Besides the weekly radio show, my cohort and I occasionally experimented with slightly different ways to deliver reviews over the air, especially after I graduated and holding down a hourlong block that would be better devoted to students seemed wrong to me. Hence the creation of “Reel Thing Reports,” a prerecorded segment lasting only a few minutes that was dropped in a couple times per day. It kept our reviews on the air, but the lack of interplay between the two of us made for a less satisfying chunk of programming. It also keyed me to in to how much of my writing process for air was reliant on the safety net of the post-review discussion. If I couldn’t figure out a way to elegantly slip a point I wanted to make into the pre-written copy, I know it could come up in the banter. Of course, some of the fare we reviewed in the “Reel Thing Report” segments didn’t actually merit all that much discussion. By the way, that roller coaster metaphor at the end was as hackneyed twenty years ago as it is now.

It’s now an unquestioned standard of the film industry that the summer months must be primarily populated by enormous action films and big-budget star vehicles. Though it sounds depressing, that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing…look to Steven Spielberg’s JURASSIC PARK for a prime example of a pricey Hollywood joyride that is vividly alive and exciting. However, it’s far more common that summer blockbusters come across as half-hearted: manufactured out of cheap parts in a desperate attempt at capturing an audience with some sort of simple hook. That’s certainly the case with LAST ACTION HERO, the latest film from superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger. The film deals with a young boy, played by newcomer Austin O’Brien, who escapes from the world by watching movies featuring his favorite big-screen action character Jack Slater, a tough guy cop. O’Brien gets an extra adventure from the latest Jack Slater film when a magical ticket finds him tumbling through the screen and suddenly becoming a part of the movie, fighting side by side with the hero, who, it should come as no surprise, is played by Schwarzenegger. The film occasionally takes some amusing shots as the ridiculous nature of the current crop of action movies by taking their cliches to the logical extremes, such as the police captain who gets in such a lather yelling at Schwarzenegger that is completely incomprehensible, and the way police officers in the station are assigned partners in high concept pairings such as normal person and animated cat. There’s also a slew of cameos and inside jokes that occasionally work, especially when the movie characters escape into the real world and begin running amok at a movie premiere. These pleasures are few and scattered, though, as this overstuffed film seems to be trying too hard to satisfy fans of big action movies even as it’s making fun of the genre. There are plenty of tongue-in-cheek moments that simply aren’t funny or fun. Director John McTiernan labors hard to make the boring script come to life, but several sequences are simply confusing, and the film is overlong. Schwarzenegger is his usual likable self, and it’s nice to see him gamely poking fun at his own image, but the rest of the cast is fairly bland, especially young O’Brien, who’s very awkward at times. LAST ACTION HERO wants desperately to be the wildest ride of the summer, but rather than being like a roller coaster, the film is the equivalent of a tiny merry-go-round in front of a department store. On the four star scale, LAST ACTION HERO gets one-and-a-half stars.