Rambo: Ass Blood

Okay, okay - stay with me here. I saw Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019) and those impressions are probably coming soon, but one thing that really stuck with me was the trailer for Rambo: Last Blood (2019). Yeah, it looks terrible, but it got me thinking about stuff. Like, a lot of stuff, so here it is, Internet. Your first non-Pop music post all month. First, let's watch that again:



Trailer I guess has been out for a few months, but I haven't really caught it. For some reason it didn't seem to have a lot of buzz. I think that's wholly to do with what we're writing about today. John Rambo and Sly Stallone have fallen down that slippery hole of Old White Men Action Wish Fulfillment Fantasy Movies. Have you not heard of this trope? Well, let's say hi to our friend and originator of this whole deal, Nicholas Cage.

I first noticed The Cage dipping around Ghost Rider and NEXT in 2007. But that's really not that outrageous. Superhero movies were very much a thing and NEXT isn't all that ridiculous for where he was in his career.

But then suddenly Bangkok Dangerous (2008) turned into Knowing (2009) and Drive Angry (2011). The Cage descended into the realm of Netflix Streaming with one-word titles. Stolen (2012). Rage (2014). Arsenal (2017). The Trust (2016). The Trust is actually pretty good. In between he still had a handful of challenging, offbeat roles in Joe (2014), Army of One (2016), and Mandy (2018), but since then has churned out Outcast (2015), Pay the Ghost (2015), The Runner (2015), Between Worlds (2018), A Score to Settle (2019), Before Death (2019), and Against the Odds (2019). Those last two aren't even real.

A lot of these films have a similar theme. They're relatively cheap, Direct-to-DVD (or Direct-to-Streaming) films about a vengeful broken old white man avenging something. Probably a daughter. Cage is weird enough as an actor that some of these movies rise above the script and are watchable. Still, it felt like the start of a weird trend. Older actors, struggling to find relevance in their careers have increasingly turned to churning out this trash. And none are quite like Liam Neeson.

It started innocently enough. I even made a bit post about how Zeus dreamed he was Liam Neeson at night. It was all good and fun, but that was now seven years ago. He hasn't really turned back since. In fact, it seems like his real-life persona has doubled down on this insanity. A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014) is actually awesome, but certainly fits the mold of world-wearied white man avenging the women he's lost in his life. Again, there is a descent here. Taken 3 (2015), Run All Night (2015), The Commuter (2018), and Cold Pursuit (2019) all fit into this realm. I was actually pretty pumped for Cold Pursuit, because the trailer is bonkers and I have no idea what tone they're going for.



It's almost at the point of self-parody, except that it takes itself too seriously to ever dip into a true parody of the genre, which would in itself be somewhat inspired brilliance. Liam Neeson has proven to be a trailblazer for older dramatic actors finding renewed relevance. Enter John Cusack.

John Cusack. What the fuck, John Cusack. In a post-Hot Tub Time Machine (2010) world he has somehow become a Direct-to-VOD icon. Drive Hard (2014), The Prince (2014), Reclaim (2014), Arsenal (again!), Blood Money(2017), Singularity (2017). It's wish-fulfillment that Cusack fans can envision themselves reclaiming (no pun intended) some of their old world, prove their relevance, and rescue some daughters.

This doesn't stop here. Bruce Willis is killing VOD. Now, this is a man of action credentials, one of the biggest stars in the world. Why is he appearing in Extraction (2015), Marauders (2016), and Reprisal (2018). At this point, I would also like to say that if you've seen or even heard of any of these movies, I'm very impressed with you. I consider Willis among that Expendables "Big Three" that has a franchise to fall back on. For Bruce, it was Die Hard for a long time, but maybe even with A Good Day to Die Hard (2013) he realised he was sullying the good name and legacy of the franchise?

