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6[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/13980_3895.jpg]]
7
8->''"Ey, Claudius? ''[lights cigar]'' You killed my fadda. Big mistake."''
9-->-- Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger's rendition of ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}''
10
11Released on June 18th, 1993[[note]], but released five days earlier in Westwood, California[[/note]], ''Last Action Hero'' is one of the few movies whose genre is accurately described as "other".
12
13An early-'90s-era GenreSavvy young action movie fan is sucked into the latest film of his favourite hero, Jack Slater, and proceeds to {{lampshade|Hanging}} all manner of tropes. Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger plays an [[ActionHero action movie hero]] played by [[MindScrew Arnold Schwarzenegger]] (who gets to enter the real world and meet [[CelebrityParadox Arnold Schwarzenegger himself]]!).
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15It was directed by Creator/JohnMcTiernan, previously known for such films as ''Film/DieHard'' (1988), ''Film/TheHuntForRedOctober'' (1990) and ''Film/MedicineMan'' (1992) and written by Creator/ShaneBlack, most notable for penning ''Film/LethalWeapon''[[note]]He also served as script doctor for ''Film/{{Predator}}'' while acting in it.[[/note]], and would later go on to write and direct ''Film/KissKissBangBang''.
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17This was not only Schwarzenegger's first film after ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'', but also the debut of the Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (SDDS) system. Made to [[LighterAndSofter appeal to a bigger family audience]] than most of his films had been up to that point, the wave of hype promised that it would be, as the trailers put it, "The big ticket for '93!" However, it was released the weekend after the opening of ''Film/JurassicPark'', which turned out to be a far bigger hit than Creator/ColumbiaPictures expected, and thus it failed to live up to the hype at the box office. While it was eventually profitable, the film was widely regarded as a bomb, but it's become something of a CultClassic for its freewheeling send-ups of action movie tropes.
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19----
20!!This movie provides examples (primarily parodies) of the following tropes:
21
22[[foldercontrol]]
23
24[[folder:A-M]]
25
26* FiveFiveFive: [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] when Danny brings it up to Jack Slater to try to point out that they're [[TrappedInTVLand inside a movie]]. Naturally, it doesn't convince him.
27--> '''Danny:''' "I'm willing to bet that everyone has a 555 number."\
28'''Slater:''' "So?"\
29'''Danny''': "There can only be 9,999 phone numbers that start with 555. How many people live in L.A.?"\
30'''Slater''': "Eight or nine million."\
31'''Danny''': "Ah-''ha!''"\
32'''Slater''': "That's why we have ''area codes''."
33* AccidentalKiss: Whitney kisses Danny when she believes he's the freshman she's been assigned to kiss when he comes to her door. Danny is more than pleased.
34* AccidentalPassenger: During a CarChaseShootOut in the [[ShowWithinAShow movie]] Danny is watching, the golden ticket is activated, making a pack of lit [[DynamiteCandle dynamite sticks]] tossed by the bandits fall from the screen. When Danny notices it, he screams and runs in panic, but is caught by the explosion and everything goes white. He wakes up into Jack Slater's car while the latter is still being pursued.
35* AcmeProducts:
36** The guys in the red pick-up truck have a crate of Acme Dynamite.
37** There are ACME™ products all over the place, including in the Real World.
38* ActionDuo: Jack and Danny, the action hero and the KidHero TrappedInTVLand.
39* ActionGirl: Deconstructed. Slater tells Danny that he wishes his daughter, Whitney, was more normal. He later tells Danny that she has no friends or social life, and spends all her spare time with her guns. Also a possible subversion, given that Whitney hardly does anything, despite her actress receiving top billing alongside Schwarzenegger (in ''Jack Slater IV'', that is). It's possible that Danny stepping in meant he took over her role as Slater's sidekick.
40* ActorAllusion:
41** The Stallone-Schwarzenegger jabs continue. In Slater's world, Creator/SylvesterStallone is ''Film/TheTerminator.'' Danny ''cannot'' believe it. More directly, the fact that Creator/FMurrayAbraham played Salieri in ''Film/{{Amadeus}}'' is mentioned, ''then it becomes a plot point.''
42** This is the second time Creator/TomNoonan plays a [[Film/{{Manhunter}} serial killer]].
43** More like Director Allusion: When Jack and Danny are in the video store we see the boxes for ''Film/DieHard'', ''Film/TheHuntForRedOctober'', and ''Film/MedicineMan'', which were all directed by Creator/JohnMcTiernan.
44** Frank [=McRae=] essentially reprises his role from ''Film/FortyEightHrs'' in all but name.
45* AdamWesting: Taken to meta-levels. Arnold plays himself in the real world as a flighty celebrity led around by his wife.
46* AdaptationalHeroism: [[spoiler:Death from the ''Film/TheSeventhSeal'' appears in this movie, but rather than the conniving BigBad he is in his source material]], here he's portrayed more as a kindly grandfatherly figure [[spoiler:who helps the heroes in the climax]].
47* AdrenalineMakeover[=/=]AnachronismStew: Played for laughs during the ''Arnold as Hamlet'' dream sequence. It starts off with Hamlet killing people with thrown skulls and swords before responding to the line "Stay thy hand, fair prince" with a "Who says I'm fair?" and slaughtering an entire castle full of guards with ''a submachine gun'' before ''blowing the castle up''.
