Netflix Pick: LAST ACTION HERO

LAST ACTION HERO  (ACTION-COMEDY/FANTASY, 1993)
Directed by John McTiernan
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austin O'Brien, Charles Dance, Robert Prosky, Tom Noonan, Frank McRae, Anthony Quinn, Bridgette Wilson, F. Murray Abraham
Rated PG-13 for strong action sequences.

I didn't like LAST ACTION HERO so much the first time I saw it years ago, but just a few months ago, I decided to give it another look, and, my goodness, it's pretty great in a special, so-much-dumb-fun way.  It's a meta-comedy that parodies the he-man action movies that were popular in the late-1980s and 1990s, like DIE HARD, LETHAL WEAPON, the Rambo series and just about everything that Arnold Schwarzenegger had starred in.  Fittingly, Schwarzenegger fills the shoes of the leading man, and John McTiernan, the director of DIE HARD and PREDATOR, directs, and Shane Black, writer of LETHAL WEAPON is one of the credited writers on the script.
Danny Madigan (Austin O'Brien) is a young boy who spends his time hanging out at the old movie house with Nick (Robert Prosky), the theater's friendly old projectionist.  Danny's favorite movies are the big action movies, specifically the Jack Slater series, which star Arnold Schwarzenegger (as in actually Arnold Schwarzenegger) as a Dirty Harry-style rogue cop who deals in bullets and cheesy one-liners.  The newest Jack Slater flick is coming out soon, and Nick invites Danny to a private screening while he tests the theater's print, and in a moment of theatricality, Nick gives him a supposedly magic ticket originally given to him by Harry Houdini.  It turns out that the ticket is magic, and Danny is transported into the world of the film, which naturally wreaks havoc on the film's story structure and soon leads dangerous interaction between both worlds.
It's chock-full of fun commentary on action movie tropes and goofy showbiz references, with actors in the Jack Slater film also appearing as themselves, including some hilarious moments between Schwarzenegger and his then-wife Maria Shriver, as well as a cartoon cat and Ian McKellen as "Death".  It isn't exactly tactful or subtle, but that's arguably in the spirit of the films that it pays homage to.