Being a kid around 1993 definitely had its perks; Jurassic Park terrified us, beanie babies came out, Ms. Doubtfire terrified us, CERN created the World Wide Web. However, there were also some drawbacks and Last Action Hero starring Arnold Schwarzenegger was definitely one of them. We’re we wrong to think that?
Film
I hadn’t seen this movie since it first came out on VHS. I remember it as one of those awesome action filled event films aimed towards the prepubescent male masses. Who didn’t want to get sucked into an action movie and be side-kicks with Arnie? To say the least, I was intrigued when I found out I had to review this movie on Blu-ray. Was it going to hold up to my pre-teen romanticism? Was I going to be pleasantly surprised or horrifically let down?
The film begins with a movie within the movie (Shakespeare eat your heart out), we meet ‘The Austrian Oak’ playing Jack Slater, an action hero in our protagonist Danny’s favorite blockbuster franchise. Danny, a kid who’d rather spend times in a rundown theatre than go to school, gets transported into the movie through a magic ticket (don’t ask). Once in the movie, he gets to partake in the type of mindless action that he loved to watch.
Once inside the movie we’re confronted with numerous cliches in the action genre, albeit some are clever but mostly they’re annoying. Being directed by John McTiernan, who prior to this was responsible for Predator, Die Hard and The Hunt for the Red October, led me to believe that this movie was going to have some decent action sequences to keep the film’s 130 minute running time somewhat understandable… However I was sadly disappointed to find the action scenes were sparsely spread throughout. Also, the movie relies on very dry tongue-in-cheek dialogue that really drags the movie on. Coming from Shane Black (writer of Lethal Weapon and Last Boy Scout), I expected some wittier dialogue.
Through countless cameos (including the desecration of Humphrey Bogart’s image) and a whiny protagonist, the film really overstays its welcome in my blu-ray player. I wish I had the magic ticket to go into the film and start beating up all the characters that annoyed me for wasting my time.
Video
The action is displayed in 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 using the original 2.40:1 aspect ratio, however even though it has the specs that have potential, the video quality is quite disappointing. There’s a lot of grain and the film seems fairly washed out.
The daylight exterior shots are the movie’s only saving grace in terms of Blu-ray worthy quality, however it’s very hard to screw up a shot in broad daylight.
Audio
The audio is best part of the Blu-ray overall. The dialogue comes through clearly and the sound effects really show off the dynamic nature of the mix. I definitely cranked up the volume at times to get a feel of just how well the tracks were mixed and it was nice to hear all the gratuitous explosions in detail.
Last Action Hero‘s audio is presented in DTS-HD Master 5.1 Audio, for English, French and Portuguese. However the Spanish audio track is Dolby Digital 5.1. It’s still nice to see decent mixes for foreign languages. Also for the hearing impaired there are subtitles for all the aforementioned languages.
Special Features
None, except Movie IQ & BD-Live… So basically none. I expected at least a trailer, maybe a slapped together commentary or featurette, but they even forgot to put in the AC/DC music video for “Big Gun” that not only had scenes from Last Action Hero intercut into it, but also had Arnie dancing on stage with AC/DC.
Final Thoughts
Last Action Hero is far from a cinematic masterpiece. Instead, it’s an all-out brainless action film that fails. For those who want to kill two hours with some mindless and gratuitous action, then I’d suggest a different title. If you want to listen to a decent action mix and show off your sound system then rent this flick.
