Last Action Hero | Arnold Schwarzenegger | F. Murray Abraham | John McTiernan [1993]

there we go hey all right ladies and gentlemen today's movie has the following tagline did someone say action what do you think about that one uh I think it was a great start uh it's in the movie The the one of the dudes who supposed to roll the camera falls asleep so un intentionally and ironically that's how we start the show but yeah great tagline let's go great tagline all right ladies and gentlemen hold on to your SE movie by podcast starts right now [Music] [Music] all right good morning good afternoon good evening for anybody that is tuning in right now live with us I am your host Ruben and with me the last movie critic and this is movie by podcast where we BR uh we break down some of our favorite movies some of your favorite movies some movies that you may have never seen some movies that you have seen and we just have fun with this little time that we have together how you doing today bro I'm I'm excited to to hear you talk on this one I know it's one of your favorite movies guilty pleasures it's a guilty pleasure yeah let just put it out hey you let me pour my soul on screen on camera for Gravity uh I guess this is your turn I just gonna politely sit on the sidelines and and and be the the sidekick I'm gonna be the guy in the you're the comedic psychic yeah I'm gonna be that that guy who just yo yo yo what's up Pablo um yeah I'm actually very excited to talk about this movie um I I grew up watching this movie every time we play on HBO um and I I was a big fan of I'm still am a big fan of Arnold swarzenegger Terminator 2 was one pretty much one of my favorite action movies growing up um so today we're going to be discussing the 1993 box office bomb Last Action Hero and the reason why we are talking about Last Action Hero tonight is because some of our viewers voted for for a 90s comedy and I think this movie Falls right in line with that and it's also action movies SL satire which it's a movie that tries to find its genre and has a very hard time finding it throughout the entire thing um I had like I said I've seen this movie so many times yes I saw it last night again and I I am excited because I found out so much stuff about this film that I am surpris R it actually got made and made it to the big screen and obviously a flop but it has found a cult following since then um a lot of people that have Revisited this film calls it one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's most underrated films um now Last Action Hero Arnold sweger is coming out from having a massive success from Terminator 2 Judgment Day directed by James Cameron to this day one of the biggest action movies there is it's amazing um it's one of James Cameron's best work it's one of Arnold's best work and it just like put Arnold up there it's beloved by everybody yeah like everybody has seen Terminator 2 and I have not met anybody that has something bad to say about Terminator 2 Judgment day which is actually considered one of the best sequels of all time you know um which is a very hard formula to follow up when you are creating sequels like Terminator 2 hits it um so Arnold after making Terminator 2 he wanted to make something familyfriendly something that it was PG-13 that could attract an audience and with that we begin wait wait didn't he do kindergarten cup before that or did he do it after I think kindergarten cup was in the 90s but if I'm not mistaken I was Kindergarten cup pd13 I believe it was after Terminator so in order for him to kind of like mix his uh his followers or his people who like him because see the Terminator to obviously is rated R so yeah younger audience could not watch it kindergarten cup is like PG or PG-13 yeah I'm gonna look it up really quick so he wanted to mash from my understanding the reason he he chose to be in this this movie he wanted to have that heavy action to to bring his older audience together and to have the younger guys there so would be a great money grab and everybody would love it if yeah follow the formula oh no it it is uh kindergarten C was released in 1990 but it is a PG-13 film okay so yeah it was before that yeah okay um but pretty much he wanted to do a summer blockbuster cuz kindergarten comp wasn't really a summer blogbuster so he wanted to do a summer blockbuster with where he can attract that audience that he made from like you said kindergarten and he want to attract the kids that are out of school and teenagers you know cuz keep in mind uh like you mentioned Terminator 2 being our rated movie the only way back in the 90s you can watch Terminator 3 in theater if you were underage was either you were sneaked in into the theater or an adult but your ticket right um I believe back then they actually gave a [ __ ] not like they do now I don't know I never saw Terminator 2 in theaters um I actually saw it on HBO when I was like probably like eight or nine years old and it changed changed my life I think that's what started my love for movies watching movies like Terminator 2 um so back to Last Action Hero Last Action Hero was conceived by an idea of young screenwriters Zack Penn and Adam Lu Zack Penn be later on became a very famous writer writing one of the best X-Men movies lyri X2 X-Men United um and Avengers among others right um and uh the Incredible Hulk also with Edward Norton so they conceived this idea of making a movie that would make fun of cliches from action movies in the 80s and early '90s that was the era where we had a large boom of action movies we had first blood we had Lethal Weapon we had Predator you know um what else Steven Seagal movies Die Hard a death wish you know all these action and stars you know had typical cliches and troops that was the formula for the action movie um so they said we want to make a story about this so um they write a story and they had in mind Arnold sweger as the character not the person playing the character but they molded the character