Product Details

• Actors: Arnold Schwarzenegger, F. Murray Abraham, Austin O'Brien, Art Carney, Charles Dance
• Directors: John McTiernan
• Writers: Adam Leff, David Arnott, Shane Black, Zak Penn
• Producers: Arnold Schwarzenegger, John McTiernan, Neal Nordlinger
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: August 29, 1994
• Run Time: 130 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (133 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0800125789
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #204,896 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

John McTiernan (The Hunt for Red October) imaginatively directs this action comedy, which is an interesting failure with some fascinating ironies that make it well worth seeing. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays both a character named Jack Slater--a fictional cop hero who exists only in the movies (i.e., the movies seen by the characters in this movie) and the actor who plays Jack Slater in the real world (i.e., in the movie we're actually watching). McTiernan's hall-of-mirrors effect is fun, though Last Action Hero never quite identifies itself as a pure action movie, science fiction, a kid's movie, or anything else. (The expensive film suffered at the box office as a result and was roundly criticized for this ambivalence.) What lingers in the memory, however, is Schwarzenegger, playing himself, being confronted by Slater for having created an alter ego for film in the first place. It's a provocative moment: how often have we seen a major star blatantly wrestle with his actor's legacy in this way? The DVD release has optional full-screen and widescreen presentations, optional French and Spanish soundtracks, and optional Spanish and Korean subtitles. --Tom Keogh

From The New Yorker

Here's a new idea: a thriller where the thrills lead nowhere. A boy called Danny (Austin O'Brien), bored at school and frightened at home, is enthralled by the screen exploits of Jack Slater (Arnold Schwarzenegger). With the help of a magic ticket, he crosses into Jack's world: an unreal place where the hero always wins under a roasting sun and never gets more than a flesh wound. His adversaries may look like clichés-Charles Dance as a quiet hit man; Anthony Quinn, in his traditional look-at-me mode, as a Sicilian mobster-but that is precisely the point; movie conventions exist to be mocked, and "Last Action Hero" is determined to have fun with them. There isn't a trace of acid; the director, John McTiernan, remains devoted to the genre that he mastered in "Die Hard." But the scattiness of the film-the way that it slips between fact and fiction, and fidgets from one gag to the next-may still be enough to shake the confidence of a young audience brought up on Schwarzenegger pictures; everything they used to believe in, all the toy violence and dizzy stuntwork, is being snapped back in their faces. The movie labors the point and outstays its welcome; but it's a bright and daring direction for Schwarzenegger to have taken, and therefore one that he may live to regret. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Clever "inside" humor, but DVD has a BIG flaw, August 4, 2004

By 

John S. Harris "The Voice of Reason" (Memphis, TN) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Last Action Hero (DVD)

I think I know why this film was so poorly received and tanked at the box office. It was TOO "inside". Much of this film is a series of jokes about the standard, conventional, formulaic, bombastic action film genre. But the humor was so tongue-in-cheek so often that it probably didn't bode well with the average action-junkie film fan. "Last Action Hero" made fun of itself as it unfolded, and one would need a certain sense of humor to fully appreciate it on its intended level. I dare say that most folks who went to this film just didn't "get it". Too bad for them.

The major flaw of the DVD is that the film is presented in the god-awful Pan and Scan format. Pan and Scan presentations of frenetically-shot widescreen films should be outlawed, it's just that simple. You almost get a headache watching this P&S version. The digital pan is so obtrusive and distracting that it can drive one to anger! It pulls you out of the film, to say the least. I like (but don't really love) this film, and the low price of the DVD makes the purchase a no-brainer. But it is too optically uncomfortable to watch in P&S.

Release it in widescreen and all will be okay.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Watch and NOT be disappointed!!!, November 11, 2003

By 

M. Garland "mgarland16" (AL, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Last Action Hero (DVD)

This is one of those movies that a lot of people that haven't seen it say, "That movie wasn't really that good, was it?" but those that have seen it, say, "Why wasn't this movie more popular?" Maybe it was bad timing, or as some others suggested, just not correctly billed to the public.

Last Action Hero is hard to describe. It's funny, it's witty, with lots of those one-liners that Arnold became so popular with, and I loved the way he constantly poked fun at his fictional character as well as his "real" self. Some of my favorite dialogue in the movie is when the kid is trying to convince "character Arnold (aka: Jack Slater)" that he's actually just a character in a movie. The kid starts asking about phone numbers and how can they possibly all start with 555- in a city with several million phone numbers, when Jack Slater exasperatedly says, "That's why we have Area Codes..." Priceless. The movie is full of fun stuff like that, and I highly recommend this movie to anyone who is even remotely a Schwarzenegger fan, or who just like campy, yet intelligent, movies. The parody within a parody, and movie within a movie actually worked well in this one.

