The original writers talk a lot about their script being ruined. The concept was rich, but they didn't really play around with it enough. Very rigid.
The final product is messy, but it's more fun than the initial script. In my opinion, anyway.
Same here. Danny is more likeable and developed in the script, but they don't do much with the "traveling between fiction and reality" concept, it's just kinda there and not made into as big of deal as in the movie.
shareAs I understand it, this project ran out of time during the editing phase. That might seem to suggest too much material, rather than too little. But maybe they just had to butcher it in the end, because it's hard to make a lot of things fit together in the editing process.
____________________
The story is king.
Yeah, this is an interesting movie - as a phenomenon, not as entertainment.
It's more interesting to analyze this movie and why it doesn't work, how and why it failed so hard, than to actually watch it.
If some A.I. analyzed movies, and found this one, they would probably think it was a big success. On paper, everything seems fine, and there's a lot of polish in this movie, it's 'competently made'. In some ways, it's a lot like Roger Rabbit, with the walking cartoon characters and all.
It's like you have perfectly polished and shiny, new parts to make a car, but then you give the job to someone that has never put a car together, and the end result just doesn't work, the car doesn't run. It looks good on the outside, and judging from the separate parts, everything should be perfect - but it just doesn't click together 'as a car'.
The same way, this movie has some funny jokes, great observations about movie tropes, Arnold is his usual charming self, the kid is not too bad, the main villain is both hilarious and charismatic, very enjoyable and menacing on the screen.
The movie raises many really good points about how movies lie to us, and how big the difference between 'movie reality' and 'our reality' is.
In theory, this should've been a great movie, with lots of at least cult success - but it isn't. When you first watch it, you might be puzzled as to why this movie was such a failure, because it SEEMS entertaining, everything SEEMS to be just fine.
That could be one of the problems, though; this movie never seems to rise above 'fine' or 'passable', at least not very high. This movie never reaches 'excellence', and I can't detect 'genius' at any point. The jokes are 'funny', but mostly not 'laugh-out-loud'-funny. The performances are good, but nothing that makes you gasp. The plot is interesting, but it's not mind-bogglingly thought-provoking. The musics.. well, you get the idea.
There doesn't seem to be anything wrong about this movie..
..but it just doesn't work. The well-polished parts just do not click. The parts do not fit together as a cohesive, coherent movie experience. It's a shame, because the movie is even entertaining, it's not completely boring or anything.
It could partially be that they played it a bit too safe. The plot is so predictable, your brain knows you're watching something boring even if you think you are being entertained by the action, the jokes and the noise.
In the end, this movie doesn't tell us anything new, it doesn't give us any kind of uplifting message, it only leaves you slightly confused as to what you just watched. It's very paint-by-the-numbers-stuff.
The kid's life with the single mom also seems pretty dark, his story is actually terrifying; being robbed in his OWN HOME? Not being school but hanging in some dilapitated theater with some old guy all day long? His life is out of whack, and it makes you worry for him in the back of your mind when you're supposed to laugh at some not-too-funny-joke.
This movie doesn't seem like it 'needed' to be made - it doesn't DARE anything unexpected or visionary, there's no personality or personality. It doesn't give the viewer enough. It's like oatmeal or vanilla ice cream - sure, it can hit the spot, but there's SO much more that could have been done. There's a world of crazy flavors, and all you get is this safe, pre-chewed stuff that doesn't let you feel anything. The movie doesn't dare provoke you on any level, or tell any hard truths.
It's just popcorn-'entertainment' at the its mildest, most predictable dimension imaginable.
A premise like this could've been really exciting - it is a pretty unique movie that way, but it falls so short of its potential. What could have been, what more interesting story could've been told.. Heck, they could've visited classic movies, like 'E.T.' and 'Short Circuit' and brought those entities to the real world!
But nope.. just some cliché 'death' from an old movie, etc.
I guess what I am trying to get at is that this movie is 'boring without seeming boring'.
It doesn't go the extra mile to really reach the depths of your soul and make you feel something exciting and extraordinary. Everything is a bit off, a bit out of whack, and nothing leaps out at you, which is a real shame, because for a premise like this, something absolutely should.
They could've made it a bit more meta, perhaps. They could've had funnier jokes, more extreme situations, and more annoying movie tropes, but they basically played it too safe.
This movie is superficially flashy and glittery, full of noise and explosions, action and even a 'story with a heart', but on a deeper level, it ends up being the most predictable junk food you've ever consumed, it ends up being 'just another these type of movies' instead of saying something of its own, doing something unexpected or unpredictable, or giving the villain more to do.
The Last Action Hero is unique in that it seems to check all the right marks, but yet fails to deliver. It just doesn't deliver despite its big star, 'funny-on-paper'-moments, like Slater meeting Arnold and the villain having a 'have a nice day'-eye. There should have been something more, something better, funnier, more original - there should've been an ACTUAL PERSONALITY, like so many other movies have.