48-->'''Hamlet''': To be, or not to be...not to be. *lights cigar as an explosion goes off behind him*0
49* TheAllegedHouse:
50** Danny and his mother live in a pretty normal-looking apartment in [[WrongSideOfTheTracks a very downbeat part of New York]]. The robber who gets in the Madigans' apartment thinks this trope is played straight, as in there is nothing in the apartment worth taking, and leaves.
51** In strict comparison to the house owned by his ex-wife, Jack's apartment is this. It's utterly Spartan with only a few items of furniture, Jack's closet with [[WallOfWeapons his reserve guns]] and lots of similar clothes (and [[BreadEggsMilkSquick assassins always trying to hide there]] so Jack spends a fortune constantly paying for replacement doors), and a "nice" view of the highway.
52* AllInTheEyes: Light encompasses Jack Slater's eyes right before he flashes back to his son's death
53* AllPartOfTheShow:
54** Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Jack Slater IV premiere assumes this is the case with the Slater/Ripper fight in the balcony. When Slater runs out of the theater afterward, the throng of paparazzi assumes he is Schwarzenegger.
55** Tom Noonan's agent thinks The Ripper is Tom. It gets him killed.
56** Averted later in the film, when a whole theater of frightened people runs away from the Grim Reaper. The fact that they actually saw him walk out of the movie and into the theater probably helped a good deal.
57* AndStarring: The [[ShowWithinAShow film within a film]] ''Jack Slater IV'' has a intro sequence that ends with "And Introducing Meredith Caprice" to credit Whitney's fictional actress. Later, when Danny enters the film, he gets to meet her. And keeps accidentally calling her Meredith.
58* AndThisIsFor: Jack smacks the shit out of Benedict with a bunch of "And this is for!" statements - except for his ex-wife's home, which he gives a little slap on the wrist for.
59* {{Angrish}}: Slater's [[DaChief captain]]. In fact, you can probably count on one hand the times where it ''is'' possible to make out what he is saying.
60* AntiHero: Parodied. Turns out that Jack Slater has some HiddenDepths that Danny never saw, but they are weird thanks to him being a film character.
61* ApatheticCitizens:
62** In the film's [[TruthInTelevision real world]] New York, Benedict conducts an experiment:
63--> '''Benedict''' (shouting in the street): Hello! I've just shot somebody and I did it on ''purpose!'' ([[ChirpingCrickets silence]]) I ''said'', I have murdered a man and I want to ''confess!''
64** When a citizen tells him to shut up, Benedict's AsideGlance and EvilGrin says it all.
65* ArtisticLicensePaleontology: There were no dinosaurs trapped by the La Brea tar pits, only mammals from 11,000 years ago.
66* AsideComment: One scene where TheStarscream Benedict is declaring himself the new villain of the picture and ends with him staring at the camera and saying [[AGodAmI "If God were a villain, he'd be me."]]
67* AsideGlance
68** The Grim Reaper looks at the audience before he comes out of ''The Seventh Seal''.
69** Benedict has a positively ''wicked'' look at the audience when he realizes that the rules of the ''Slater'' films don't apply in the real world.
70* AssholeVictim: Being a crime family The Torelli gang would have just as much blood on their hands as Vivaldi if not more.
71* AnAssKickingChristmas: Parodied, as the climax of ''[[ShowWithinAShow Jack Slater 3]]'' is explicitly noted as taking place around Christmas.
72* AudienceSurrogate: Danny is a ''literal'' one. Naturally, like everything else in the film, this is lampshaded.
73* AwardBaitSong: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyN28mRopdQ Two Steps Behind]] by Def Leppard.
74* AxCrazy: The Ripper. He's a SerialKiller who hacks people up with an ax.
75* BadassAndChildDuo: Slater and Danny, respectively.
76* BadassBoast: A genuine one by Jack Slater.
77-->'''Benedict:''' I snap my fingers again and tomorrow you emerge from several canine recta. Or you and Toto can go back to Oz. Questions?\
78'''Jack:''' Yes. Two of them. Why am I wasting time on a putz like you when I could be doing something dangerous like rearranging my socks? ''(smokes cigar)'' And how will you snap your fingers ''after I rip off both your thumbs?''
79* BadCopIncompetentCop: The movie has this appear near the end, in the real world. The BigBad realizes he can literally get away with murder because the cops don't immediately arrive on the crime scene like they do in his native movie world.
80* BangBangBang: Subverted. The bad guy walks in "our world", shoots a man and is surprised the noise didn't attract police or passers-by. Maybe justified in that it was a crapsack neighborhood and most likely a CrapsackWorld.
81* BaitAndSwitchGunshot: Parodied. Practice is about to make good on Danny's advice to just shoot him and Jack, but several gunblasts later, Practice falls over dead, with Whiskers the cartoon cat visible behind him.
82-->'''Whiskers:''' Sorry I'm late, Jack. Had a little furball problem! *''coughs''*
83* BeardOfEvil: Benedict has a well-maintained beard that, red as it is, just makes him look more Satanic.
84* TheBeautifulElite: Lampshaded. Danny tries convincing Slater they're in a movie by pointing out that all the female passersby are insanely hot, and that there are no unattractive women in existence.
85-->'''Danny:''' ''(indicating the video clerk)'' She is too attractive to work here.\
86'''Jack:''' I agree. I think she should work with us. Undercover of course.\
87'''Danny:''' The point is, there are no unattractive women here. Where are the everyday, ordinary women? They don't exist, because this is a ''movie''.\
88'''Jack:''' No, this is [[HollywoodCalifornia California]].
89* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Spoofed when all Jack Slater needs to clean up after emerging from a tar pit is a few seconds with a towel.
90-->'''Danny:''' "You know, [[LampshadeHanging tar actually]] ''[[LampshadeHanging sticks]]'' [[LampshadeHanging to most people.]]"
91* BetterThanABareBulb: Enough {{lampshades}} to open a shop.
92* BigBadEnsemble: Benedict, who's become the Big Bad of Slater IV (and Last Action Hero itself), and Ripper, the apparent Big Bad of Slater III, are both loose in the real world running amok in the final act.
93* BigBadFriend: John Practice. Danny even lampshades that Practice is ObviouslyEvil by virtue of the fact [[Creator/FMurrayAbraham the man who portrays him]] gets these kind of roles often.
94* TheBigRottenApple: The depiction of New York City in the real world, at least the part where Danny and his mom's apartment and the movie theater are. Run-down, crime-ridden, and dirty.
95* BigShutUp: Slater to Dekker at the end.
96* BilingualBonus: Creator/JeanClaudeVanDamme's line "I would never miss the premiere for a second" [[note]] In French, "première" means "first".[[/note]]
97* BladeBrake: The Reaper does the "stab the sail" with his scythe at the movie premiere.
98* BlasphemousBoast: As noted, if God were a villain then he would be Benedict.
99* BlingBlingBang: In a [[FreezeFrameBonus blink-and-you-miss-it scene]] during Slater's and Danny's encounter with Vivaldi, the mobster briefly threatens Danny with a gold-plated, ornately engraved pistol.
100* BloodlessCarnage: Even when Whiskers shoots Practice. It makes sense: despite MoreDakka, ''Jack Slater IV'' is still a PG-13 film.
101* BlownAcrossTheRoom: Parodied. At one point Jack gets shot point-blank by a goon with a shotgun (a BulletproofVest saves him), which sends him across the kitchen of his ex-wife's house... and right into arm's reach of his gun, which he uses to blow the goon away.
102* BondOneLiner: Yep, the bad puns go flying thick and fast. Lampshaded and taken to the most absurd extreme in several cases, most notably a scene in the car chase where Slater kills a henchman with an ice cream cone and says, "I '''iced''' that guy... to '''cone''' a phrase!"
103* BottomlessMagazines: Lampshaded, particularly in the climax. And played straight in the movie whenever possible, sometimes to ridiculous degrees.
104-->'''Jack:''' Did you make another movie mistake? You forgot to reload the damn gun!\
105'''Benedict:''' [[spoiler: No, Jack. I just left one chamber empty. (BLAM!)]]
106* BreadEggsMilkSquick: In his monologue, Benedict randomly throws out Hitler as one of the villains he plans to fetch; justified somewhat in that he himself is new to traveling through movies and doesn't necessarily know some are based on real events.
107* BrickJoke:
108** It starts like this:
109--->'''Danny:''' You think you're funny, huh?\
110'''Jack:''' I know I am. I'm the famous comedian, Arnold Braunschweiger.
111** Later, in the Real World...
112--->'''Jack:''' Hello Ms. Maddigan [offers handshake]. Arnold Braunschweiger.
113* BuddyCopShow:
114** Parodied and lampshaded in a hilarious scene with a line of cops being paired up with ethnic stereotypes culminating ridiculously with [[WesternAnimation/{{Bonkers}} a female cop being paired with an animated cat detective]].
115** Another cop gets teamed up with the [[DeliberatelyMonochrome black and white]] digitalization of Creator/HumphreyBogart.
116* BulletproofFashionPlate: Played with: Jack falls into a tar pit, comes out completely covered in tar, and begins to wipe himself off. The camera cuts away briefly, and when it cuts back he's completely clean. Danny remarks, "You know, tar actually sticks to some people."
117* BulletSparks: Played. When in the real world, Jack Slater, CowboyCop, fires his gun at the escaping bad guy's car, which only serves to put bullet holes in the side of the car. After the car does ''not'' burst into flames, like in his movies, Jack looks at the gun like something is wrong with it.
118* ButForMeItWasTuesday: Played with. Danny warns Slater not to trust Practice, because he's played by Creator/FMurrayAbraham, who [[Film/{{Amadeus}} killed Mozart]]. When Slater later repeats the accusation, misremembering it as "you killed Moe Zart," Practice is confused, but concedes it's possible: "I kill a lot of people. I can't remember half of them."
119* ButHeSoundsHandsome: Inverted, as Danny's mom says to Jack that he's far more handsome than the real Arnold.
120* CallBack: Jack gets to listen to music by the ''real'' [[Music/WolfgangAmadeusMozart Mozart]], and ''loves'' it.
121-->'''Jack:''' The guy Practice killed?
122* TheCameo:
123** As Danny walks into the LAPD police station for the first time, [[Film/BasicInstinct Catherine Trammell]] and the [[Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay T-1000]] can be seen walking out.
124** The officer that shouts "Hey Slater! It's your ex-wife on two!" when Slater and Danny show up at the police station is played by Mike Muscat, who had previously played Moshier in ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'', as the Cyberdyne Systems security guard who calls the police to say, "I think it's that guy from the mall. Him and the woman" when Miles Dyson shows up with the Terminator and Sarah Connor in tow. Muscat was also Creator/EdwardFurlong's (John Connor) acting coach.
