Explosive
Summary
I feel like anyone who visits this website regularly needs to have a copy of The Last Action Heroes: The Triumphs, Flops, and Feuds of Hollywood’s Kings of Carnage as it gives some great background insight into some of our biggest childhood heroes and the struggles they had trying to make it big. Great stuff!
Plot: The Last Action Heroes opens in May 1990 in Cannes, with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone waltzing together, cheered on by a crowd of famous faces. After years of bitter combat—Stallone once threw a bowl of flowers at Schwarzenegger’s head, and the body count in Schwarzenegger’s Commando was increased so the film would “have a bigger dick than Rambo”—the world’s biggest action stars have at last made peace.
In this wildly entertaining account of the golden age of the action movie, Nick de Semlyen charts Stallone and Schwarzenegger’s carnage-packed journey from enmity to friendship against the backdrop of Reagan’s America and the Cold War. He also reveals fascinating untold stories of the colorful characters who ascended in their wake: high-kickers Chuck Norris and Jackie Chan, glowering tough guys Dolph Lundgren and Steven Seagal, and quipping troublemakers Jean-Claude Van Damme and Bruce Willis. But as time rolled on, the era of the invincible action hero who used muscle, martial arts, or the perfect weapon to save the day began to fade. When Jurassic Park trounced Schwarzenegger’s Last Action Hero in 1993, the glory days of these macho men—and the vision of masculinity they celebrated—were officially over.
Drawing on candid interviews with the action stars themselves, plus their collaborators, friends, and foes, The Last Action Heroes is a no-holds-barred account of a period in Hollywood history when there were no limits to the heights of fame these men achieved, or to the mayhem they wrought, on-screen and off.
Review: I thought I’d heard it all when it came to the action heroes of the 80s and 90s however, The Last Action Heroes proved I didn’t know jack!
This book gives us all the details of feuds and friendships throughout the heyday of the action genre. I was especially intrigued to hear about Bruce Willis getting arrested for refusing to turn his music down at a party and how he was often a difficult character to work with back in the day.
I also didn’t know much about Jackie Chan’s backstory, so it was fascinating to hear about how it took him a while before he became a success in the USA. He has never been shy when it came to stunts and we find out about some of his craziest injuries and how he is lucky to be alive.
Steven Seagal’s tales are arguably my favourite as we’re always wondering just how much of his past is real or fake. We all know about Stallone’s struggles to get Rocky made, but this book goes into how he tried to get out of Balboa’s shadow to make a name for himself as a respected actor and artist rather than just an action guy. Arnold of course has some great stories in here, especially the making of Predator which sounded crazy. Someone could do a book just on that…
Author Nick De Semlyen clearly knows his stuff and did a lot of reach and interviews over the years to put this together. It’s too bad he speaks ill of Cobra, Invasion USA and Red Scorpion, but that’s hardly a big deal.
Overall, The Last Action Heroes is an easy read with some great stories that really sheds the light on some of cinema’s biggest stars. If you grew up in the era of classic action then this will be endlessly entertaining.