It's a big-budget hollywood romp that's trying to make fun of big-budget hollywood romps, and as such, it reminds me of those 'low-budget B-movies that try to be low-budget B-movies', like the AVGN movie and 'Space Cop'. I can't believe how the people that have given us amazing entertainment can produce such garbage.
You can't intentionally create a 'good low-budget B-movie' just by having a low budget and trying hard to make that. It has to happen organically, while you are genuinely trying to make a good movie, but fail. THEN it becomes 'so bad, it's good', but not before. You can't intentionally make something look bad or 'act badly'
It comes off as corny and incongruent, it looks like you are TRYING to act badly, of being a bad actor trying to do his best. In actual B-movies, the fun comes from everyone trying their best and failing. You can't replicate that intentionally, it just doesn't work. You can't fake being bad by trying to be bad so everyone will laugh at you because you act so badly.
You have to try your best to act well.
The Last Action Hero, in my view, falls to a similar trap; it tries too hard to laugh at itself and movie tropes, while still being full of said tropes - but because it's intentional, you are supposed to find it funny somehow. It just doesn't work. Manufactured irony just doesn't work any more than manufactured 'bad B-movie'.
So much money wasted to give us basically 'tepid water' instead of some amazing new drink.
What a shame.. so much resources, potential, big names, acting performances, editing, location scouting, you name it.. just to give us THIS.
Such a shame.
last action hero's problem is it is just too 90s. 90s ruined films with their shit style.
shareShit take.
sharei have no problem with that drooch we all have own taste i think 90s film was when cgi become number one on shitlist and people get lazy.
shareWell you’re wrong, the 90’s may well be the greatest decade for film, so many classics pumped out every year, check out 1993 alone:
Jurassic Park
Schindler’s List
Groundhog Day
The Fugitive
Cliffhanger
Mrs Doubtfire
In The Line Of Fire
True Romance
You’d be lucky to find one movie that good in an entire decade these days.
As for CGI, back then it was better, the filmmakers used it as a tool instead of a crutch, and they integrated with with real film rather than making an all-digital film which just looks like Pixar with people. The CGI T-Rex in Jurassic Park looks better than it would 30 years later because Spielberg knew what he was doing.
You're right on Drooth. I automatically think of how Jurassic Park's dinosaurs looked good but 2005 King Kong's dinosaurs look like crap by comparison because they only used CGI. Where as Steven Spielberg used both animatronics and CGI which looks better.
shareTotally. He also used very clever techniques like having the CGI dinos always interact with real objects, shaking the camera whenever the T-Rex stomps, shooting at night to hide the imperfect CGI in shadow, hiding yet more imperfections with a rain element, seamlessly cutting between CGI shots and puppets, using incredible sound design (making full use of the then-new DTS and Dolby Digital audio technology), cueing your imagination with approaching stomping and a severed goat’s leg so you believe in the creature before you see anything…
Spielberg is a fucking genius.
yes they are all good film you list drooch but good films in 90s few and far between & mostly mediocre film in 90s that is just my opinions.
on my old imdb accounts i still use ratings and i notiice most of the 90s film i rate are 7/10 or less. some 8 and one or two 9. for movies in 1960s 70s and 80s are most of my 9s and 10s. this is why i judge 90s because i realize they not up to standards of previous 3 decade.
"you’d be lucky to find one movie that good in an entire decade these days."
yes that is true drooch 90s cinema great compare to shit film now too many woketard infecting cinema now so shit movies abounds.
Every year in the 90’s had several classics. In addition to the string of classics from 93 I mentioned above, check out 99:
The Matrix
Fight Club
The Insider
The 6th Sense
American Beauty
The Green Mile
Magnolia
Cruel Intentions
Notting Hill
Dogma
Payback
Eyes Wide Shut
American Pie
The effects in The Matrix were revolutionary, again because CGI was expertly integrated with other effects and all printed onto film, not like the all-CGI ‘Resurrections’ 🙄
The 70’s and 80’s have many classics, but not as many as the 90’s - it’s hands down the best decade for films.
i like your 93 list better than 99 drooch. matrix good film the rest not my taste. american pie is weak version of porkys!
shareAmerican Pie is no masterpiece but it had a massive cultural impact, and it was made in a better time when you could have comedy and tits, unlike today.
shareit also have no diversitys which is big no no's now hahahah
shareTrue, you had the odd Asian but that’s realistic, there was certainly no obnoxiously forced diversity.
yes and the asian kid have one of the biggest laugh in movie - he coin legend term milf which still use to this day hahahahahahah
also the fugly feminists today would also ruin american pie if it come out today as they would complain about objectify women etc and they ruin film and they force to change it to satisfy hamplanet feminists!
Most likely.
‘Milf’ - you see - cultural impact.