This '90s Arnold Schwarzenegger Meta Action Movie Was Way Ahead Of Its Time

You'd think that action director legend John McTiernan's meta action-comedy "Last Action Hero" starring Arnold Schwarzenegger arrived just at the right time in 1993. The Austrian Oak was already established as the biggest action star alongside Sylvester Stallone — fighting "Terminator 2's" villainous T-1000 catapulted him into the pantheon of cinema greats just two years earlier — and the one-man-army type actioners that ruled the '80s were more than ripe to be mocked and made fun of by then. A shameless self-parody from the father of "Die Hard" (whose second sequel led to an FBI investigation) and "Lethal Weapon" screenwriter Shane Black seemed like a golden ticket to blockbuster paradise.

So Columbia Pictures pumped $85 million into "Last Action Hero" and its ridiculously stacked cast (including F. Murray Abraham, Anthony Quinn, Charles Dance, Ian McKellen, and a long line of stupendous cameos) and waited for the magic to happen. Unfortunately, timing its release only a week after Steven Spielberg's record-breaking "Jurassic Park" turned out to be a costly mistake. Scoring $50 million domestically and then $87 million internationally put "Last Action Hero" at $137 million worldwide at the box office, which was considered a huge failure against the studio's expectations.

Critics weren't kind to it either, failing to appreciate its bold and over-the-top meta swings at the genre, dismissing the movie as a giant misfire. In retrospect, however, "Last Action Hero" was on point. It gave Schwarzenegger an outlet to flex his comedic acting chops, featured accomplished actors playing bonkers villains and other wildly amusing stereotypes, and captured the fantasy of every kid obsessed with action films and their larger-than-life protagonists.

"Last Action Hero" follows Danny (Austin O'Brien), a 10-year-old kid obsessed with Jack Slater (Arnold Schwarzenegger) movies, as he's mysteriously transported into the latest one while watching it in a theatre, via the magic of a golden ticket given to him by the cinema's projectionist. Danny finds himself in the back of Slater's car as he's being chased by some bad guys. Cue a ton of explosions, gunfights, and cheesy puns, and Danny quickly realizes that he's somehow in the fictional universe of Slater's.

He gets assigned to his hero as his new partner, and the two are sent to investigate local crime boss Tony Vivaldi (Anthony Quinn) and his organization. Before long, the bad guys suss out that Danny isn't from there, and that he has the means to travel to the real world. Soon enough, fiction and reality inevitably merge to raise the stakes and deliver a vintage actioner for your pleasure.

Despite its flaws, "Last Action Hero" undeniably understood its assignment. But doing so in the early '90s, when meta and multiverse takes were rare and unusual, the world just wasn't ready for it. Yet as the years passed (and one of the best meta films with "Scream" arrived), McTiernan's flop slowly gathered more and more fans, ultimately becoming a cult classic. Sure, it's an unabashed childish fantasy infused with a lot of camp and excessive action scenes, but that's exactly the kind of charm that aging men who grew up in the '80s and '90s embrace and champion in the name of nostalgia. That might not have been seen that as a feat back then, but it is now.