Sly Stallone seems to have no fear of this. He's more than happy to return to the Rambo or Rocky universes, although when he did the latter in Creed (2015) it was so artful and natural that he probably should have earned an Academy Award. That's high standards. But he also has his share of trash lately. Is Escape Plan becoming a franchise? There's a third one due out this year for some reason. Other than that he has Backtrace (2018) and Bullet to the Head (2012). Not too bad of a trash resume. You know, beyond the VOD Escape Plan movies he's making once a year for some reason.

Then there's Arnold. He's actually one person who stands out as different from all this. This video actually describes his rise and current career pretty well. I kind of think back to Last Action Hero (1993) as a sign that Schwarzenegger was always actually pretty canny about all this nonsense. He remains elevated by sticking to theatrically released movies, without descending into too much revenge fantasy. His return to the movies have been punctured with Sabotage (2014) and Aftermath (2017), but also Killing Gunther (2017) and Maggie (2015). None are very good, but at least weird and interesting.

He does keep going back to the Terminator well for some reason. That movie is just on another level blockbuster-wise than Rocky or Die Hard, though. There's just a more world-shaking stakes involved. Of course, there hasn't really been a good Terminator movie in over twenty years, but for some reason that franchise still has some goodwill. Well, maybe not after Genysis (2015). I can't see Dark Fate (2019) doing...well anything.

If we look at other old white actors who peaked in the 90s it's crazy how everyone has pretty much relied on their one franchise to now make in perpetuity. Tom Cruise settled on Mission: Impossible. Harrison Ford is turning out for new Indiana Jones and Star Wars, although the latter certainly doesn't revolve around his involvement. Keanu Reeves is the only one to say, "Screw that, I'm John Wick now!" and has made an iconic recurring role for himself deep in his 50s.

Since he has a movie coming out this weekend, let's take time to dive into this "Old White Actors Save Young Daughters" trope a little more with a movie that best epitomizes this concept: Jason Statham's Homefront (2013). This is a movie made explicitly to exploit middle white male American fears of losing control over what they've had control of for so very long: every aspect of their families lives and in many ways, the actual entire world itself. It's nice to go to these movies and see cranky fathers relevant and useful again, instead of some scary Latin American transsexual. Actually, I really want to see a Latin Transsexual action movie now.

There are quite a few more examples out there. Dolph Lundgren cranks them out. Frank Grillo gets into it. Check out Ethan Hawke in 24 Hours to Live (2017) or Antonio Banderas in Security (2017). This was just me scrolling through Netflix for two minutes. And I don't mean to totally trash direct-to-VOD movies. I saw Triple Frontier (2019) earlier this year and dug it. Sometimes the movies elevate beyond their sources. But I also think that the onslaught of cheap, emotionally exploitative White Man protection fantasies is distinctly correlated to our political climate. And not just Trumpism, but the underrated massive culture wars we're experiencing right now. It's tough to fight for your place in society, but it's got to be fun to watch John Cusack shoot some black drug dealers who kidnapped his daughter.

This brings us back to Rambo: Last Blood. It saddens me that Sly doesn't even seem to realize the satirical element and raw PTSD emotions of First Blood (1982). Rambo is now no better than anyone in Arsenal or The Prince. Oh well.

What do you think? Am I crazy or is this a disturbing trend? What kind of films will Chris Hemsworth be making in thirty years?

The Eternal Glory of Predator, with respect to JAWS and Masculinity

The other week I managed to catch Predator (1987) on Esquire, which I need to start planning to watch about once a month. And no, I have never watched anything else before or since on Esquire. I don't even know what that channel typically plays. But all they really need is Predator, which reminded me that I ought to write something up about this fantastic movie and the extremely crappy legacy it has left since.

This time with facial scruff!

The amazing thing about Predator is how it's a subtle mix of a few disparate genres that bends its way into being a real solid action film, despite its complete lack of car chases, minimal explosions, and fast, incoherent editing. Okay, so that opening assault on the Guerrilla camp has enough explosions to make up for the rest of the film, but once it gets going it trades these action tropes for the kind of psychological paranoia more befitting of a slasher film. In fact, that's the best way I could describe Predator - it's a military slasher film. Luckily for us, the viewers, when your film is full of big, scary men, you need a bigger, scarier monster to fuck them up.