after Arnold swarzenegger and the character in the script was supposed to be named Harry right um this script you can actually the original script you can actually find it online CU it defers so much from the actual script we ended up seeing in theaters that Mr sacken and Adam love only got a story by credit and the other screenwriters which I'm going to mention in a few got the screenplay credit cuz they changed so much of the movie that based on writer Gil guidelines um they don't they didn't deserve the credit because the scrap was changed heavily so they were creating a story to make fun of screenwriters like Shane black who created the franchise Lethal Weapon also wrote Predator briefly starred in Predator with Arnold as well I think he dies in like he dies in like in the first few minutes of the movie um and then he also wrote the last uh the last Boy Scout with Bruce wills and Damon wayam which is a lot better movie than this in my opinion all right another another 90s my case yeah another 90s action film right so they hire Columbia once um Arnold gets a hold of the script and he likes it and he wants to be executive producer he wants to have a say on action figures he wants to have a say in marketing and he wants to star in the film so he has the script but he says I am not 100% sure with this script I want to make some changes let's hire somebody that knows about action movies to rewrite this script they bring in chain black chain black and I for uh chain black and David Arna are the two screenwriters credited for this film so they bring them in and this is where the irony starts striking with this film you bring in the screenwriter that the original story is making fun of so you bring in a screenwriter to make fun of its own cliches okay that's where everything starts going haywire so s uh Shane black starts writing the movie the movie goes through Arnold there's a lot of things that change from the original script to what we get here's the fun fact the original title of this movie was going to be called extremely violent key things in the original script the kid is struggling with the loss of his father and his Escape of that grief is watching movies something that is no longer in The Last Action Hero script they kind of mention it but they mention it but they don't they don't use it as a bonding thing between Arnold's character and Danny's character maybe until like the third Act of the film it's not a big it's not a big element yeah and it's it's more like Arnold is more seeing Danny as his son versus Danny seeing exactly uh Slater as his father yeah okay um in the original script the kid lands in the movie world because the projectionist in the movie theater is a demon and he launches the kid into the movie world because the demon has the intention of making this kid a uh a a killer because he's exposed to all this extremely violent environment he wants to make him out of killer and take his soul and yeah yeah right this is so nowhere okay um and the original script the the the most of the movie takes place in the film Ro uh role it doesn't have the main character doesn't have a backstory like we see in LAX Action Hero it's just a action movie that has cliches cliches after cliches and it's presenting this kid that is a fan of action movie and is always one step ahead of the time but the character in the film is like wait how do you know so much about movies and he's exposed to all these extremely violent scenarios right so it was that was the the original idea and like I mentioned earlier the character was supposed to be model after Arnold so Arnold gets a hold of this script he's like I want to make this movie I don't want this character to be named Harry I think Harry is not a good name he comes up with the name Jack Slater typical like big star cliche action movies right um they change chain black changes um he adds the movie ticket idea okay he eliminates the loss of the father backstory from the kid he creates the villain Mr Benedict adds the humor and the Jokes which we're going to highlight in in a few seconds um adds adds backstory to Jack Slater so we see Jack Slater going to hit house he has a life outside being this badass cop right um and then brings the movie characters into the real world that was a Shan Black Edition that was never supposed to happen in the original script um so those are the biggest changes and if you look at it it is a good chunk of the movie so that's why uh Zack pen never got credited for screenwriting so they have the script uh col I pictures who Sony recently acquired says we want to release this film on June 18 1993 that is our date we want to compete we want to be the biggest Blockbuster this summer fun fact Jurassic Park was opening a week before but the reason they wanted to go ahead a week after Jurassic Park is because Steven Spielberg had had a boss office bomb the year before with hook and people thought the Spielberg era was done nobody wanted to see Spielberg films anymore cuz Hook was a Bo a box office bomb so nobody was like believing in Jurassic Park we all know the we all know the story of Jurassic Park right unlucky all right so Columbia picture says June 18 is the release date The problem with that is they only had a script and Arnold attached to it nothing else they didn't have all the other characters cast they didn't have a direct they had about 10 months to shoot this film and they were still in pre-production stages so junkman tyon the director of Die Hard The Hunt The Hunt for Red October among other great action films in the early '90s 80s is hired initially he denied he did not want to do it cuz he said I don't want to do another action film so Rober seus was offered the studio was leaning big against Robert zus cuz they wanted somebody that can break down action scenes and put elements of Comedy into it Robertson meccas is known for making Back to the Future Romancing the Stone which are basically comedy films that have elements in some