I thought the movie had a lot of great character performances, and clever scripting, and I think this movie got a bum rap. It's really a great movie, I'm glad I bought the DVD. The transfer is a little sloppy in places on the one I bought, but since it's a "Special Anniversary Edition", I have a feeling that had something to do with it. There's only a fullscreen version on my DVD, no widescreen, and the camera pans are really noticeable in a few places.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An intelligent, under-rated and over-looked satire, January 31, 2011

By 

Inspector Gadget "Go Go Gadget Reviews" (On the trail of Doctor Claw) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Last Action Hero [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)

It's sad to think that 18 years after its release Last Action Hero is still trying to find its target audience. Audiences don't like smart movies. Or perhaps I should say audiences don't like to be OUTSMARTED by movies. In the summer of 1993 the world was going crazy for a certain dinosaur movie, almost everything else didn't stand a chance. LAH came out a week after Jurassic Park. The only people who really went to see it were those who were too late for sold-out screenings of Spielberg's movie. Bad word of mouth spread for many reasons.

Those lucky enough to actually see it on the big screen walked away confused and disorientated. They thought they were in for a straight-up action movie, not an existential, meta-fictional parody of the genre they cherish. It was just too much and they weren't ready for it. Arnold had been riding the wave of Total Recall and Terminator 2 before the release of Last Action Hero, no one expected such a radical deviation from the norm.

Danny Madigan is a lonely kid living in a tiny New York apartment with his single MILF. His only friend is Nick, an old-time projectionist at a run down theater (a REAL theater, no multiplex nonsense). Danny likes to escape into the world of action movies, his biggest hero, obviously, being Arnie himself. The latest Arnie blockbuster, the simply-titled Jack Slater IV, is a day away from its premiere, and old Nick has been tasked with checking the print. Before Danny sits down for his own personal pre-premiere midnight screening Nick gives him a magical ticket he's been saving since childhood. Five minutes after Jack Slater IV begins Danny is warped into the cinema screen and becomes part of the movie.

In the movie world Danny quickly learns that the laws of physics and simple logic don't apply (how often has THAT proven to be true?). He's partnered with Slater, a renegade L.A. cop and the absolute zenith of action hero stereotypes, to find who killed his favorite second-cousin Frank (BIG MISTAKE!). Danny and Slater smash their way into a hokey, James Bond-ish plot, though it's not long before suave English henchman Mr. Benedict discovers Danny's secret and plans to escape to the real world. Danny and Slater follow, but Slater's movie-world abilities are rendered useless in reality. Doubt begins seep in for the first time as he ends up questioning his powers as a good cop.

Last Action Hero scores huge points all round. It's technically wonderful, with gorgeous anamorphic Panavision photography full of wide angles and lens flares. The writing is sharp is funny. Arnie is great as an infallible hero in crisis as well as making fun of his screen persona. And the action, both fictional and meta-fictional, is wild, overblown, and exciting. I just love Slater's huge fall from the elevator.

It's interesting to note that it has a lot in common with Loaded Weapon, which came out earlier that year. Both are send-ups of the 'L.A. cop movie' genre, both star F. Murray Abraham in supporting roles. Both feature Frank McRae as a screaming Lieutenant. Both have obvious Die Hard references (also directed by the infamous John McTiernan).

The bad reputation is unjustified. The financial loss was a mistake entirely on Sony's part and their lack of foresight into the 1993 summer season. Last Action Hero and Jurassic Park went head-to-head with their advertising but the dinosaur movie's marketing campaign was just too groundbreaking. They also competed with each other on a technical level. JP was the first film to feature DTS sound, while Last Action Hero was the first to feature SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound), an eight-channel system that delivers every decibel of Slater's big gun and the multiple explosions of his daily life.

It may be a satire, but Last Action Hero just may be one of the last true action films. Real stunts, real explosions, real destruction, reality gone twisted. It's Arnold's most subversive movie, and it's many things, but bad ain't one of them.

The Blu Ray features a great 2.35:1 1080p picture with a loud DTS HD-MA soundtrack. Zero extras are included. Sony seems to still be ashamed of the film. The hate is not deserved.