See, the movie begins like another Arnold vehicle, Commando (1985) (they actually take place in the same fictional Latin American country), but more a "men on a mission" war film that descends about halfway through into a science fiction thriller in the jungle. There's never been anything quite like it. It should have been a good candidate for my article on Movies that are Two Movies. By the time it's traded its military shoot 'em up for a science-fiction slasher movie it's just as ready to become Home Alone (1990) in the jungle. Keep in mind that the first Predator kill isn't until about 42 minutes in. The fact that it keeps up a remarkably efficient plot and a consistent tone and theme through these genre swaps is amazing.

This is especially true as the film narrows down to just Arnold and the Predator. Dialogue ends and all we see is an extremely focused preparation and battle between these two giants. The film does a great job of visually establishing the Predator's abilities, particularly the heat vision and cloaking powers, which the audience has been able to deduce through "Predator-Vision" but has been unclear to the protagonists. Watching this in 2015 makes me appreciate how much mileage a film gets out of having its heroes lost in trying to figure out their alien enemy and how it skirts any exposition explaining what's going on. Here is the best clip I could find of a film that fails hard in this regard. Yes, for some reason, YouTube isn't filled with sexy exposition scenes.

It's reminiscent of other films that dramatically change their construction when events happen that would naturally limit dialogue, from JAWS (1975) to Cast Away (2000). Let's go back to JAWS, though, because it's a film that actually has plenty in common with  Predator. Like I said, there is a shift in the kind of film it is trying to be - JAWS morphs from this small-town drama with many intersecting characters to a confined monster hunt with only three. Predator boasts this expansive, macho military-driven cast that's again whittled down to one man and his monster. There's a lot more to it, though.

Both films are an examination of masculinity. Chief Brody is an ineffectual child who can't really do anything right or impose his will on anything until he's able to become a man with that one final rifle shot. And all of the gang's giant guns and chest-cutting testosterone is completely ineffective when faced with the Predator. Just take Apollo Creed's death scene, with the glistening abs, giant guns, and manly bellowing. It doesn't mean shit when an invisible alien runs up and stabs you in the chest with giant serrated Wolverine claws.

Come at me, bro!

For most of the movie, the Predator is unseen, but his presence is always felt by the characters, whether they realise it or not. Killing the earlier platoon led by Jim Hopper that was sent in is the reason why Dutch's guys are there in the first place. The one girl (in the entire movie), Anna, comments that the Predator is "the jungle itself" and when the men realise that it's been using the trees this fear grows that no where is safe and this thing is around them all the time, hunting them. If your mind is turning, yes, that's exactly like the Shark and its ocean in JAWS. Too bad the Shark never ripped anyone's spine out.

Finally, by the end of the film we finally get to see the monster's big ugly mug, in JAWS as it tries to munch on Brody's chum-chucking hands, and in Predator as the alien realises that Arnold Schwarzenegger may be a worthy opponent to fight without battle armour. I really love that final fight. Dutch has such strong situational awareness that he's able to win by turning the Predator's advantages into his own. Throughout the whole movie the Predator is killing these elite military guys because it's invisible while it can detect them in the infrared spectrum. Arnold turns this around by first disabling his cloaking and then rendering himself invisible through mud. It's a sublime switcheroo.

After Predator came Predator 2 (1990), which completely traded settings, Val Verde for Los Angeles, to a lesser effectiveness and a whole new can of worms thanks to that damn Xenomorph head in their spaceship. It's worth noting that nothing about Predator (or "Yautja") society has ever really been fleshed out, and the canon is mostly limited to the tactics and weaponry established in Predator, which is kind of astounding. I actually enjoy Alien vs. Predator (2004) for that scene where the chick and Predator almost kiss. I'd consider Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) to be pretty dumb, not for including the Predalien or whatever, but just because it's a fantastically dumb movie. Predators (2010) actually seemed like it was a valiant attempt to get back to what made the original so special, and it's probably the second-best Predator film, but you just can't trade Arnold for Adrian Brody, even if the cat beefed up ridic for that flick.

Stray observations while re-watching Predator:

• Shane Black looks just like Harold Ramis from Stripes (1981)
• 1987 featured two movies starring both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura, the other one being The Running Man. Both these men would become State Governors. I love America.
• Jesse Ventura wears an MTV shirt. This happens, unironically, because his character is supposed to be edgy.
• Are Mac and Blaine gay?
• The Predator's laugh at the end is so well articulated and un-monstery. It's so unsettling to me every time.

Profiles: Colin Farrell, Courage, and America

This past weekend I somehow found myself in the middle of a grueling debate over the nature of actor, Colin Farrell. I, naturally, am generally pro-Farrell, but my opponent hated the Irishman with such fervent vitriol, that my only recourse was to turn to the Internet to provide a well-connected and reasonable forum where rational debate and intelligent thought and reflection may be facilitated. Of course the Internet's the place to do that.

So, why Colin Farrell? I suppose he's been leading debates for years now. It's tough to even remember when he first became a noteworthy actor. He was kind of just appointed one, without ever proving himself. That's why our debate centered on ridiculous films that came out over a decade ago like Minority Report (2002) and Daredevil (2003). Farrell is sort of like a Jude Law or a Sam Worthington - he doesn't really have that one distinctive role that thrust him into the spotlight. Instead we were suddenly supposed to care about this random dude with good-looking leading man chops. I believe that this general disdain or apathy has unfortunately informed the public perception of Mr. Farrell since his debut.

My opponent's basic argument was firstly, that Colin Farrell's appearance in any film was never distinctive enough - that he could be played by any actor. This opinion was primarily based off things like Daredevil, though, which again is a very narrow-minded way of arguing over an actor's oeuvre, and essentially the worst part of modern Internet fan-fueled criticism. There was no convincing my opponent because he had already written Farrell off. He could not distinguish the actor Farrell from his early accepted persona, nor take out Farrell from a total work (for instance, since Farrell has a small role in Horrible Bosses [2011], therefore all of Horrible Bosses is bad), nor understand the difference between acting well with a ridiculous part (Let's go with Daredevil again), ruining what could have been a great role (let's get Alexander [2004] out of the way), or just true, true complete shit (Miami Vice [2006]). All of this is anemic to true, unbiased critical appreciation of films, which in turn limits the scope of what movies you'd be inclined to watch and enjoy.

In my counter-argument I first attempted to dig into a few choice Farrell roles that have gone culturally underappreciated or maligned with the ravages of time. When The New World (2005) came out, it was largely dismissed as a failure. This was due likely to its accepted status among critics as trite Oscar Bait, cultural fatigue over another massive attempt to make Farrell a star, and a gap between the expectations of grandiose spectacle it created vs. the natural and intimate wandering epic that Terrence Malick actually delivered. Nine years later we're able to watch The New World without all of this context screwing with our judgment and really enjoy the nuanced revisionism that Malick and Farrell put on screen.

But you're not going to win an argument this way. After Miami Vice or so I think Farrell really started to get his act together. He stopped trying to be the next big blockbuster or franchise leading man and began taking these smaller roles in less high profile films. The results were a slew of both leading and bit parts for the next five years, but the shining jewel here is really In Bruges (2008). Whenever someone says they hate Colin Farrell, mentioning In Bruges should be enough to get them to at least say "Oh yeah, I forgot about that one." He justly earned a Golden Globe for the off-beat role in this little seen "criminals-laying-low-in-Bruges" flick, that also represents a turn where Farrell took on more challenges, recognized his daft public persona, and started having a lot more fun.

Scumbag or Sex Symbol? Scum symbol.