125** The ''Jack Slater IV'' premiere apparently desires to showcase as many celebrity cameos as possible, including a few who have connections to Schwarzenegger: Little Richard, ''Entertainment Tonight'' host Leeza Gibbons, Creator/JamesBelushi (who starred with Schwarzenegger in ''Film/RedHeat''), Damon Wayans, Creator/ChevyChase, Creator/TimothyDalton (the Film/JamesBond actor at that time) and Creator/JeanClaudeVanDamme (who worked with John [=McTiernan=] on ''Film/{{Predator}}'' as the original Predator before dropping out), who delivers a BilingualBonus joke.
126** Joan Plowright, Creator/LaurenceOlivier's wife, is the teacher who introduces his version of ''Hamlet'' and says the kids might recognize him as Zeus from ''Film/{{Clash of the Titans|1981}}'' and some Polaroid camera commercials.
127** In a blink-or-you'll-miss-it cameo, Music/TinaTurner plays the Mayor at the climax of ''Jack Slater III''.
128** Sir Creator/IanMcKellen plays Death from ''Film/TheSeventhSeal''.
129** Creator/DannyDeVito as the voice of Whiskers.
130** Professor Toru Tanaka, who appeared in ''Film/TheRunningMan'', appears as Tony Vivaldi's butler.
131** One of the henchmen trying to shoot Slater during the first CarChase, one with long hair and a mustache, is played by the same actor who played one of Hans Gruber's henchmen in ''Film/DieHard''.
132* CantGetAwayWithNuthin: This is how the film world works. When the villain enters the real world, he slowly realizes he can get away with anything because the rule no longer applies. He tests this by randomly killing someone and waiting for the police to show. In the film world, this would be instantaneous, while in the real world, nothing happens, and when the villain starts ''gloating'' about it, nearby people only yell at him to shut up.
133* CantGetInTroubleForNuthin: The newly self-promoted BigBad gets his hands on a magical ticket that lets him escape [[ShowWithinAShow his movie]] into the "real" world. Soon after, he sees two kids mugging, possibly killing, a third to steal his shoes. Befuddled by this (and the fact that they weren't instantly arrested like in the {{Troperiffic}} movie he came from) he goes to a nearby garage and shoots the mechanic. Then twice more. Then loudly shouts through the streets of New York, "I have murdered a man and would like to confess!" Someone yells back "[[RefugeInAudacity SHUT UP, we're trying to sleep!]]" Cue AsideGlance and an instantaneously hatched diabolical scheme.
134* CardCarryingVillain: Benedict. He even boasts that if God was evil, he would be that God.
135* CarMeetsHouse: Jack Slater drives a huge 4x4 truck into the BigBad's ocean-view mansion.
136* CassandraTruth: At first, neither Jack Slater nor DaChief believe Danny's claims that he's from outside the movie.
137* CharacterCatchphrase:
138** "[[Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger I'll]] [[Franchise/{{Terminator}} be back]]."
139---> '''Jack:''' Hah! You didn't know I was going to say that, did you?\
140'''Danny:''' That's [[LampshadeHanging what you]] [[GenreSavvy always say]].\
141'''Jack:''' I do?
142** Parodied:
143--->'''Jack:''' "Rubber baby buggy bumpers!" Didn't know I would say ''that'', did you?
144** Jack also has his own: "Big mistake." His daughter seems to have inherited it.
145* CelebrityParadox:
146** Averted when Danny finds a poster for ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' with Creator/SylvesterStallone as the T-800, presumably meaning Arnold Schwarznegger doesn't exist in the Jack Slater universe.
147** Danny's teacher does a presentation on Creator/LaurenceOlivier's version of Hamlet, without acknowledging the fact that she's played by Olivier's real-life third and last wife.
148** Played with when the The agent of the actor who plays The Ripper meets the real Ripper after the latter is brought over from Jack Slater's universe, and thinks he is the actor, and proceeds to scold him for being in costume during the premiere (fearful it will lead to {{Typecasting}}). He is soon disabused of the notion, in gruesome fashion.
149* CelebrityResemblance: Jack Slater goes after the Ripper in what people [[AllPartOfTheShow assume to be a studio-authorized stunt]] and is tackled by Arnold Schwarzenegger. After getting off him, Arnold praises him as the best celebrity lookalike he'd ever seen and starts offering him appearance gigs.
150* CerebusRetcon: Jack reveals later in the film that most of his wisecracking exterior is all a ploy. His supposed clingy and talkative ex-wife is really a convenience store clerk that he pays to call him, just so that his coworkers think that she still cares about him. He is still suffering HeroicBSOD from his son dying, and he fears that his daughter is so obsessed with being an ActionGirl that she's going to die alone.
151* ChandlersLaw: Averted. Once BigBad Benedict ditches Slater in the real world, he decides against giving him a new lead in the form of a hitman who'll almost definitely fail. He just executes his plan while Slater lampshades this, waiting for said killer to show up.
152* ChekhovsGun:
153** The key thrown to Danny by the burglar to free himself from the handcuffs during the robbery attempt. He keeps it and, after Practice handcuffs him in the film-within-a-film, uses it again.
154** When Nick tears the magic movie ticket in half while admitting Danny in to see the new Slater film. During the ending, the Grim Reaper tells Danny to find "the other half of that ticket".
