Last Action Hero (1993/Sony Blu-ray)

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B     Extras: D     Film: D

 

 

In what was the first big step in the decline of Arnold Schwarzenegger at the box office and as a seemingly unstoppable powerhouse, John McTiernan’s Last Action Hero (1993) was supposed to be a smart deconstruction of the action genre the lead had made so much into a moneymaking machine for Hollywood.  Instead, it was a total catastrophe that had a hit soundtrack and nothing much more.

 

I understand the idea that comedy could be found in deconstructing the action film, but it was the worst possible idea with the worst possible script at the worst possible time.  Schwarzenegger was coming off of Terminator 2 and this was a true test to see how indestructible he was at the box office.  Like the ironic one liner form the film says, a metaphor for everything we get here: “Big Mistake!”

 

There are also terrible cameos with zero humor, including an awful waste of Art Carney that produced the point where the film jumped the shark beyond repair.  He has been beaten up (!?!) by some gangster and tells Schwarzenegger gangsters did it, then dies.  Schwarzenegger dumbly sticks around reading a message to him via index cards.  As he reads the numbers on them as countdown, he realizes “It’s a Bomb!” in the house where Carney has died and yells this running out of the place before it explodes.  In 1993, I told my friend it sure was and I knew this would be one of the worst films of any year.

 

McTiernan is in federal prison for lying to federal authorities on an unrelated matter.  For making this film, they should make him watch the film over and over for at least a week!

 

Other wasted cameos happen throughout and there is not much of a story here, though there is also the obnoxious idea that everything that keeps happening does not really happen.  Outside of the audience, the biggest victim of this was then child-actor Austin O’Brien, who has grown into a good character actor and did not let this debacle make him quit the business.  Good for him.

 

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital high definition image was actually shot in real 35mm anamorphic Panavision and even was offered in 70mm blow-up prints with Dolby magnetic 5.1 sound, all while employing Dolby’s advanced analog SR (Spectral Recording) noise reduction system.  Here, the image is softer than it should be for such a shoot and for the money spent on the film, but I did not expect this bomb to look too good.  The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix is interesting as this was the premiere film for Sony introducing their new SDDS digital sound process also known as Sony Dynamic Digital Sound.  Unlike Dolby or DTS, it could do 7.1 channels and added two behind the screen that had been missing since the 1970s.  The mix here is not as dynamic as expected and just does not have consistent soundfield or the top-rate articulation it should have.  The combination is not up to what Blu-ray could deliver.

 

The only extras are movieIQ and BD-Live interactive features exclusive to the Blu-ray.  Otherwise, this is as empty as the film, though it had one of the most bizarre tie-in campaigns with a fast food chain in promotion history and to say the editing was disturbing in its implications is an understatement.  Schwarzenegger’s career was choppy after this and that is no surprise.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo