For today’s Ass Whoopin Wednesday film, I wanted to go back in time to check out a film that was a personal favorite of mine by one of action’s greatest stars in Arnold Schwarzenegger (The Terminator). The film is called Last Action Hero and Arnold stars as a fictional action hero named Jack Slater that is worshiped by a kid named Danny Madigan (Austin O’Brien). One day after receiving a special ticket that was supposedly given to Danny’s friend Nick (Robert Prosky) who owns the movie theater, by Houdini, Danny is magically transported into the film he is watching. Danny will then get involved with Slater as the two try to figure out how to stop a Mafia head and his henchman Benedict (Charles Dance) before it’s too late. The film also stars F. Murray Abraham (The Grand Budapest Hotel) as John Practice, Frank McRae (48HRS) as LT. Dekker, Tom Noonan (Heat) as The Ripper, Anthony Quinn (The Guns Of Navarone) as Vivaldi, Mercedes Ruehl (Gia) as Irene Madigan, Ian McKellen (The Hobbit) as Death, Professor Toru Tanaka (The Running Man) as Tough Asian Man, Art Carney (Harry And Tonto) as Frank, and the film was directed by John McTiernan (Die Hard). Now before we get into the review of the film, let’s take a look at some stats.
The movie is pretty straight forward as far as the stats are concerned because our hero is a fictional character which is all you need to know for the origin story. He has 28 confirmed kills/knockouts and he does it in style in this film. One of the great things about this movie is that it sort of throws it in your face when it attacks typical action films of the time period. Back in those times, the action hero never dies and if he gets hit, it’s usually always a flesh wound because he always ends up saving the day. A lot of the stunts that he performs in the films are ones that would never be possible to pull off in real life and so it’s funny when the character Jack Slater comes into the real world and finds out first hand. The film also references real life movies and a funny pic is of Stallone as The Terminator in the Slater world as well as an appearance from the T-1000 from T2 in the police station. You also see Sharon Stone dressed in her Basic Instinct outfit which I thought was random. One of the cool things about the film though is all the appearances you get in the film from the likes of Clint Howard as a bad guy, Bobbie Brown and Angie Everhart in a video store, and so many more. This was always one of my favorite action movies back in the day because it had a great soundtrack and I always wished I had a golden ticket so that I could transport myself into my favorite films. How cool would that would be to be able to do that and meet some of your favorite characters. Anyways, the film is available on Netflix to watch and I am going to give the film four fists out of five for a final grade.
Moshpits And Movies 