He's recently returned to bigger filmmaking with this weird kind of prestige. No one knows how he became a big name. Honestly. Is it Minority Report and Daredevil? Because Farrell wasn't the reason anyone saw those. S.W.A.T. (2003)? Do you honestly even remember what happened in S.W.A.T.? For whatever reason, though, the man is a household name, and when he started taking some ridiculous roles in major studio films that another established actor of his standing wouldn't have touched, it's significant. The combover king in Horrible Bosses. The fucking vampire in Fright Night (2011), equally throwing weight around as the heavy villain as well as the huge acting "get," intimidating everyone with aplomb. The guts to remake Total Recall (2012). And back to the intimacy of the endlessly enjoyable romp through the narrative twists of Seven Psychopaths (2012).

I think that intimacy is what sets Farrell apart and gives him his edge. In Total Recall he's the opposite of Schwarzenegger because you can believe that Arnold really was a secret agent all along - look at him! The ambiguity inherent to the mindfuck premise becomes tried. Farrell is like watching the film remade with Jason Bourne - he has all these abilities but also a ton of fear. You get this same vulnerability on display in In Bruges, The New World, and Seven Psychopaths. He's not an action star. He's more romantic (and yes, this article won't forget this year's Winter's Tale [2014], which is notable for making the least sense of any movie ever made), cautious, and charming. It's easy to see why anyone raised on Schwarzeneggers and Stallones would balk, but that doesn't make him a disastrous lead actor. Even if you ultimately look at his box office and attest that he still hasn't really connected with audiences.

We do really need to get back to Daredevil. I'm not sure why Daredevil kept coming up, maybe it's because it's when the guy who was really cool in Minority Report who was able to go toe to toe with Tom Cruise had a big chance to be a really cool supervillain and he totally hammed it up. He broke our hearts. Daredevil tends to have this really awful reputation, but I think that's also because of the presence of Ben Affleck (try as he might, Ben can never seem to get over his pretty boy douche image - how is the memory of Pearl Harbor [2001] more potent at this point than The Town [2010]?), which is also an unfair fanboy assessment based more on acceptable public perception that articulate critical lens.

I really liked Daredevil when it came out. I was also like 16 years old and still jazzed up about seeing Spider-Man and X-Men on screen for the first time. See, that's an important moment. Daredevil was really a gutsy call - way before Iron Man was adapted, or even Batman Begins (2005). It was the darkest superhero film to date before an age where everything had to be "dark" if it was going to be cool (I don't know if we're still in that age. I think bubble gum is cool now. Is The Avengers [2012] cooler than Man of Steel [2013]?) I know I'm arguing now for liking a movie within its contemporary context, but I think that initial enjoyment kept me afloat when all the hate started pouring on.

Daredevil has the unique distinction of being an origin movie and a pretty good mid-career movie all in one. A film like Batman Begins spends just about the entire time creating all these justifications for why someone in the real world would eventually conform to the iconic imagery forged 70 years ago. Despite its genuinely profound character construction, its entire conceit of taking a comic character with extreme seriousness, is in itself, a silly prospect. Daredevil wastes no time in its origin, and then jumps to find its protagonist pretty well in his years, cleaning up the scum of Hell's Kitchen, questing whether or not he's the bad guy, balancing a personal life (or not, as Matt Murdock's lawyer alter ego is very much derived from his late night antics, seeking both legal and vigilante methods of justice), as well as getting well and confused over the right paths to take when all these crazy assassins like Elektra, Bullseye, and Kingpin show up.

Yeah he is pretty douchey

Oh yeah, Bullseye. Colin Farrell. In the comics, Bullseye is all kinds of awesome. He's super insane, never misses, and loves killing everyone all the time. That's all pretty true for the film version as well. My opponent made a big contention that Colin Farrell was really stupid because Bullseye's superpower was that he could never miss, and in the film, he misses poor Affleck's Daredevil. Neverminding that it's less a superpower, and more of a superskill, I tried to reason that that's a huge, genuinely affecting reason for the criminally insane Bullseye, who has never before met Daredevil, to become obsessed with killing him, thereby hitting his mark and proving that his power does exist. It's integral to the development of their relationship. It's as if Professor X made Magneto's powers stop working. Wouldn't a huge part of Magneto's development then be getting his powers back (Jeez, that really happened towards the end of The Last Stand [2006]). It's not exactly the same, but it's worthy motivation.

