Last Action Hero

“Last Action Hero,” released in 1993, is pretty much the same subject as almost every other film ever made: The possibility of blurring the line between the audience and the screen. Roger Ebert admitted in her review, “We go to the movies so that we can vicariously live the lives of the characters who loom so glamorously above us, and the movies know that. Every moment of every shot exists with the full consciousness of the fourth invisible wall dividing the characters from their watchers in the dark.”

At the start of “Last Action Hero,” a teenager is watching a movie when suddenly so much dynamite comes blasting out of the screen and lands near him in the theater. Ebert noted, “He runs for his life, but there is an explosion, and somehow he is catapulted through the membrane between the audience and the actors.” He is in the movie. Specifically, he is in the back seat of a speeding car in a chase scene, and the driver is Jack Slater, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, his favorite character.

The teenager’s name is Danny Madigan, played by Austin O’Brien, and he has seen every one of the Jack Slater’s movies. He knows that Slater is always played by Schwarzenegger – which is more than Slater knows. One of the enjoyments of this movie is the way Slater believes he lives in reality, and how Danny tries to convince him otherwise by giving him hints proving they’re in a movie. Ebert noted, “All the telephone numbers start with the non-existent prefix "555," for example, and the good guys somehow never get killed, and all the women are dressed like models in a Guess ad. There is even a discussion of the Fallacy of the Talking Killer, often described in this space - that inevitable movie practice in which the bad guys need only pull the trigger, but make the mistake of talking too much, giving the good guys a chance to prevail.”

Other movies have also played with the boundaries between reality and cinema. Ebert noted, “Woody Allen's "The Purple Rose of Cairo," for example, and Robert Zemeckis's "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." But they've used the gimmick primarily as a springboard for their stories for love and action.” There is a lot of action in “Last Action Hero,” but the basic story never really works. From beginning to end, the movie is about its gimmick, without ever exceeding it.

That means that we don’t really care about the fate of Jack Slater, because he is shown as a fictional movie character. And when Danny takes Slater through the screen to a confrontation with the “real” Arnold Schwarzenegger, we don’t care much, either, because the script takes no real risks. Ebert said, “Instead of "Slater" and "Schwarzenegger" perhaps disliking each other, or sharing shop talk, or comparing muscles, the movie uses the unimaginative device of a movie premiere to isolate the "real" Arnold as a celebrity who doesn't get very involved in Slater's world.”

The movie within the movie shows Slater fighting a villain (Charles Dance) and a henchman named Ripper (Tom Noonan) who shows the usual cliches of certain characters in certain situations. (Ebert said, “It's amusing to see the real-life Noonan turn up, looking like a mild-mannered innocent, after seeing him as a scuzzy weirdo.”) However, the screenplay never really explains the plot of the Slater movie, and so there’s nothing to get hooked on. We see chases, explosions, and amazing stunts, but they’re demonstrations, not drama.

Schwarzenegger jokes his own persona by playing with trademark lines like “I’ll be back,” but some of the best moments belong to O’Brien, who correctly points out most of the things that happen to Slater, and even takes him home to meet his mom, played by Mercedes Ruehl). There’s also a funny scene at a Blockbusters inside the Slater movie, where Danny is surprised to see that “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” has Sylvester Stallone as the protagonist.

Ebert said, “For all of its sensational stunts and flashes of wit, however, "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, and a lot of the time it simply seems to be standing around commenting on itself.”

Maybe younger audiences – around the age of Danny – will identify with the film. Ebert admitted to being disappointed.

I can see what he means by that because this film is a boring, dull fest, which is a shame, seeing how it is directed by the great John McTiernan. Some of the ideas sound like they could work, there are a couple of jokes that are good, and I guess this was sending up to every one of the action cliches we know and enjoy, but honestly, it is an awkward boring action film. Especially with these crazy cameos, like Sharon Stone’s character from “Basic Instinct,” Robert Patrick from “Terminator 2,” the late Art Carney, Jean Claude Van Damme, Jim Belushi, M.C. Hammer, Humphrey Bogart, Chevy Chase, Damon Wayans, and Ian McKellen. Danny DeVito even voices a cartoon cat named Whiskers and the late Robert Prosky is in here as the theater projectionist that Danny is friends with. This is not a good film to watch, but if you were to check it out, it wouldn’t hurt, as you would remember the Schwarzenegger parts, but I don’t think it was anything special.

Next week, I will be ending of “Buddy Cop Month” with two films that are based on a comic character. Sorry for the late posting, I was so tired from work that I fell asleep.