Every Arnold Schwarzenegger Movie Ranked Worst To Best
4. Last Action Hero
In a just world, Last Action Hero would never have been the flop it was when it premiered in 1993. Crushed by the weight of Brand Arnold and a little movie called Jurassic Park, John McTiernan's under-appreciated action send-up and send-off was dead on arrival, plagued by a chaotic production and criticised for self-indulgence, tonal inconsistency, and studio arrogance.
While the latter charge is fair enough (seriously, against Jurassic Park, Columbia?), Last Action Hero remains Schwarzenegger and McTiernan's most underrated effort - a deeply introspective work of action brilliance that served as a post-mortem on the genre's eighties explosion, and on Schwarzenegger's then-unshakeable screen legacy.
These qualities have always been a part of McTiernan's film, which transcended its irreverent parody roots to become something altogether more sincere, heartfelt, and considered. The diagnosis for Last Action Hero's failure has long rested with the idea that its genre mockery was toothless, brought together as it was by figures synonymous with action's box office dominance who then had too much affection for it to rib it effectively. In actual fact, this very heart has always been the film's biggest weapon.
Last Action Hero - and Schwarzenegger, for that matter - is more conscious than anyone of the restorative power of cinema and the lines between escape and reality. Here, Arnold and McTiernan reconcile myth with reality, celebrity with vulnerability, and artifice with authenticity, pairing the monument-like Arnold with young Austin O'Brien, who plays a fatherless child who fills that void with the movies. For Schwarzenegger, whose own journey was sparked by childhood inspirations like Reg Park and John Wayne, it serves as a poignant moment of reflection - an indulgent one, perhaps, but one no-less earned.
In any case, Last Action Hero balances its myriad and at times contradictory features remarkably well. It's one of McTiernan's most beautiful movies, features a ton of great action, an iconic turn from Charles Dance, and is legitimately funny. It's just a film that, unfortunately, had the odds stacked against it from the beginning.