Arnold Schwarzenegger Considers Last Action Hero To Be His Most Underrated Role
From the very beginning, Arnold Schwarzenegger was enthusiastic about "Last Action Hero," and for good reason. His 1993 action blockbuster had an ace up its sleeve. Namely, that it was a meta take on the very genre to which it purported to belong.
The film tells the story of a boy named Danny who's transported into his favorite action franchise by way of a magic movie ticket, finding himself alongside his hero, Jack Slater (Schwarzenegger). That premise provided a way for co-screenwriter Shane Black — who rewrote the script along with David Arnott based on the original screenplay by Zak Penn and Adam Leff — to send up the action genre that the film's star had helped build.
In fact, Black himself had a hand in establishing the kind of '80s action "Last Action Hero" was parodying, having penned 1987's "Lethal Weapon." All of which made for an ironic twist when Black was brought in to rework a script that was essentially commenting on the kind of movies he'd been responsible for. And in my opinion, it resulted in one of Arnie's best films.
Unfortunately, most people didn't see it that way, at least at the time of the film's release. "Last Action Hero" had the unfortunate honor of being Schwarzenegger's follow-up to the mega-hit that was "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," which meant that when the movie debuted, its off-beat premise wasn't enough to help it live up to the frankly unreasonable hype. And that has kind of remained its legacy ever since. But Arnie's enthusiasm for this meta take on an actioner has always made sense to me, and it seems it still makes sense to the man himself some 30 years later.
Last Action Hero was a box office bomb
"Last Action Hero" allowed its star to combine his comedic sensibilities, which he'd previously explored with 1988's "Twins" and 1990's "Kindergarten Cop," with his other biggest talent — being Hollywood's number one action star. Arnold Schwarzenegger had always looked to mix things up in his career, which is part of what gave him such longevity. And while his comedic projects could easily have undermined his status as a muscle-bound leading man, they simply didn't (see the aforementioned "T2").
The always shrewd Schwarzenegger, seemingly aware of the incongruity of his varied roles and the waning popularity of the kind of bombastic '80s action movies with which he'd made his name, gleefully threw himself into "Last Action Hero" to play up the whole thing — resulting in one of his most fun and interesting roles.
But just because I think Jack Slater remains one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's best roles, doesn't mean that was reflected in the box office numbers. Arnie's attempt to combine his two personas in one PG-13 offering just didn't win over audiences, with the film bringing in just $15 million on its opening weekend and making $50 million domestically by the end of its theatrical run. (Though it was up against "Jurassic Park," which doesn't seem all that fair.)
Either way, "Last Action Hero" was a box office bomb by most accounts, especially considering its outlandish (for the time) budget of $85 million. Fortunately, "Last Action Hero" found a cult following on home video following its box office troubles, which for Schwarzenegger just vindicates his initial enthusiasm for the film.
'It was slaughtered before anybody saw it'
In 2023, 30 years after "Last Action Hero" debuted, Arnold Schwarzenegger sat down with The Hollywood Reporter and was asked what his most underrated role is, to which he replied, seemingly without hesitation:
"'Last Action Hero.' It was slaughtered before anybody saw it. It was literally a political attack because I was campaigning for [former President George H.W. Bush], but Bill Clinton won. 'Last Action Hero' was great — it wasn't fantastic, but it was underrated. Now, more and more people are seeing it and saying, 'I love this movie.' I'm getting the residual checks, so I know it's true. It made money — that's always an important thing for me. Because it's show business, right?"
I'm not sure the whole "political attack" angle is accurate, and this wouldn't be the first time the "Terminator" star has tried to blame Bill Clinton for the film's woes. Back in 2017, he pretty much said the same thing to Business Insider, blaming the press for writing a narrative about the "Last Action Hero" that cast it as some kind of relic of a bygone action era simply due to Arnie's political alliances.
Which may or may not have some truth to it — after all, who am I to question the great Austrian Oak? Either way, he's right in saying his role as Jack Slater is underrated. As is Schwarzenegger's awareness of the wider culture at the time.
The death of the action hero
The narrative Arnold Schwarzenegger accused the press of fabricating wasn't entirely removed from reality. The actor claimed to Business Insider that the perspective being pushed by his opponents amounted to, "The action hero era is over, Bill Clinton is in, the highbrow movies are the 'in' thing now." This was kind of true in the sense that audiences were moving on from the over-the-top action of the previous decade. And for his part, Arnie had a hand in undermining the image of the '80s action hero by branching out into comedy and family-friendly fare that played on his status as the pre-eminent Hollywood tough guy.
What's confusing about Schwarzenegger's comments is that his enthusiasm for "Last Action Hero" was seemingly a result of him recognizing the very point he claimed the press was exaggerating. The man has always been astute enough to recognize changes in culture and appeared to see the value in sending up the genre he'd helped establish at a time when audiences were looking for something new. That was kind of the whole point.
Perhaps Arnie sees Bill Clinton as emblematic of a shift towards more high-brow culture (imagine that) in the '90s, and is saying the press were successful in deriding "Last Action Hero" as just another 80's action-style blockbuster — when in reality it was trying to appeal to emerging tastes. While "Last Action Hero" certainly isn't high-brow, its high-concept approach is at least more sophisticated than a "Rambo: First Blood Part II."
Whatever the case, "Last Action Hero" remains an underrated entry in Schwarzenegger's filmography. With a Netflix documentary telling Arnie's life story around the corner, I'm hoping he puts in another good word for his meta exploration of action clichés.