155** In-universe, a wad of counterfeit bills that Jack keeps in his house, notable for burning with an odd colored smoke. When Danny tries to convince Benedict to take the money and leave, he calls his bluff and orders the money burned... which serves as a signal to warn Jack that something's wrong.
156* ChekhovsGunman: Whiskers shows up to save Slater and Danny when Practice handcuffs them again and attempts to kill them.
157* ClosetShuffle: Mooks hide in Slater's closet to ambush him so often that he shoots his closet every time he comes home just in case.
158-->'''Danny:''' How did you know he'd be in there?\
159'''Slater:''' There's ''always'' a guy in there. It's costing me a fortune in closet doors.
160* CosmicPlaything: When Slater finally has a chance to confront Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger in the real world, he gives the actor an angry rant about turning him (Slater) into one of these for the amusement of others without giving any consideration to how ''Slater'' might feel about having to go through so many ridiculous (and sometimes tragic) action movie situations.
161-->'''Slater:''' (to Schwarzenegger) "You've brought me nothing but pain."
162* CouldHaveBeenMessy: Lampshaded. Jack comes off a car crash in the real world hurting but when Danny berates that he would have been killed, Jack points out that the car he took (and then played chicken with) was a model with an airbag and the other car (a '52 Checker Cab) didn't had it. Sure enough, Benedict's BattleButler was killed.
163* CountingBullets: PlayedWith. ''Nobody'' does this in the [[ShowWithinAShow Jack Slater]] films because BottomlessMagazines is in full effect. In the real world, however, the movie characters have to deal with the possibility of running out of bullets. In a turnaround, the villain Benedict exploits this, and pretends to lose count and hit an empty chamber... and when Jack taunts him about making the "movie mistake" of not counting his bullets, Benedict reveals that he intentionally left one of the chambers empty and since Jack has come out from behind cover, he's now a sitting duck for Benedict, who promptly shoots Jack.
164* CowboyCop: The character of Jack Slater plays with this trope. Within barely a minute of his introduction, it's exaggerated to a comical degree; he punches the Lieutenant Governor in the face ("When the Governor gets here, call me."), launches a hapless SWAT officer into the air with a kick to the gonads after he attempts to stop Slater from entering the crime scene, and then threatens to do worse to any other officers Dekker might send after him. This is how he treats the ''good'' guys.
165* CloseOnTitle: The Last Action Hero title itself doesn't appear until the closing credits.
166* CrapSaccharineWorld: In Jack Slater's world there are "no unattractive women", cartoon cats work for the police department and the good guys always win, but there is apparently no classical music, things blow up with the slightest bit of impact and the hero's son and favorite second cousin and regular uniform cops are killed just for the entertainment of people in the real world.
167* CrapSackWorld: The real world. Benedict comes to like it because it means he can go kill-crazy and "win".
168* CultSoundtrack: The soundtrack, full of new tracks by well-known rock bands (Music/AcDc's "Big Gun" even has Arnold appearing in the music video), was better received than the movie upon its release.
169* DaChief: A comic character with NoIndoorVoice whose yelling at Jack Slater [[GlassShatteringSound can get so loud he can shatter glass windows]].
170* DamselFightAndFlightResponse: While invading Jack Slater's house, one of the bad guys takes Slater's daughter Whitney into another room to rough her up. Unfortunately for them, she's [[ActionGirl daddy's little ass-kicker]], and proceeds to brutalize the poor {{Mook|s}} all while still screaming at the top of her lungs to fool the others into thinking ''she'' was on the receiving end of the sounds of violence.
171* DamselInDistress: Parodied like everything else in this film. Slater's daughter is attacked by a bunch of thugs and screams in terror..... while actually being the one kicking their asses. At one point she breaks one of their necks right before letting out another scream.
172* DamselOutOfDistress: Whitney easily beats up the goon Benedict orders to beat ''her'' up when they're alone in her room, frees herself and comes to help her dad with his gun.
173* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Jack Slater III'' is implied to been this to the Slater franchise, given it featured a terrifying axe murderer and the death of Slater's son. ''Jack Slater IV'' seems lighter-hearted with the villains snarky mob goons, as a likely studio response to fans hating the forced DownerEnding of the previous film.
174* DeadlyDodging: Slater dodged the bullets from the helicopter which then kill the mooks behind him.
175* DeadlyGas: [[spoiler:Benedict and Vivalid plot to unlease nerve toxin against a rival mafia group at a funeral so they can wipe out them in one go. Jack and Danny manage to foil it though.]]
176* DeadMansTriggerFinger: Parodied. In the middle of the shootout at his ex-wife's house, Jack Slater takes cover behind a chair in which a dead mook is sitting, rips out a power cord from a nearby light, and shocks the goon's arm with it, and the jolt makes the man twitch spasmodically, blasting three nearby goons with the SMG he was holding.
177* DeadpanSnarker: Benedict throws out a few of these.
178-->'''Jack:''' Sir, are you a henchman?\
179'''Benedict:''' No, I'm afraid I only go so far as lackey.
180* DeconReconSwitch: The first half of the film makes light of action movies, straying it heavy deconstruction for the second half. But there some elements of reconstruction at the end, as Jack becomes savvy to the real world elements. In particular, he starts as an InvincibleHero and AntiHero to become more of a DentedIron or ClassicalAntiHero.
