Remembering The Last Action Hero

Arnold Schwarzenegger's career as an action hero is probably most associated with the '80s and the films he made in it--The Terminator (1984), Commando (1985), Predator (1987) and others. But, unlike the career of his contemporary Sylvester Stallone, whose career really did peak then (arguably in 1985, when Rambo: First Blood, Part II and Rocky IV were the second and third-biggest hits of the year), his biggest success came in the early '90s--the years of Total Recall (1990), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and True Lies (1994), as well as the comedy Kindergarten Cop (1990). Still, if this patch gave him his biggest films (big enough that the remakes, sequels, spin-offs continue to this day, with a show based on True Lies on CBS), it was not unmarred by disappointments--like the comedy Junior (1994), and of course, The Last Action Hero (1993).

Made on a then-massive budget of $85 million (how times have changed!) it was one of the biggest disappointments of the year, pleasing few as action movie, or as comedic "meta" take on the genre. Still, it seems to have endured in the popular memory rather more successfully than that same summer's flop Super Mario Bros. (again, how times have changed!), and even if time does not seem to have improved its reputation it still had its moments, like Charles Dance trying to explain to Anthony Quinn the difference between a turn of one-eighty and one of three-sixty, and of course, the reason why Schwarzenegger's going after the bad guys this time was "personal."