sort of nature of action so they wanted something like that it wasn't until Arnold got a hold of John Matan and he said convinced them to take the director share and J Matan did and this is another stripe an irony you hire a action director to make a movie about s like making fun of action movies yeah so strike two so joh is hired Arnold is playing the main character they need a villain Alan Rickman was offered the role of the villain Alan Rickman as you all know played Hans Gruber and die hard best one of the best villains ever like iconic iconic right you know and most people know Alan rigman as SE snake from the Harry Potter franchise um obviously alen ggman passed away in 2016 a very young age but amazing talent so alen rigman says I'm too expensive you guys can't afford me he had a very high fee the studio was like no we're already paying Arnold $50 million for this film we can do that with you so they come across Mr Charles Dan who that same year stared in Alien 3 and today we know him as Tywin Lannister from the hit show Game of Thrones so Charles Dan is hired to portray the villain fun fact he heard that Alan Rickman was the first choice so he would show up on set with a t-shirt that would say I am cheaper than Alan Rickman so he was already making fun of himself right so they got the villain um the uh Danny who who is played by Austin O'Brien is selected via auditions um they have all the other um secondary characters to play and let's start production the film has nine months to shoot for a June 18 release so this is where everything starts going haywire the film goes through numerous rewrites during script cuz they could not find the tone of the film they could not make it funny they could not find a way to make the action scene believable so they hire three script doctors among them Carrie fiser famously known for playing princess Le in Star Wars she did a lot of scri uh scrip uh script doctor work in the 90s and for those who don't know what script doctor is is somebody that is hired to look at scripts during filming and make necessary changes to change the pace of the film The Other big name of script uh uh script doctors they hired was William Goldman who is famously known for writing The Princess Bride one of the greatest romantic comedy there is in the 80s so they have all these rewrites production is going haywire Johan Tian is is hating everything he's hating life and then they have most of the film shot and Sony wants a trailer about a month before the release it's like we need a trailer johnan tyan didn't have time to cut a trailer so what they did is that they put all the dailies together and made a trailer out of that without showing too much um after that they do a test screening and the test screening was trash people hated the movie so bad that Sony said destroy the focus cards and then W of mouth started going around people started talking like why would Sony destroy the focus cards and then W of mouth like hey I think this is going to be a piece of trash movie I I think there's I don't know if you're going to mention this fact but uh when they did the screening uh they also got the like what whatever the reference card yeah it said like it's uh the movie theaters were sold out they did like three screenings or something like that but they did not realize that the sold out movie theaters were actually the Jurassic Park ones not not not the last I actually I actually didn't know that yeah so they went it that's what I I was doing my little research I noticed that um they were so proud about like hey we sold out three movie theaters on our initial screenings but in reality when they went to those movie theaters they were all empty so I started digging and they like how did we get this information the information they got out was like that the movie theaters were actually sold out were a show in Jurassic Park not action Last Action Hero but uh it was quite a disaster and it didn't didn't get better for them right because what was the opening weekend like 18 they open opening weekend for them June 18 if I was reading it was about 18 million no no no that was too much it was 15 million enough to cover Source Egger's salary right the film went budget was like 80 or something it was like 86 million that's without marketing cost and everything cuz this film went into some heavy marketing like they had Burger King involved with like the little uh Happy Meal toys um they they had a the action figures right there Last Action Hero action figures with which Arnold had a put a say about that he wanted action figures to not have guns uh at all so that's why all none of them have guns and some of them have stuff that's not even in the movie but they just want in action figures uh they were supposed to launch a rocket into space with the logo Last Action Hero like greatest Blockbuster film of the summer that they went out with the marketing for this film um didn't help didn't help right uh obviously Jurassic Park opened the week before June 11 with uh 50 million and the rest of history that film went to gross of like 973 million worldwide and I mean we all know what Jurassic Park is we all grow like we love that film right it's one still stepen sp's best right everybody remembers Jurassic Park nobody nobody remembers hero exist nobody remembers Ain hero which is sad you and I have my I have my view and we'll we'll discuss that um the film pretty much ended up losing losing $26 million F fact uh Universal moved Jurassic Park to a June 11 after this J uh Sony decided the June 18 release date uh from what I've read or found out this canot be 100% accurate but I I think Jurassic Park was slated to open the same weekend as Last Action Hero but they bumped it up a week ahead cuz I was like they're probably thinking I'm like we got this or they were just like hey we don't want to compete let's make some money maybe and then if they're going to be like the better movie or GNA create more Buzz at least we had a week