Clint Eastwood Once Slamed This Arnold Schwarzenegger Film as “A Piece of Cr**”

Back in 1993, Last Action Hero was meant to be Arnold Schwarzenegger’s next big hit, but it ended up being a major flop. The studio went all out for the movie, even launching an ad into space, yet it struggled to compete with the colossal success of Jurassic Park.

While the film has gained a reputation in recent years as an underrated and innovative action-comedy, at the time it was widely seen as a failure, both critically and commercially.

Early screenings didn’t help. Clint Eastwood, speaking to Roger Ebert, criticized the idea of showing unfinished films to the press. “You try to do a working screening, maybe find out what you’ve got or figure out some changes, but it doesn’t come out that way,” he explained.

“Somebody sees it and gives it out to the papers, and it’s a piece of cr**. Maybe you weren’t ready to show it publicly. I just think you should work it out in your own mind, instead of doing all those sneaks.” Eastwood, of course, had no direct involvement with Last Action Hero, but he understood how risky it is to show an almost-finished blockbuster too early.

The film struggled to find its footing with audiences and critics alike. On Rotten Tomatoes, Last Action Hero holds an approval rating of 40% based on 53 reviews, with an average score of 5.1 out of 10.

The site’s consensus reads, “Last Action Hero has most of the right ingredients for a big-budget action spoof, but its scattershot tone and uneven structure only add up to a confused, chaotic mess.” Metacritic gave the film a 44 out of 100, reflecting mixed reviews. CinemaScore polls from audiences gave it a C+.

Some critics were harsher than others. Roger Ebert awarded it 2.5 stars out of 4, saying it “plays more like a bright idea than like a movie that was thought through. It doesn’t evoke the mystery of the barrier between audience and screen the way Woody Allen did in The Purple Rose of Cairo, and a lot of the time it simply seems to be standing around commenting on itself.”

Vincent Canby of The New York Times compared it to “a two-hour Saturday Night Live sketch” and called it “something of a mess, but a frequently enjoyable one.” Variety was even less forgiving, describing it as “a joyless, soulless machine of a movie, an $80 million-plus mishmash of fantasy, industry in-jokes, self-referential parody, film-buff gags and too-big action set-pieces.”

Not everyone disliked it. John Ferguson of Radio Times gave the movie four stars out of five, noting that “Schwarzenegger has rarely been better and he is backed up by a never-ending stream of star names in cameo roles […] it is actually all a little unfair, because this is a smart, funny blockbuster.”

He praised director John McTiernan’s approach to spoofing action conventions while still delivering spectacular set pieces.

Last Action Hero may have stumbled at the box office and puzzled critics, but over the years it has found a more appreciative audience, reminding fans that even misfires can be entertaining and ahead of their time.

What do you think about Last Action Hero? Did it deserve its bad reputation, or is it an underrated classic? Share your thoughts in the comments.