Last Action Hero is a 1993 American action comedy film directed and produced by John McTiernan and co-written by Shane Black. It is a satire of the action genre and associated clichés, containing several parodies of action films in the form of films within the film. The film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Jack Slater, a Los Angeles police detective within the Jack Slater action film franchise, while Austin O'Brien co-stars as Danny Madigan, a boy magically transported into the Slater universe, and Charles Dance as Mr. Benedict, a ruthless assassin from the Slater universe who escapes to the real world. Schwarzenegger also served as the film's executive producer and plays himself as the actor portraying Jack Slater.
Last Action Hero failed to meet the studio's expectations at the box office, but the film later found commercial success with its VHS release, establishing itself as a cult classic. The film was also Art Carney's last appearance in a motion picture before his death in 2003.
Danny Madigan is a ten-year-old boy living in a crime-ridden area of New York City with his widowed mother, Irene. Following his father's death, Danny takes comfort in watching action movies, especially a series featuring the indestructible Los Angeles cop Jack Slater, at his local movie theater owned by Nick, who also acts as the projectionist. Nick gives Danny a golden ticket once owned by Harry Houdini, to see an early screening of Jack Slater IV before its official release.
During the film, the ticket stub magically transports Danny into the fictional world, interrupting Slater in the middle of a car chase. After escaping from their pursuers, Slater takes Danny to the LAPD headquarters, where Danny points out evidence of the fictional nature of Slater's world, such as the presence of numerous beautiful women and a cartoon cat detective named Whiskers, and says that Slater's friend John Practice should not be trusted as he "killed Mozart" (since he is played by the same actor as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus). Though Slater accepts all of this as part of Danny's wild imagination, Slater's supervisor, Lt. Dekker, assigns Danny as his new partner, and instructs them to investigate criminal activities related to mafia boss Tony Vivaldi.
Danny guides Slater to Vivaldi's mansion, recognizing its location from the start of the movie. There, they meet Vivaldi's henchman, Mr. Benedict. Danny later claims that Vivaldi and Benedict were the ones who killed Slater's second cousin, but Slater has no evidence, and they are forced to leave; however, Benedict is curious as to how Danny knew, and he and several hired guns follow Slater and Danny back to Slater's home. There, Slater, his daughter Whitney, and Danny thwart the attack, though Benedict ends up getting the ticket stub. He discovers its ability to transport him out of the film.
Slater deduces Vivaldi's plan to murder the rival mob by releasing a lethal gas during a funeral atop a skyscraper. He and Danny go to stop it, but are waylaid by Practice, who reveals that Danny was right: he is working for Vivaldi. Whiskers kills Practice, saving Slater and Danny, and the two manage to prevent any deaths from the gas release. Learning that Vivaldi's plan has failed, Benedict kills him, and he uses the stub to escape into the real world, pursued by Slater and Danny.
Slater becomes despondent upon learning the truth, as well as his mortality in the real world, but cheers up after spending some time with Irene. Meanwhile, Benedict devises a plan to kill the actor portraying Slater in the movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger, after which he can bring other villains from other movies into the real world and take over. To help, Benedict brings the Ripper, the villain of Jack Slater III, to the premiere of Jack Slater IV to assassinate Schwarzenegger. Danny and Slater learn of this and race there. Slater saves Schwarzenegger and kills the Ripper. Benedict appears and shoots Slater, critically injuring him. Danny subdues and disarms Benedict, allowing Slater to grab his revolver and shoot Benedict in his explosive glass eye, killing him; however, the blast causes the stub to be lost. With Slater losing blood, Danny knows that the only way to save him is to return him to the fictional world, where he is indestructible.
The figure of Death from the film The Seventh Seal, who had been brought to the real world, appears before them. Danny holds Death at gunpoint, but Death clarifies he was simply curious: Jack Slater is missing from his lists of when people will die, while Danny is slated to die as a grandfather. Death then suggests searching for the other half of the ticket. Danny finds it and is able to take Slater back into his movie, where his wounds instantly heal. Danny returns to the real world before the portal closes. A recovered Slater then enthusiastically embraces the true nature of his reality when he talks to Dekker about his new plan, appreciating the differences between the two worlds.
Arnold Schwarzenegger as Detective Jack Slater / Himself / Hamlet, an LAPD officer who serves as the film's protagonist.
Austin O'Brien as Danny Madigan, a ten-year-old boy who is a big fan of the Slater franchise and the film's overarching protagonist.
Charles Dance as Mr. Benedict, Vivaldi's right-hand man, a supporting antagonist in Jack Slater IV who becomes the film's hidden main antagonist.