before where we maybe made some money that's usually the strategies in these yeah well at least before when mov were trying to pick the perfect dates and then move accordingly to to either save some money or to make some money or not to like compete against huge movie and and lose money in that way but yeah and to add more salt to the wound um Sony was even more humiliated the weekend after the film open second weekend right because it lost 47% of its opening weekend audience to their sister production companies Sleepless in Seattle starring M Ryan and Tom hancks yeah romantic comedy from their sister company beat them in the box office 47% of the audience went to see Sleepless in Seattle instead of Last Action Hero well yeah um cut thr business back then the movie has an amazing soundtrack you know rock and roll all over the place ACDC plays the main theme song of the of the movie with big gun's Mega death as a song in there and tracks like they listed a whole heavy metal rock and roll hitters to like promote this film too and it didn't help I'm not big rock fan or especially my's music it's dark horse for me but for at those times those songs were written for the movie or they ex already existed and they and then got borrowed for the soundtrack big gun was written for the movie that I know CU back in the days people used to write actual songs for the movies right uh and then there were the first you you heard that song in the movie later on popular tracks just got like attached to the movies yeah and that's how I remember all the like recent soundtracks where you hear the song and you like either heard it before or it just recently got popular and was kind of involved but back in the days they used to make soundtracks specifically for movies and I'm not talking about like hand Zimmer I'm talking about like actual songs being played in the movie right I mean just keep in mind like in the 90s like a a great movie normally would have a great soundtrack attached to it the greatest example I can make is sing Dion My Heart Will Go On because that song was was written for Titanic premiered in Titanic and then went to become the best uh best song probably best soundtrack song of all time I don't think anybody can disagree with that because everybody you hear that song you know exactly where it's from you know the movie yeah one of the biggest movies of all time I I hate it with passion but I I can't deny the fact that uh I don't I I love Titanic I can see that movie a million times I don't know why I really like I opened another you know we open Secrets on the show but I watched Titanic with with somebody who I felt that I'm Gonna Get Lucky with and I did not get lucky so Titanic did not help me Titanic s with you Titanic s all my [ __ ] chances and hopes for that night um but we also watched game uh the game with Michael Douglas and that was way better movie than Titanic in my yeah still didn't get me late but um well uh big gun was written for the film um ACDC actually has a music video that Arnold SW [ __ ] in the video playing guitars and everything so it was that one was made for the film they probably did by the other ones cuz I mean I'm looking at the soundtrack list right now and Errol Smith is on the soundtrack for dream on and they wrote that song like like decades before Last Action Hero was R so yeah yeah so 5050 or yeah um so do you even want to go into the plot for this or we so let's let's talk about the plot I mean I I like it it went through it went through hell uh production wise so it was a mess in writing so typically let's talk about the plot like what it's my part of the of the of the show where I can dive in uh SN my teeth into the plot but honestly you you can tell me if there's an actual plot to this because I I I I was I was trying to make notes but the only notes that I could make out that made any sense was just the key points in the plot where they were just completely out of place like first of all you have uh a 12-year-old kid who lives in New York uh with his mother he she's a widow because she states it like life is very hard since I became a widow uh and he loves movies does it does not go into expl that he tries to kind of substitute his sorrow with yeah pleasure of going to the movie but anyway um and he gets offered to he's big fan of um what what is the name of of the franchise Jack Slater it's Jack Slater it's the name of the hero and the films and the films and it's it it and it has like three films Three is out and the fourth one is about to be dropped so the the guy who runs the projector I guess projecton projector projectionist yeah projectionist Tyler D character at fight club or one of the um he off the midnight showing kind of testing testing the tape to make sure it's not it's not broken or whatever the test screening so here we are you see you got me saying so all the time you you've been saying so all right let me get this out of it he gets the chance to watch this movie but he's 12 years old and he's alone in the house and he needs to sneak out and go to the movie in the midnight when he opens the door he gets attacked by some random burglar who attacks him yeah ties kind of a little bit berates him for not fighting back even though he's a grown ass man who turns his back and leaves the knife on on like a like a b uh and expecting the 12y old to attack him yeah like it just why you already robbing this kid why you tra why you trying to traumatize him but anyway so the burglar uh handcuffs him to like a battery something like that I like a radiator something likeus is here because they they got nothing valuable to be stolen from like it's just the robber just makes fun of he's like you don't have no VCR you got no jeer you [ __ ] broke it and that point it's just sad you know they just it's just telling you like it's a sad life yeah it's it's a horrible life but yet this kid is like ah [ __ ] all this I need to see the this movie he leaves the he actually is at the police