181* {{Deconstruction}}: A fascinating form of it: While most action tropes are simply lampshaded to the point of lunacy when Danny is dropped into "Jack Slater IV", when the characters are turned loose into the Real World, things go nasty. In one moving scene, still inside the movie world, [[{{Determinator}} Jack Slater]] reveals that under his DeadpanSnarker typecasting he's mostly just ''[[ZenSurvivor tired]]'' after repeatedly surviving implausible, stressful scenarios while everyone around him dies. Among other things, he's got a cashier at his drug store calling him at the police station so that his colleagues think he has a life and make everyone think his ex-wife still cares about him (she's remarried and moved on), and he's deeply depressed that his ActionGirl daughter Whitney skipped her prom to field-strip an AK-47 (he fears she'll grow up alone or die at a young age). This is a side of Slater that Danny was shocked to see, but nevertheless, he was able to get him out of this funk to continue the action of the movie.
182-->'''Jack:''' [[IJustWantToBeNormal I just want to be a good cop!]] Instead I keep getting caught up in these crazy adventures!
183* DeconstructionFleet: The movie attempts to deconstruct action movies and the characters found within. It falls short, but the effort is there.
184* DefensiveFailure: Danny repeatedly has villains at his mercy but can't pull the trigger. Understandable, since he's a scared kid, and we wouldn't want him to become a killer anyway.
185* DestinationDefenestration: In the ''Arnie as Hamlet'' sequence, Schwarzenhamlet picks up Claudius and throws him through a stained glass window.
186* DiabolusExMachina: In-universe, at the end of ''Jack Slater III''. Lampshaded by Jack.
187-->'''Jack:''' Let us push his son off the building. You will have eternal nightmares, but you are fictional, so who cares?
188* DidIMentionItsChristmas: Spoofed with the [[ShowWithinAShow in-universe film]] ''Jack Slater III'', where it's explicitly pointed out that the action-packed events of the film are happening around Christmas even though it otherwise has no bearing on the plot. (The film is a parody of the films of Creator/ShaneBlack, who's a big fan of this trope and has multiple examples on this page, and who later [[SelfDeprecation rewrote the script himself]].)
189* DidYouActuallyBelieve: An early scene has Slater at the police station when his ex-wife calls. He puts on a recording of himself as she rambles about alimony, their daughter and more as the tape just grunts an occasional "Yep" and "sure." Later, Danny tries to cheer up Slater by saying his ex-wife must still care if she keeps calling him.
190-->'''Slater''': Danny, do you think I'd marry someone so stupid she doesn't know the real voice from a taped one? I pay a cashier at the drugstore every so often to call me at the station so the guys think I have a private life. My ex-wife is happily remarried, she never calls.
191* DidYouJustHaveSex: Played rather subtly, this being a PG-13 movie, but Danny's usually bitter and world-weary widowed mother is awfully cheerful the next morning after meeting this Jack Slater guy her son has just befriended. Very likely subverted, however, in that Jack later remarks how happy he was to spend time ''just talking'' with a woman for a change.
192* DiegeticSwitch:
193** The movie may have [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] this. Slater interrupts a conversation to notice the background music on the radio. (Bringing closure to one of the movie's running gags, it's Mozart.) It hits crescendo at the following scene change.
194** The hard rock playing during one of the chase scenes is coming from Slater's tape deck -- and he changes the tape mid-chase!
195* DifferentWorldDifferentMovies: Mixed with CelebrityParadox. Because Slater is played by Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger, the main character of ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'' franchise is played by Creator/SylvesterStallone. Apparently Creator/RobertPatrick is still the T-1000 in ''Judgment Day'' since he has a cameo.
196* DirtForcefield: Jack Slater is spotless within seconds of crawling out of the La Brea Tar Pits; naturally this is {{Lampshaded}} by Danny.
197* DirtyCop: [[spoiler:FBI agent John Practice, a friend of Jack's, is revealed as in league with Vivaldi, a sicilian mobster (being paid very well for it). He also says that he's killed so many people Practice [[ButForMeItWasTuesday simply can't remember them all]].]]
198* DisappearedDad: Danny's father died sometime before the events of the movie.
199* DiscOneFinalBoss: At first it seems that Vivaldi, the mob boss, will be the main antagonist (He is, after all, the main antagonist of ''Jack Slater 4''), with Benedict as TheDragon; however, when Benedict, far more competent than his boss, realizes what's going on, he [[spoiler:[[TheStarscream shoots his boss]]]] and becomes the real threat.
200* DistantReactionShot: When the detective finds Benedict's missing glass eye, he turns it and it reads "Vengeance is Mine". Slater yells, "Don't touch it!" and the scene promptly cuts to a distant view of the hillside as a giant fireball appears.
201* TheDon: Tony Vivaldi. The plot of the ''Jack Slater'' film Danny drops into involves him planning on killing all of the other Dons in Los Angeles so he will be number one.
202* DoubleMeaning: A reference to both Mr Benedict's glass eye and the the practice in commercial aviation of catching a flight late at night / early morning.
203--->'''Jack''': Gotta catch the redeye.
204* DownerEnding: While this is averted by the actual film, it applies in-universe to ''Jack Slater III'', which ends with Slater managing to take down the Ripper, but the Ripper managing to pull a TakingYouWithMe that ends up killing Slater's young son.
205* DragonInChief: Mr. Benedict is introduced as Vivaldi's right-hand-man. However, he [[TheStarscream turns on his employer]] immediately after finding [[BigBad much better prospects]]. Apparently, he didn't notice until he found the ticket.