He also argued that Bullseye doesn't do anything cool and when he does, it's only important for the plot. I argued that his motorcycle flip introduction was sort of cool, which he countered saying that that's something any of Charlie's Angels (I assume the McG versions) would be able to do, and considering none of them have superpowers, Bullseye should do something cooler. As a side note, my opponent apparently hadn't seen an action movie since 2003. Also, for the record, we were now arguing about whether or not flips of motorcycles were cool. I think they're pretty cool, I dunno. Bullseye also propels a lot of the plot by (SPOILER, if you somehow have made it 11 years without seeing it and/or still care about Daredevil being spoiled) killing Elektra, but that's also a big character moment for Murdock, considering he wasn't able to reconcile with her due to Bullseye also killing her father and framing him. Still with me? Bullseye fucks up everybody in this movie, this whirling destructive psychotic force that stands against all the law and justice Murdock is trying to achieve. Murdock is Dent and Batman rolled into one and Daredevil beat The Dark Knight (2008) by five years.

So, I'm not sure if I convinced you on Colin Farrell's greatness. To be honest, he's not all that great, but he's not the worst actor by far to come about, and he's been more the victim of biased groupthink perception than real criticism of his acting or role choices. I can't seem him being interchangeable, especially in flicks like In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths. And I'm going to watch Daredevil again. Stop hating on Daredevil. If anything it is more a proto-Superhero film in wake of what's going on today, but it has influenced Nolan's Batman a whole lot more than any of its fans would care to admit.

Reexaming Last Action Hero in the Modern Age of Meta and Parody

In the Summer of 1993 there was only one movie on my seven-year old mind: Jurassic Park. As it would turn out, dinosaurs were the only thing on everyone's mind. Jurassic Park not only became the biggest film of the summer, but one of the highest grossing films of all time, a trendsetter in computer generated imagery (that still looks pretty damn good), and is beloved enough today to earn a damned decent 3-D conversion and theatrical re-release a few months ago. Last Action Hero (1993) debuted a week after Jurassic Park, but is none of those things. No one gave a shit about Last Action Hero in the Summer of Dinosaurs.

He says "I'll be back" like 50 times, and is made fun of each time

Why bring this up now, twenty years later? For better or worse, I had heard some good things about this flick but had never bothered to watch it. The premise always seemed flimsy to me, and in terms of the truly great Schwarzenegger films, we've got Commando (1985), Predator (1987), Total Recall (1990), True Lies (1993), and more Conan and Terminator movies than we could ever want. I always perceived Last Action Hero as this red-headed stepchild that was bizarrely dropped into the middle of Arnold's peak popularity and instantly forgotten. Thanks to my general laziness in paying attention to my Netflix queue, though, for better or worse, Last Action Hero was mailed to my house and I watched the hell out of it. It's one of the most meta-movies ever made for sure, but I'm wondering if, while under-appreciated and overshadowed in its time, if it had been released today, would audiences be way more into it?

It's a tricky question. It feels very much like a specific 90s action movie and a movie that came out in direct response to the glut of not only the Arnold films of this era, but of all the increasingly nutty action flicks made in the wake of Lethal Weapon (1987) and Die Hard (1998) like The Last Boy Scout (1991) and Demolition Man (1993). It helps that the script for Last Action Hero was originally written by Zak Penn as a parody of Shane Black (of Lethal Weapon fame) scripts, and was later touched up by...Shane Black.