station because he obviously reported the crime yeah and the policeman tells him son go straight home cuz your mom cannot be here cuz she needs to work like his mother couldn't even break her shift and come pick her 12-year-old son who got mugged and attacked in their own apartment I mean this is a social service as case waiting to happen happens like this is supposed to be a [ __ ] comedy it's it happens in the first 10 minutes I so depressed I okay whatever so that's how the movie starts and then he gets the golden ticket rips it a half gets transformed into the movie land where all kinds of ridiculous stuff starts happening and as as you mentioned they tried to make fun of it but it's not even satire it just pure alterated trash explosions car chases some kind of plot twists crossovers expose to the to the ridiculous amount of information that we don't care about and it's just messy and on top of that there's a scene where when Arnold schwarzeneger character brings his his new sidekick Danny who is again 12 12-year-old boy who played by the 12year old he brings him to his ex-wife's house where his daughter who is in her 20s uh goes like full lipto lip uh mouth to mouth smack on this kid which for the 1993 movie it's so cool and to the 12-year-old BS who watched that boys who watch were like like yes please like if I would be his shoes and it would happen to me it would made my entire teenage decade or my I mean nobody would feel viol in 1993 no not 12-year-old kid would be violated if 20-year-old girl kissed him like am I am I delusional am I like are you with me on that one or yeah yeah no I I yeah it wasn't I mean it's it's funny it's kind of like hey he's like he's all happy about it I mean of course he is you know he's pretty much a teenager at this point you know right but like if if we look at the same scene at in the 2024 environment oh it would have not been allowed period yeah but how that scene still I mean I don't know it just it just kind of to me with all yeah with all the stuff is happening in the world right now and they starting censoring and I started removing all the jokes from like like my one of my favorite shows only Aqua SC for thank God they haven't touched that one but it's always sun in Philadelphia like they they cut entire episodes or or at least they removed episodes and they cut a lot of Jokes which did not date well yeah and and you see something like this in in a in a I mean in a big budget movie I mean at the same time like you you can't really change that cuz removing it cut that cut that yeah I know but removing it removing it is like it's not going to change the I guarantee it's not going to change the plot it's not going to change the storyline because there's no [ __ ] story line to this movie I mean yeah there's no I mean let's start I mean there is no point to certain scenes in this film yeah so that scene kind of like it just I don't know it just robbed me the wrong like it I understand it's from the 30 years ago and that that was a completely different times and it was I guess it's like VIs isting like I mean AUM it's still there but yeah why it's I mean it's part of the history so we need to embrace it I mean it's the same it's the same case we can make I mean we talked about is when we did uh Leon uh years ago and know we we know like what's going on with I we discuss the certain scenes in that film that you're like why is it still like out there to watch and but by the same time it's and not acknowledging it or removing it from it it's like saying I'm turning the Blind Eye so like it's better to just leave it out there and say yeah you know what at that time yeah we thought it was funny but now that we look at it now in this time I'm like yeah technically that can be considered rape if we were if we were talking about these things let's not throw the r word out there I mean it's I don't I don't I I don't know the legal terminology but it just it's kind of yeah pretty anyway anyways I I'm not I'm not the Loy I'm just pointing out what I see with my eyes I I'm not putting labels of all the things in this movie that's that's what grinds your career it's what else is like I have to I have to grip to something there's besides that um the only other thing that kind of switches the tone and it switches the music it switches everything is when they take the I guess the main character Danny and uh the Lannister DN Lannister or Benedict Charles Dan's character out of the movie land and into New York and it's it's one of the most bizarre transitions when in the matter of like seconds uh Slater's character realizes that he's a fictional character and in order for to comfort him Nick who is the our our what was the word I used the guy who does the the projectionist projectionist Nick the projectionist tries to get him come down and and cope with the reality that he's fictional by naming all the horrible things that surround us in the real world and he's like it's politicians like wildfires natural disasters like pollution politicians he goes he's like you said polititions twice he's like because they're twice as bad which that's that's one of the Jokes which I I give them and and nowadays I think it's even now politicians can be named four times in that sentence if not eight um but yeah it's it's a very dramatic transition and Benedict kills a guy just to prove that nobody gonna give a [ __ ] in New York in 1993 and nobody gives a [ __ ] and that just that joke kind of gets dismissed rolls over but yeah watching it now it's like well yeah things did not get better in New York or anywhere else United States um gunshots yeah nobody even pays attention cops do not show up somebody Els I just killed a man nobody does anything about it satire I think not and that's what strikes very hard about this movie it's it's supposed to be funny but any funny line does not deliver any laughter except one and I'll get to that actually there's two two funny parts um first part funny part when after