Henry Kingi | Through the Shattered Lens

Oh, Last Action Hero.

Ever since this film was first released in 1993, it’s usually held up as an example of a Hollywood fiasco. The script was originally written to be a modest satire of action films. The screenwriters wrote the character of Jack Slater, an movie action hero who comes into the real world, for Dolph Lundgren. Instead, the film became an Arnold Schwarzenegger extravaganza and the studio ended up tossing a ton of money at it. When the film was originally released, the reviews were mixed and the box office was considered to be disappointing. (That it went up against the first Jurassic Park was definitely an underrated issue when it came to the box office.) Ever since then, The Last Action Hero has had a reputation for being a bad film.

Well, I don’t care. I like The Last Action Hero. Yes, it’s a bit overproduced for a comedy. (It breaks my own rule about how no comedy should run longer than two hours.) Yes, it gets a bit sentimental with ten year-old Danny Madigan (Austin O’Brien) using a magic, golden ticket to enter the film world of his hero, Jack Slater. If you want to argue that the film should have devoted more time to and gone a bit deeper into contrasting the film world with the real world, I won’t disagree with you. But I will also say that Sylvester Stallone starring as The Terminator in Jack’s world was actually a pretty funny sight gag. Danny knowing better than to trust a character played by F. Murray Abraham made me laugh. Danny’s fantasy in which Arnold Schwarzenegger played Hamlet was made all the better by the fact that his teacher was played by Laurence Olivier’s wife, Joan Plowright. Danny DeVito as Whiskers the Cartoon Cat makes me laugh as well, even if it is perhaps a bit too bizarre of a joke for this particular film. (There’s nothing else about the Jack Slater films that would explain the presence of a cartoon cat.)

When you set aside the idea of the Last Action Hero being a symbol of Hollywood bloat and just watch it as a film, it emerges as an enjoyably goofy action movie, one that captures the joy of watching movies (because who hasn’t wanted to enter a movie’s world at some point in their life), and also one that features a rather charming performance from Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Schwarzenegger, I should add, plays both himself and Jack Slater. One of my favorite jokes is when the real Schwarzenegger is at a premiere and he mistakes the evil Ripper for Tom Noonan, the actor who played him in the previous Jack Slater film.) Yeah, the golden ticket is a little bit hokey but who cares? Underneath all of the special effects and action and money spent on star salaries, Last Action Hero is an action movie and comedy with a heart. Danny meets his hero but also gets to become a hero himself. And Jack Slater turns out to be everything you would hope your movie hero would be. In the end, it’s obvious that a lot of the criticism of this film has more to do with the appeal of riding the bandwagon as opposed to what actually happens on screen.

Last Action Hero is a movie that I’ll happily defend.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

In celebration of the 77^th birthday of the great Director John Carpenter, I decided to watch his 1998 film VAMPIRES, starring one of my favorite actors in James Woods. I specifically remember the first time I ever read that this movie was being made and that it would star Woods. It was 1996, and I had just been hired to work for a company called Acxiom Corporation in Conway, Arkansas. It was at this job that I first had access to this new thing called the Worldwide Web. As far as I know, it was the first time I had ever looked at the internet. Of course, I immediately started completing searches on some of my favorite actors, including James Woods, when I came across VAMPIRES as a movie currently in production. These were the first times in my life that I was able to find out about new film projects without looking in a magazine or watching shows like Entertainment Tonight.

