "How To Run a Movie Studio". Time. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
  5. ^ Fox, David J. (June 21, 1993). "'Hero': When $15 Million Isn't Quite Enough : Movie box office: By Hollywood standards, the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle opens poorly. But Columbia is 'very, very, very happy with it.'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
  6. ^ Vanderknyff, Rick (June 18, 1993). "Limelight, Cameras, 'Action' for O.C. Boy : Movies: 'Hero' co-star Austin O'Brien is full partner in media blitz". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
  7. ^ Pristin, Terry (May 16, 1993). "SUMMER SNEAKS : Well, They Wanted Action : Brash newcomers Zak Penn and Adam Leff engineered their own industry buzz, landing an agent and a deal for their screenplay. Fame and fortune followed, but with a weird ending". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
  8. ^ Marin, Rick (May 9, 1993). "Film; Battle of the Action Heroes". The New York Times. Retrieved February 19, 2009.
  9. ^ Fox, David J. (March 3, 1993). "`Action' Promotion Is Out of This World : Movies: Sources said the stunt, in which the movie's logo will be painted on a NASA rocket, will cost Columbia about $500,000". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 29, 2010.
  10. ^ Nancy Griffin; Kim Masters. Hit and run: how Jon Peters and Peter Guber took Sony for a ride in Hollywood. Touchstone. Retrieved February 16, 2012.
  11. ^ http://www.allmusic.com/album/last-action-hero-original-soundtrack-mw0000097397/awards
  12. ^ https://www.riaa.com/gold-platinum/?tab_active=default-award&se=Last+Action+Hero#search_section
  13. ^ Pristin, Terry (June 30, 1993). "'Last Action': Too Many Heroes? : Big-Name Star, Director and Writers--So What Happened?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
  14. ^ "'Hero' Fails To Conquer Box Office". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
  15. ^ Fox, David J. (June 30, 1993). "Theaters Report 'Hero' Is Running on Short Legs". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
  16. ^ Fox, David J. (May 16, 1993). "SUMMER SNEAKS : The Seasonal Sweats : 'Jurassic Park' and 'Last Action Hero' are going to take the summer, no problem. But there are a few other movies that are pretty good bets". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
  17. ^ Fox, David J. (June 28, 1993). "'Sleepless' Surprises Hollywood : Movies: Romantic comedy opens with a strong $17 million; 'Last Action Hero' falls 50% at box office. 'Jurassic Park' collects another $28 million". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
  18. ^ Fox, David J. (June 16, 1993). "Schwarzenegger No Dinosaur in Advance Sales". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
  19. ^ "Weekend box office 30th July 1993 - 1st August 1993". www.25thframe.co.uk. Retrieved April 2, 2017.
  20. ^ "Weekend box office 6th August 1993 - 8th August 1993". www.25thframe.co.uk. Retrieved April 2, 2017.
  21. ^ "Weekend box office 13th August 1993 - 15th August 1993". www.25thframe.co.uk. Retrieved April 2, 2017.
  22. ^ "Last Action Hero". Entertainment Weekly. July 9, 1993. Retrieved December 7, 2010.
  23. ^ "Last Action Hero". Variety. December 31, 1992. Retrieved October 28, 2010.
  24. ^ "Last Action Hero". Rotten Tomatoes. December 6, 2017. Retrieved December 6, 2017.
  25. ^ "CinemaScore". cinemascore.com.
  26. ^ Canby, Vincent (June 18, 1993). "Review/Film: Last Action Hero; A Hero Within and Without". The New York Times. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
  27. ^ Ebert, Roger "Last Action Hero review, 1993. Retrieved October 4, 2013
  28. ^ http://movieline.com/2001/08/01/the-extreme-sport-of-being-john-mctiernan/2/
  29. ^ CDUniverse.com - Last Action Hero/Iron Eagle DVD

Further reading

  • Parish, James Robert (2006). Fiasco: A History of Hollywood’s Iconic Flops. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. p. 359. ISBN 978-0-471-69159-4.
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