all the shenanigans uh Arnold and Danny Way walk into the apartment which is kind of like completely empty rooms just with a bed and a closet and without saying anything Jack Slater just shoots in the in the closet and he's like why did you shoot the closet oh there's always somebody hiding there attack me I I spent so much money on fixing the [ __ ] closet doors like okay that that's that's funny that's classic and the second joke is when James Belushi asked at the premiere of this for why he's there and he points at his girlfriend or wife whatever and he's like well Arnold makes her horny and I want to be there when it happens and was James Belia like delivering that line is James can deliver it it's it's like unironically the best [ __ ] joke ever um in well the best joke in that in that movie and yeah it's so under the radar and it's so brushed off but it's the funniest [ __ ] [ __ ] ever and it's James Belushi who said no reason to be there and he has the funniest joke oh hold on hold on all right all right maybe to me to me to me there's a reason why Jim Belushi is in that film as Cameo yeah him and Arnold swon they did a movie together red heat yeah that's another one I haven't seen since the night yeah red heat um and then they did Jingle All The Way years later um but uh red heat is their first film together that's why he's in that film in fact everybody that cameos in this film has the connection with um sort [ __ ] um one of them they tried like this meta commentary where the actors famous actors are there and like the gag about Sylvester Stallone being Terminator in this universe of movies yeah I give them that it's kind of funny but yeah I mean um vanam was in it as a cameo obviously vanam was supposed to be in Predator um he actually was going to play the predator and then he dropped out and but eventually they Arnold and him start again later years later and Expendables too um Damon Williams is Damon wiam is there because of chain black um even Chevy Chase is in that film too for in like a brief second um yeah you have a there's a whole list of Tina Turner is in the beginning of the film uh F Murray Abraham plays like the the traiter cop who you know through the entire movie he's like he's the guy that killed mozard you know cuz from Emma moart um even Bobby Brown is uh which as another singer but Bobby Brown's a model she was in the the Blockbuster Video thing Sharon Stone is in there as a cameo from her basic insant character Robert Patrick the T1000 and even Stallone uh like the whole meta thing again you know alone portraying uh the t00 in Terminator 2 the the ideas that they put into this movie could have worked if they had a little bit different approach to it it's a it's an interesting concept and to me that so let's just end of the plot where it ends uh when Benedict the bad guy gets to the real world he has the ability and he has a ticket to bring any villain or anybody from any other movie into this world and out of all the choices he could have had and he even names all those choices that Arnold schweger could have fought in this end of the movie he brings the actual villain from the the third installment of Jack Slater yeah Tom Nunan yeah the rip rip Reaper the Ripper I mean yeah sure but uh Charles Dan does a good job like I give I give hims he he's the only one here who actually oh we can't forget Ian McAllen obviously probably the best Cameo in the entire film him portraying death he he was there yeah why I don't know but why not sure at this why not yeah like at this point all the logic were lost to me when the robber was like making fun of the I I I think at this point this film need like try to put these cameos in to just have the word of mouth like hey go see this movie he got a lot of people in there that are famous maybe but no right it doesn't work um I just don't it it's not to me it's not funny it's not entertaining because it's again PG-13 and people like take for example the movie that they tried to make fun of I guess um the the last Boy Scout yeah it at least it has some kind of plot at least it has some kind of driving force it has some kind of character development we get to know both these guys you start feeling for them they both losers they both done wrong things they both at kind of at the end of their peaks but they just have to do one last right thing I can chare for that die hard Predator like every movie even Commando like yeah it's it's it's a garbage just shoot them all type of flick but every stepen seal film there is in the 90s right okay well I don't even he's like not we should not that's the name we shall not Speak Out Loud come on bro come on go don't don't you don't you bring that curse on me Ricky Bobby but yeah um I just couldn't when I first saw it it was okay but I didn't grasp it it it didn't become my cult favorite it not become a guilty pleasure I know we all have different tastes I'm not trying to say anything I'm just just putting it out there it's I have a lot more I I have a lot different guilty pleasures from the and this one is just not one of them and on watch I just had more questions like like I brought up why was it made why it's still there why you still like it and again just for for we we can't you know like but we cannot like um and we cannot choose I guess sometimes or we have to but it's the summary for me for this movie it's like uh if you were like flirting with a with somebody in a sixth grade and obviously you're a sixth grader and you fell in love with them or whatever you Tred to hook up and and they said no and you leave them alone for 30 years and you see that same person in the [ __ ] supermarket and life did not treat them well so and you're kind of like okay yeah I dodged the bullet there so that's kind of what I get into me from this movie I'm not that's that's just my take so I agree with you I think the the film struggles with finding it tone um it just doesn't know what it is um you have action film at the like a sad