206* DramaticAmmoDepletion: Played with. Through a magic ticket, CowboyCop action hero Jack and the BigBad Benedict of his ShowWithinAShow are transported to the "real" world. At one point, Benedict advances on the pinned down Jack while firing his revolver and giving a HannibalLecture, until his revolver goes "click". Jack comes out of cover and taunts him about forgetting that, in the real world, guns don't have BottomlessMagazines. Whereupon Benedict reveals he had remembered that [[BatmanGambit and had left one chamber in his revolver empty to provoke exactly this reaction]] and shoots the now exposed Jack.
207* DriverFacesPassenger: Jack Slater turns around completely in his seat so that he is almost lying in the back seat and drives the car entirely with his feet, all so he can fire his gun more accurately backwards. He claims that you just need a lot of practice in a low traffic area.
208* DrivesLikeCrazy: Jack, and since he has no regard for other drivers, he's a WalkingDisasterArea.
209* ElevatorFailure: Slater falls from a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzPiBOc_Nfs broken elevator]].
210* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Slater is characterized as a parody of a CowboyCop by the fact that he enters the scene of a hostage situation ignoring his superior officer and throwing his badge in his face when ordered to stand down. He keeps walking as the mayor tries to dissuade him by bringing in the Lieutenant Governor, whom he punches in the face, and then beating down the officer the chief ordered to keep him from entering the building. This is generally par the course for his behavior, but in his case it's because [[PapaWolf his son is the hostage]] in this situation.
211* EvenEvilHasStandards: After Benedict [[RefugeeFromTVLand arrives in the real world]], he's propositioned by an underage junkie prostitute in downtown New York. Even a bonafide CardCarryingVillain from Movie Land such as he is disturbed by this, and voices his disgust by asking her how old she is. Seconds later, he's similarly shocked that a homeless man was murdered by two others for his ''shoes''. This makes sense - Benedict is the villain of a PG-13 action movie, where such things are unimaginable.
212* EveryCarIsAPinto:
213** Parodied, also by taking it to the extreme. Later, Deconstructed and averted as they go to the real world.
214** A particularly egregious example is when a henchman gets shot, flies through the air, and through the windshield of an ice cream truck... which inexplicably explodes with no obvious source of fuel. One could blame it on the dynamite he was holding at that moment, but still...
215* EveryoneIsArmed: The rooftop funeral scene. Fortunately for Jack, everyone there is also a graduate from the ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy.
216* EvilBrit: Benedict, played by a [[LargeHam deliciously hammy]] Charles Dance.
217* EvilIsNotAToy: After catching on quickly about the powers of the ticket (in addition to already having near-superhuman accuracy with a gun) Benedict realizes his skills make him vastly overqualified to be taking orders from his dumb and unappreciative boss, Vivaldi.
218* EvilLearnsOfOutsideContext: After Danny Madigan is given a magical movie ticket, he finds himself unexpectedly [[TrappedInTVLand transported inside the movie]], ''[[ShowWithinAShow Jack Slater IV]]''. Unfortunately the ticket ends up in the hands of the villain, [[BigBad Benedict]], who after learning that he's actually a movie character, [[RefugeeFromTVLand escapes into the real world]]. Worse, he quickly learns that here, ''the bad guys can win'', and plans to recruit other movie villains to wreak havoc.
219* ExplosionPropulsion: Slater is propelled into the air while attempting to outrun a TimeBomb.
220* ExtendedDisarming: During the opening scene, Jack is told to disarm. The Ripper (having apparently heard of some of Jack's exploits), isn't satisfied with him just dropping the pistol in his hand, and insists on seeing the rest of it. Jack takes quite some time removing his knife, and then the rest of his pistols, and the Ripper is only duly impressed after double-checking whether that really was all of it. Slater tells him it is.... unless a [[ImprobableWeaponUser "grenade" with a blade that pops out of it]] counts.
221* EyepatchOfPower: Benedict sports various brightly coloured [[spoiler: (and occasionally explosive)]] glass eyes to [[GlassesPull good dramatic effect]]. The fact that his eye collection appears to be made of a stack of spoons hints to EyeScream in his past.
222* FantasticRacism: Jack [[MistakenForRacist accuses Danny of this]] after he points out that Whiskers the cat shouldn't be a police detective because he's a cartoon.
223-->'''Slater:''' He's supposed to be back on duty! He was only suspended for a month! [[UnusuallyUninterestingSight So what's your point]]?
224* FeetFirstIntroduction: Although we've already seen him in the movie proper, Slater's first appearance in ''Jack Slater IV'' is his iconic snakeskin boots followed by a slow pan as he saunters onto the scene.
225* FirstNameUltimatum: Parodied when the police captain always shouts out Slater's name whenever he does something to piss him off (which is usually the case).
226* FisherKingdom: The different rules of the movie universe change the characters to fit; for instance, Slater gets a deadly gunshot wound in the real world which becomes OnlyAFleshWound when he returns to the movie universe.
227* FleshAndBombs: [[spoiler:In a variation, Vivaldi and Benedict rig a nerve gas bomb inside of a dead mobster's body (who they murdered), so this will go off at his funeral, killing the rest of his mafia family.]]
228* FourthWallObserver: When Jack finally gets home, he still remembers that he's a film character. He deliberately lampshades the nearest comedy trope character (his boss), then winks at the audience.