Robert Prosky as Nick the projectionist
Tom Noonan as the Ripper (the main antagonist of Jack Slater III) and himself (the actor who plays the Ripper).
Frank McRae as Lieutenant Dekker, Slater's immediate and ill-tempered supervisor, who is always screaming at him.
Anthony Quinn as Tony Vivaldi, the main antagonist of Jack Slater IV until Danny's interference changes events.
Bridgette Wilson as Whitney Slater (Jack's daughter) and Meredith Caprice, the actress who plays her in the Slater films
F. Murray Abraham as John Practice, Jack's friend, revealed to be a traitor. Danny says not to trust him, saying he killed Mozart, referring to Abraham's Oscar-winning role as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus.
Mercedes Ruehl as Irene Madigan, Danny's mother
Art Carney as Frank Slater, Jack's second cousin; this was Carney's final film role
Professor Toru Tanaka as Vivaldi and Benedict's bodyguard (the Tough Asian Man).
Ryan Todd as Andrew Slater, Jack's son, who was killed in Jack Slater III by the Ripper.
Jeffrey Braer as Skeezy
Bobbie Brown as Video Babe (credited as Bobbi Brown Lane)
Franco Columbu's name appears during the opening credits as director of Jack Slater IV. Columbu was a fellow bodybuilder and a close friend of Schwarzenegger.
Tina Turner appears at the climax of Jack Slater III as the mayor of Los Angeles.
Sharon Stone and Robert Patrick appear outside the front door of LAPD as Catherine Tramell (from Basic Instinct) and the T-1000 (from Terminator 2: Judgment Day), respectively. Stone and Patrick had earlier co-starred with Schwarzenegger in Total Recall and Terminator 2, respectively.
Mike Muscat appears as a cop in the LAPD headquarters. Muscat previously appeared with Schwarzenegger as Moshier in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and was also Edward Furlong's acting coach for the same film.
Sylvester Stallone as the Terminator is on a poster promoting Terminator 2: Judgment Day. This refers to Schwarzenegger's friendly rivalry with Stallone.
Angie Everhart as a video store clerk
During the premiere of Jack Slater IV in the real world, several celebrities appear as themselves. These include Schwarzenegger's then-wife Maria Shriver, Little Richard, Entertainment Tonight host Leeza Gibbons, Jim Belushi (who starred with Schwarzenegger in Red Heat and later Jingle All the Way), Damon Wayans, Chevy Chase and Jean-Claude Van Damme (who worked with John McTiernan on the Schwarzenegger film Predator as the original Predator before dropping out, and later co-starred with Schwarzenegger in The Expendables 2).
As Jack and Danny enter the movie theater to find Arnold Schwarzenegger, MC Hammer asks Slater about a deal to do the Jack Slater V soundtrack.
Wilson Phillips appears singing during the funeral scene
Ian McKellen appears as Death, emerging via the ticket stub's magic from Ingmar Bergman's film The Seventh Seal (in which the role was originally played by Bengt Ekerot).
Danny DeVito is the voice of Whiskers, the cartoon cat police detective. He and Schwarzenegger played twin brothers in 1988's Twins and co-starred again in 1994's Junior. DeVito was uncredited for the role.
Joan Plowright is the English teacher who shows her class the 1948 film adaptation of Hamlet, which starred and was directed by Plowright's husband Laurence Olivier.
Last Action Hero was an original screenplay by Zak Penn and Adam Leff, meant to parody typical action-film screenplays of writers such as Shane Black. Penn himself noted that the studio ironically then had Black rewrite the script. The original screenplay differs heavily from the finished film and is widely available to read online. Although it was still a parody of Hollywood action films, it was set almost entirely in the film world and focused largely on the futile cycle of violence displayed by the hero and the effect it had on people around him. Due to the radical changes, Penn and Leff were eventually credited with the story of the film, but not the screenplay.
Several script doctors did uncredited work on the script, including Carrie Fisher, Larry Ferguson, and William Goldman. Penn and Leff disliked various parts of the final film, including the idea of a magic golden ticket. In their draft, the story would not explain how Danny got transported into the film world.
Schwarzenegger received a salary of $15 million for his role in the film.
Some scenes were filmed in a dome adjacent to the RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, California. The exterior of the film's Pandora Theater was the Empire Theater on 42nd Street in New York. The interiors were filmed at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles.
In October 2019, Schwarzenegger revealed that he was willing to star in True Lies 2 and Last Action Hero 2, possible legacy sequels to the two films of his 90s action roles.