story at the beginning action film like Midway you have then at that point like into the second act you start you have a character starting to break the fourth wall uh and then that's when everything starts to shift and we actually have the scene here uming and screaming and leaping to their Doom to escape the pain no not really I'm lying it was again kudos to Charles cuz he does a great job playing bened you know he the only good thing in this first you're my friend now you turn 360 on me 180 you stupid SP slurping 180 if I did a 360 I'd go completely around and end up back where I started like who writes this [ __ ] bro I mean I don't know so here he here's where he breaks that that fourth wall like for the first time in the entire film he acknowledges that he is in a not in a real it's not a he knows it's in the movie it's in the fictional world and people are watching him if God was a villain he'd be me he'd be me you want me V yeah um so it struggles to find itself because you have an movie and then you have at this point a meta film now before meta was meta and then we get into the third act when the characters jump into the real world and they find out like oh [ __ ] I can actually die here you know Jack Slayer is no longer invulnerable he can actually get hurt but here's the thing and this is I found this is a messy part you know again this this comes some sloppy writing Jack Slater use loses his invulnerability whatever the word is can't what whatever that word is sure but Ian Mallen who's playing death doesn't he still has the touch of death like what like like who write this [ __ ] again right um now my question to you you know um so my thoughts of the film is like yeah it's a mess but it's a guilty pleasure so it's one of those like it's bad it's good to watch um I enjoy watching it and and you know after learning how much they went through hell like my question to you is now we discussed the tone do you think this film was ahead of its time no no I don't think it was ahead of the time I I think as I mentioned the concept was was semi good in the good hands in the good writers maybe they could have created some kind of metaverse type of thing where you go from reality to Movie Land and from movie land you bring some cool Concepts into real world and and it has some kind of consequences everybody learns the lesson yeah so like the Matrix on paper yeah on paper it it had it had potential but the way it was executed I I I don't see the following I don't see how I mean again that's just my opinion so do you think if this film had a different release date and it had the proper time to fix everything you still think it would have missed I think it it had to be Rewritten completely and re reshot I don't think if you have all the the original script again I don't know I didn't read but I None of none of the editings none of the script doctors could have saved this mess in my opinion but I could be wrong it just the way that it's it has too many different pacings and it has too many different tones and doesn't know where where to go with it so it just loses its own identity and when I as a viewer cannot I have to figure out what I'm watching am I watching a comedy am I watching a satire am I watching action is this like the the drama of of losing your that and looking I I need I need direction from the directors so which clearly this movie didn't have it this movie is all over the place from the beginning to the end and um I what they given me at the time by by the time I swallow one scene they already on to the new one and everything would just happened doesn't even matter anymore um yeah so I I passed it was one and done for me I don't think twice twice and done for you well maybe maybe in 30 years I will revisit it I I'll I'll rewatch this film anytime and I I really you do you you do you boo um so I I I mean I agree with what you're saying um I I think I think it was slightly ahead of its time I don't think the audience was ready for this meta World thing um the parody theme it has existed before this movie came out so yeah parodies was already thing but I think this film opened up the door to how to make a meta film right to other directors and the biggest example I'm going to use is uh West Craven Scream 1996 about 3 years later first Scream movie anybody that has seen scream and understands what scamman's idea behind scream is he's making fun of his own film from the 80s he is making a meta horror film of how to survive and not and a horror film right um and then later on that carries on in a way and then this is my opinion The Matrix know you were mentioning like the whole meta world the real world the fictional World The Matrix I think in some shape or form this movie might have paid way to like the idea of like what if we live we're Liv in a simulated world and we're all hooked up behind our backs into the real world and the real world's not good and only those that want to accept that reality are disconnected from it right um so I think it paved way to this idea of like portraying a a movie within a movie which you know later on we're going to see an Inception you know a Dream Within A Dream Within A Dream right um but I I think that's maybe the type of thing that it might have paved way into it unofficially nothing that not not that anybody out there's crediting at Action Hero for the inspiration of these films you know nobody's going to say that but maybe in some shape or form maybe these directors are actually there was something on there that I can make better and now we have all these movies in these meta um this meta genre you know of like something within within that makes it more real to you right um and that's that's my thought um you know you know what's funny you mentioned the Matrix uh you ever thought that ever since the Matrix arrived to us that the payones disappeared and and oh yeah and the payones were the only way to get out of the [ __ ] Matrix in the movie so we're all here we're all