In VAMPIRES, James Woods stars as Jack Crow, the leader of team of vampire hunters who get their funding from the Vatican. We’re introduced to the team when they go into a house in New Mexico and proceed to impale and burn a nest of vampires. While the rest of the team celebrates the mission that night in a hotel filled alcohol, drugs, and whores, Jack can’t escape the feeling that something isn’t right, as he doesn’t believe they got the “master vampire” of the group. Unfortunately, Jack is right to worry. As they’re partying, the master vampire Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith) interrupts the fun and proceeds to kill everyone there, with the exception of Jack, his partner Tony (Daniel Baldwin), and Katrina (Sheryl Lee), a prostitute he decided to just bite on. Valek isn’t just a regular old master vampire, either. As it turns out, he’s the original vampire, and he’s on a quest to find the Berziers Cross, an ancient Catholic relic, that will allow him and other vampires to walk in the daylight. Against this backdrop, Jack, Tony, and a priest named Adam (Tim Guinee) use Katrina, who now has a psychic link with Valek, to try to kill the ultimate master vampire Valek, his cleric accomplice Cardinal Alba (Maximillian Schell), and just hopefully, save mankind in the process!

I know that VAMPIRES is not the most well-known or beloved John Carpenter film. He’s done so many great movies, but VAMPIRES is special to me as it was the first of his films that I ever saw in the movie theater. And the opening 30 minutes of the film is as badass as it gets. Carpenter is a master of the set-up. There’s lots of slow motion as Carpenter’s guitar riffs rock the soundtrack and the camera moves in on James Woods, with his cool sunglasses and black leather jacket, just before his team goes in and destroys a vampire nest at the beginning of the film. I also think the set-up of Thomas Ian Griffith as Valek is awesome, as he strolls up to the hotel room while the vampire hunters celebrate, completely unaware of the carnage about to befall them. Griffith has never looked cooler than he did in his long black coat and long hair, both blowing in the wind. These were awesome moments that illustrated Carpenter’s ability to project a sense of visual cool and power that I was mesmerized with. I wanted to see what happens next. And as a 25-year-old man at the time of VAMPIRE’s Halloween release in 1998, I also gladly admit that I really enjoyed the beauty of a 31-year-old Sheryl Lee. I would have definitely done everything I could do to save and protect her. The remainder of the film may have not been able to keep the same momentum as those first 30 minutes, but it’s a solid, enjoyable film, buoyed by the intense performance of Woods!

Vampires (1998) Directed by John Carpenter Shown: Thomas Ian Griffith, Sheryl Lee

There are several items of trivia that interest me about VAMPIRES:

John Carpenter had a good working relationship with James Woods on the set, but they had a deal: Carpenter could film one scene as it is written, and he would film another scene in which Woods was allowed to improvise. The deal worked great, and Carpenter found that many of Woods’ improvised scenes were brilliant.
VAMPIRES was John Carpenter’s only successful film of the 1990’s. Its opening weekend box office of $9.1 million is the highest of any John Carpenter film.
The screenplay for VAMPIRES is credited to Don Jakoby. Jakoby has some good writing credits, including the Roy Scheider film BLUE THUNDER (1983), the Cannon Films “classic” LIFEFORCE (1985), and the Spielberg produced ARACHNAPHOBIA (1990). The reason Don Jakoby interests me, however, is the fact that he had his name removed from the film I’ve seen more than any other, that being DEATH WISH 3 (1985), starring Charles Bronson. Even though Jakoby provided the script for DEATH WISH 3, due to the drastic number of changes, Jakoby insisted his name be removed. The script is credited to the fake “Michael Edmonds” instead.
As I was typing up my thoughts on VAMPIRES today, I learned of the death of the director David Lynch. This brings special poignancy to the fact that John Carpenter cast Sheryl Lee after seeing her on Lynch’s T.V. series TWIN PEAKS (1990).
Frank Darabont, who directed one of the great films of all time, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (1994), has a cameo as “Man with Buick.” Fairly early in the film, after Crow, Montoya, and Katrina crash their truck escaping the hotel massacre, they encounter the man at a gas station and forcefully take the Buick. This is a strong sign of just how respected John Carpenter was by other great filmmakers at the time.

John Carpenter has directed some absolute classics like ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (1976), HALLOWEEN (1978), ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981), THE THING (1982), and BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986). There’s no wrong way to celebrate a man who has brought such joy into our lives through his work. Today, I’m just thankful that he has been given the opportunity to share his talents with us!