THE HUBRIS OF ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER
'LAST ACTION HERO' is a film that I've seen parts of on TV before, but I've never watched the whole movie. Now that I have seen the whole movie I can well understand why it flopped on release in 1993. This whole movie is just such an ego trip for Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was Executive Producer on this film. The story is absolutely proposterous and Schwarzenegger quickly allows himself to slip into self parody. Apart from the obscene amount of money spent on this movie, I had to ask myself why such great actors like F. MURRAY ABRAHAM and ANTHONY QUINN committed themselves to be in this movie. It's crap. It still manages to entertain somehow, but that does not make it a good movie. I have never seen such blatant self promotion - a big premiere of the latest Jack Slater movie is just an excuse for the real Schwarzenegger to make a cameo appearance along with some famous faces. LAST ACTION HERO was released in summer 1993, at the height of Schwarzenegger's ego trip, Planet Hollywood had just opened (and yes he even plugs Planet Hollywood in this movie.) Schwarzenegger was justifiably trampeled on by one of Spielberg's dinosaurs with JURASSIC PARK.His heavily accented Austrian-English really grates on you after a while. After the bomb that was LAST ACTION HERO, SCHWARZENEGGER wisely reteamed with director James Cameron for TRUE LIES in 1994. If you want to see a really good satire on Hollywood movies, then watch Robert Altman's THE PLAYER instead.
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