stuck there's no way out anymore just just gotta just another another fun fact for all of you there so there John um John maton later on uh said this about the film's failure and cred response in that quote initially it was a wonderful Cinderella Story with a 9-year-old boy we had a pretty good script by Bill Goldman charming and this ludicrous hype machine got a hold of it it got buried under [ __ ] 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 6 weeks after I finished shooting it was kamakazi stupid no good reason for it and then to open the week after Jurassic Park God to get get the death of bad judgment involved in that you need a snorkel he ain't wrong that's that's kind of spot on it's uh yeah so this movie was a box office bomb it pretty much hurt everybody that starred in this film um Jung M tyon pretty much didn't have a box office hit after this he went to direct some films and they were not hits um his most disastrous one after this one was roller ball in 22 2002 with Chris Klein L Cool J John Renault horrible movie based on a another movie in 1970 with James Khan he then on went to direct basic with John travolt and Samuel Jackson um okay yeah actually no he had he did have one more box office hit um he did die hard with avengeance um that was last hit uh with Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson that was that was a good one yeah I think it came out like either probably like a year later or two years after this one um soer ngger pretty much got saved by James Cameron um after this box office bomb True Lies True Lies yep James Cameron uh saw L Action Hero and he called uh I read I saw this in an article he called arold sweger to know lift him up and James Cameron said and I'm misquoting here it is it was probably the most depressing time I've ever heard Arnold he's usually very upbeat about everything but this movie not being successful really hurt him in different ways and then James Cameron pretty much saved him a year later with True Lies which became another big action hit for the for 1994 and then it just lifted Arnold once again and the rest is history uh for Arnold so so but I think one of the things uh that this movie kind of is the biggest Sati is that Arnold charger is the Last Action Hero he is after after that I think the Tor being taken by those kind of more fun Brady like not these that like I I don't want to call Neo from The Matrix Action Hero he's not he does Action he's a hero but I don't I don't I wouldn't put him like the action hero John Wick yes all right I I can I can see that being the action hero but it's still it's it feels different I don't know why it just John John wig is just a it's like a video game character it is it just started with a very lowbudget independent film and it just transformed into what we now know as John I know it's it's amazing you know what started as like a lowbudget film that nobody like oh sure it's Keana the Reeves but here we go four films later you know we got one of the best action franchises there is in this decade yeah that last one was pure fire you know again video game it's it's just watch it's uh it's just watching the first person first person shooter but um anyway you have uh any quotes you want to share with us or I have one more Shane black was very critical of the movie the guy that wrote it and I quote it was a mess there was a movie in there struggling to emerge which would have had pleased me but what they made was a jarring random collection of scenes pretty much yeah y That's that sums it up um accolades so you know how there's Oscars there are ra razis yeah they reward the worst of the worst they had to win everything category the film was nominated for six golden raspberry Awards worst picture worst actor worst director worst screenplay worst new star and worst original song big gun by ACDC but it did not win any had a bad worse movie that year than Last Action Hero but they got nominated for all the big ones apparently um SAR nagger on the film was nominated for seven Saturn awards for best fantasy film best actor Best Director best writing best performance by a young actor and best costume so if you put the film in a f genre it's a hit apparently so that probably that's probably where they missed um other than that um sger has expressed interest of revisiting the Jack Slater character if the opportunity Ares but that was in 2019 we were in 2024 and that man his acting yeah his acting shops are were done you know like he he may run for the governor again yeah so about that um other than that that's all I got you have uh you have ideas what we do next week so next week we already posted it right yeah it's it's already posted so next week we're going to be it's going to be our season finale we're going to take a break after that for a few weeks uh we're going to do a drive with Ryan Goslin a awesome movie I'm really excited to rewatch it it's been a couple of years since I've seen this film um and I'm looking forward to talk this one with you I know you enjoy this I know you're probably going to have a lot to say with this film go we go heavily on the plot I mean you're the one that basically picked it uh as an idea for our season finale so I'm excited to see what you bring uh maybe you can maybe you can carry the the next show next show yes I I'll I'll try to do my best I'll take all the notes and uh next time I'll be more talkative but thank you everybody for coming thank you all for supporting us uh remember to watch our previous episode on the thing thank you I totally forgot what was our last episode uh the thing we also have all of all of our other episodes on our YouTube channel uh remember to follow us movie. by on Instagram movie by podcast at Facebook movie by podcast at in uh YouTube and movie by podcast on Twitch comment like share favorite please comment uh and then other than that we'll see you all next week thank you again [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] d [Music]