Last Action Hero hit theaters in 1993 and as I’ve said before when I reviewed it, I think it works better now than it did then. Still, everyone assumed a movie with a title and a plot like that with Arnold Schwarzenegger also starring in it would be license to print money. That sadly wasn’t the case as the movie sort of bombed. Still, because everyone just assumed it would be a hit, toy giant Mattel, already had a line of action figures ready to roll! They weren’t just sure it would be a hit, they were counting on it.
When the box office numbers weren’t what everyone assumed they’d be Mattel still had the figures to release. Instead of mulch-series like you normally see, they just tossed them all out there at once. So where as lines would give you “Artic Blast Batman” a few lines down, Mattel tossed all the Jack’s on the racks and hoped for the best. The darn things stood 5 inches to 5 1/2 inches tall and had wacky action moves like most figures did around that time. Here is what we got..
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character never got a basic figure in the line. Instead they tossed a grant total of four different figures, all of which pretty much using any half-way cool scene Arnold had in the movie. By far the coolest was the Hamlet inspired one, which was a trailer from the movie and the only toy I actually had out of the set myself.
DYNAMITE JACK SLATER
HEAT PACKIN’ JACK SLATER
HAMLET SKULL ATTACK JACK SLATER
UNDERCOVER JACK SLATER
JACK SLATER’S CONVERTIBLE
Danny, who was arguable just as important to the movie if not more than Jack only got one figure.
HOOK LAUNCHIN’ DANNY
The film’s top bad guy, managed to get two figures (three if we count the gift set mail away). Outside of the way the extras look, I’m not sure I see much of a difference.
EVIL EYE BENEDICT
WHATEVER THE HELL THIS IS BENEDICT (Looks like the foreign release with the case open)
EVIL EYE ROADSTER
EVIL MAIL AWAY WITH ROADSTER AND EVIL EYE
Even the cool Ripper got one figure. I think they got it right the first time.
AXE SWINGIN’ RIPPER
Sadly, while the movie gets more love these days the toys don’t seem to get that same affection from people or collectors. If you want to own these and don’t have your heart set on Jack’s car mint in the box you can get all of these for a fairly normal price. I guess even toy-lines can bomb as bad as the movies sometimes.