In this sense, it's very much a product of its time. Everything about it, from its heightened sense of violence, endless witticisms, and sultry L.A. setting screams 90s movies. Its core brilliance, however, stems from the fact that Arnold is game for parodying his entire film career along with the entire genre. The essential premise is that a kid who is an Arnold fanatic gets sucked into the fictional film-within-a-film, Jack Slater IV, and eventually emerges from the world with the actual Jack Slater, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's actually probably Arnold's best acting ever, expressing some real emotion when his fictional character realizes that he is fictional, and becoming upset when he meets the actual Arnold Schwarzenegger, who also exists in real-life.

A world without Schwarzenegger - now that's a scary thought!

Within Jack Slater IV, the kid continuously points out how ridiculous everything is, but the film accurately and self-reflexively depicts the insane physics and rules of its word with a consistency befitting any action film. Jack Slater's only super powers are those granted to any action hero - he never runs out of bullets, no enemy can hit him, he can drive any car like a crazy person, and every clue comes to him with little to no sleuthing. When he enters the real world, these powers disappear and the film accentuates the ridiculousness of the action genre through a deft presentation of this contrast. The kid acts as a running commentary in lieu of the audience, pointing out a constant stream of craziness (like a talking cartoon cat), convenient plot developments (like the cat showing up to save their asses), and even an inability of any character to swear (because of the film's PG-13 rating). All of this intelligent meta-discussion of genre and the implicit criticism of action movies disguised as an action movie ws lost on 1993 audiences. But would it be adored today?

There have been plenty of films since that have parodied Hollywood, although none were quite as dense as Last Action Hero. Bowfinger (1999) skewered much of the movie-making process, but wasn't nearly as off-the-wall crazy or genre-savvy as Last Action Hero. The closest film to what Last Action Hero was trying to do is possibly Tropic Thunder (2008), which also featured over-the-top films-within-the-film and a savvy commentary on life in the entertainment industry, as well as blurring multiple lines of fiction and reality (The final film-in-the-film, after all, is shot by the actors reenacting events that they actually experienced while filming another film, which was based on a book that an author made up but passed on as a true war story). Whether it be from an age of increased transparency in entertainment news which allowed potential audiences insight into the creator's intentions that allowed viewers to get in on the joke, or just a corrected perception of the talent involved (Tropic Thunder, after all, was created by comedians, rather than action stars), the film was largely understood by audiences and became a financial success.

Other films that have been successful strutting the line of homage, parody, and genuine genre flicks are the Cornetto Trilogy. The important thing about Last Action Hero is that while it clearly makes fun of action flicks, it is still very much an action flick itself. The Cornetto Trilogy, consisting of Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), and The World's End (2013) all strut this line, not as overtly and obviously as Last Action Hero, but again, the audiences today understand and appreciate what its creators are trying to do. On the topic of Apocalyptic Comedies in the Summer of 2013, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's This is The End (2013) also relied on audience perceptions of Hollywood to "get" the core joke and premise - the riff on the public personae of a handful of young Hollywood Stars. All these films were pretty successful, culturally and commercially.

Plus - Sonya Blade!

So, in an age where this level of meta-parody and self-reflexive Hollywood criticism is both more common and more successful, could Last Action Hero have succeeded today? It's a tough pill to swallow, if only because there are only a few actors whose careers are widely enough known to skewer for the tropes to be understood, but that needs to be effectively communicated through marketing material. Picture Will Smith making an extremely genre savvy parody of Will Smith movies. I'm not sure that would work (or that Smith would be game - which is another reason why Arnold, at literally the top of his career, was unlike just about any other actor). Picture Matt Damon starring as Jason Bourne in a parody of Bourne Movies (he might do that), and you've got some idea of what this needs to be.

I really like Last Action Hero. I'm not sure if anyone else could. If you're a Shane Black fan, or at least an early 90s action movie fan, it's a must see. If you like extremely meta-films that constantly comment on themselves through a mixture of the different rules of different realities, this is the flick for you. It could possibly catch on in this age more than it did against Jurassic Park, but parts of it that are so dated towards the 90s tend to hold it back. Then again, you need to be in on the whole joke.

Jack Slater V (2015) needs to come before the next Rocky.