Danny (Austin O'Brien) is a boy living with his divorced mother in New York City. Needless to say, he doesn't have the best life, but his one escape is a small theater not far from his route to and from school. While the theater isn't any of the super-mega-plexes that surround it, it does have a lot of character, as well as an older friend who runs the projectors, Frank (Art Carney). While Danny is a fan of pretty much all movies, it seems he has a soft spot for a series of Arnold Schwarzenegger films called Jack Slater. In them, Schwarzenegger plays a tough-as-nails cop that seems to be a mix of Clint Eastwood's Harry Callahan (Die Hard) and Bruce Willis' John McClane (Die Hard), with a bit of Mel Gibson's Martin Riggs (Lethal Weapon) thrown in for good measure. Our movie opens as the new (and sixth) Slater film is about to be released. Frank is going to do a pre-showing of it to verify the film's integrity before the actual release, and he has asked Danny to join him for this very special occasion.
When Danny arrives for the pre-premier, Frank gives him a golden ticket that was given to him by Houdini himself and claims that it is magical, but confesses to never trying it before. With that note, he tears the ticket and sends Danny into his private showing. It isn't long before the ticket's special abilities show up when the line between the Jack Slater film and the real world starts to blur and a stick of dynamite thrown into the theater forces Danny to jump into the back of Slater's convertible.
From there on, Danny spends his time in the movie world, not only trying to help Slater solve his current case, which involves a hired gun named Benedict (Charles Dance), but also trying to convince Jack that everything he sees is fictional. Jack tries everything from pointing out that everybody has a "555" phone number, to the cartoon cat-detective (Danny DeVito), to the fact that all the women are hot. From Slater's point of view though, all of this is perfectly normal. Meanwhile, Danny struggles with staying alive as he tries to figure out his own role. Is he the side-kick good guy, and thus guaranteed to live, or the goofy comedic relief that could die and cause the hero to seek revenge?
All this becomes moot though when Benedict realizes that the boy is right and uses the golden ticket to break out of films and into the real world. From there, Slater and Danny must follow him, and Slater learns quickly that he can actually get hurt. The movie ends in a humorous and climactic battle at the film's premier that has everyone from Schwarzenegger (as himself) and his wife Maria Shriver (as herself) to a ton of other real-stars (even a brief appearance by M.C. Hammer ... oh the 90's). Let's just say the point where Slater meets Arnold is pretty good in and of itself.
While it sounds like I've given a lot away for this film, I haven't. There are tons of details left out, and the experience as a whole is pretty enjoyable. The only major issue with this Blu-ray release is the lack of any special features whatsoever. I understand that the old DVD release didn't have anything either, but there could have been a bit of extra work done to make a retrospective or featurette on spoof movies in general ... or something. As for the transfer to high definition, everything looks and sounds good, but I didn't really notice any spectacular moments where I thought the move to the new media was warranted. Then again, if the move gets people to re-watch the film and appreciate it more now then they did at the time, I can go along with it.
Last Action Hero really is a good comedy-action-spoof film that just came out at the wrong time. If it had come out just a few years later, it would have been appreciated more. As it is, I firmly believe the film deserves a second chance, and should at least be rented.
