Last Action Hero

Annotation for KRRR! 2016 by Martin Kos

The 1993 film The Last Action Hero, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, did not only benefit from the success of the previous films by the originally Austrian bodybuilder and one of the biggest movie stars of his time. It also referred to other action spectacles of the 1980s and early 1990s, starring Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis. In The Last Action Hero, John McTiernan approached the action film genre with considerable exaggeration and used established motifs for a number of parodic techniques. Although the whole concept was neither a success with the audience nor a warm reception at the time, today the somewhat overdone "meta-killer" with Jack Slater aka Arnold Braunschweig is extremely interesting, especially in terms of the storytelling methods used and the relationships between the mediated worlds.

The last action hero cleverly uses the character of a young film enthusiast Danny, with whom he places (within the fictional world) the fictional world of the new action movie that is currently being shown using a magic ticket. The boy, who is thoroughly familiar with the genre rules, takes on the position of a fan. First, he is enchanted by the possibilities and characteristics of the world of films with Jack Slater. Second, he uses his knowledge from previous viewing experience to ironically comment on various clichés, constantly getting on the nerves of all the inhabitants of this world. And third, Danny actively uses his fan position to intervene in the plot and, based on his knowledge of important information, changes its future direction. The film thus skillfully works with connecting the fictionally real world with the fictionally fictional one, while building an incredible number of comic moments and allusions based on their differences, thanks to which the film becomes a charming nostalgic memory of those good old action heroes.