229* FriendlyTarget: Parodied when, in the movie-within-the-movie, they kill the hero's ''favorite second cousin''. After four or five sequels, he was just running out of significant family members...
230* FridgeLogic[[invoked]]: A rare in-universe InvokedTrope. Death calmly comments that Danny is an idiot because ''he hadn't bothered to look for the other half of the magic ticket'', which is still safely contained inside the locked ticket box in the theatre lobby. Danny gives himself a mental FacePalm.
231* FromBeyondTheFourthWall: There's a boy who travels into films. The major theme of this film is how different the film world is to our own. This is a borderline example but it counts because he is an audience member affecting the outcome of a film.
232* FullMoonSilhouette: Shown with Danny on a bicycle no less, shamelessly parodying ''E.T.''
233* FunnyBackgroundEvent:
234** After Slater has momentarily escaped the villains by ramping his convertible through the air and landing safely, while he and Danny have a leisurely chat about the fruits of life, we watch as the black minivan that was chasing them attempts to copy Slater's stunt, fails, and crashes in a massive fireball behind them. Neither notices.
235** When Jack and Danny are driving to the funeral they are conversing in his car. In the background you see cars crashing the entire time, most likely because of Jack's driving.
236* GameOfChicken: Parodied:
237** This works in the movie world that Jack Slater, a CaptainErsatz of [[Franchise/DieHard John McClane]], inhabits, [[spoiler:but not in the real world]]. Except it does work [[spoiler:because Slater wisely chooses a car with airbag protection, unlike his opponent.]]
238** Danny at one point attempts this on the villains car... on a ''bike''. He tries to rationalize it that since this a movie and he's a good guy, it has to work. He then realizes (almost too late) that he's not TheHero, he's the PluckyComicRelief so it won't work.
239* GatlingGood: The black van with the sawed-off minigun in the door. And two of these are mounted on the helicopter at the funeral. And naturally, none of them sounds like it's shooting at a realistic firing rate.
240* GeniusBruiser: Jack Slater may be a muscle bound, gun toting movie cop, but he's also extremely intelligent. Even in the real world, he knows the makes and models of cars ''by year'' and knows that one car has an air bag and the other ''doesn't.'' He also is charming and witty when he's no longer bound by the conventions of an action film.
241* GenreBlind: {{Inverted|Trope}}. Slater is entirely GenreSavvy about how action movie world works, but is relatively clueless in the real world because [[ThisIsReality the real world doesn't behave like an action movie.]]
242* GenreSavvy: First Danny, then Benedict and later Jack Slater. The Ripper himself notes that the rooftop scene is exactly like ''Jack Slater III'', so he decides to skip the talking and just toss the kid (Danny in this case) right away rather than wait.
243* GlassEye: Benedict has a collection of them, which he switches between on a whim: one of them even doubles as an example of AnatomyArsenal, when a clueless cop picks up one that's he's left behind and [[TooDumbToLive twists it so that he can read the text on it]], causing it to blow up, as described above.
244* AGodAmI: Benedict after discovering the magic ticket.
245-->'''Benedict''': If God were a villain...he'd be me.
246* GoodNightSweetPrince: Parodied. If Arnold plays Hamlet, no one's going to tell ''this'' sweet prince goodnight!
247* GoshDangItToHeck: {{Lampshaded}}, of course. Jack refuses to say any serious swear words; Danny points out that he ''can't'' because "this movie's only PG-13."
248* TheGrimReaper: Plucked by the magic ticket from ''Film/TheSeventhSeal''. And played by Sir Creator/IanMcKellen, no less! Instead of being another fictional character, he's indicated to be the ''real'' Grim Reaper. He even knows when Danny will die, and when he touches a man in the street, said man [[IncurableCoughOfDeath starts coughing]].
249* GroinAttack
250** When Jack Slater tries to enter a building to confront a criminal, a police officer tries to stop him. Slater kicks him in the balls. "You want to be a farmer? [[{{Pun}} Here's a couple of achers!"]]
251** During the attack at Jack's home, his daughter Whitney is slapped by one of the thugs in her bedroom. She says "big mistake" and kicks him in the groin, causing him to fly over her and crash to the floor. She then jumps on him and stomps him.
252* GunPorn: Both the protagonist and antagonist carry a HandCannon. At the Ripper's behest in the opening scene, Slater is forced to drop his Desert Eagle, and then continues to fish out and discard about six other pieces hidden on his person. When Danny [[spoiler:is transported into the movie and]] ends up in Slater's car, he opens the glove box - which is overflowing with handguns. Later in the film when Slater returns to his apartment, a glimpse of the closet reveals his "wardrobe," which consists of the same outfit: snakeskin cowboy boots, suede jacket, jeans, red t-shirt, and his signature Desert Eagle. The closet holds about ten of these identical outfits, including a fresh Eagle for each change of clothes.
253* GunsAkimbo: Jack does the ''[[Film/TheMatrix Matrix]]'' version with dual [=SMG=]s.
254* HandCannon: Jack Slater's Desert Eagle and Benedict's Dan Wesson revolver.
255* HaveANiceDaySmile: One of Benedict's glass eyes has this in place of the pupil, which he pulls down his glasses to reveal when he meets with Jack for the first time. He even punctuates it with a "Have a nice day" to see them off.
256* HellYesMoment: Danny has one of these when Whitney escapes her captors and pulls a gun on the guys holding him. Everyone notices.
257* HeroInsurance: Lampshaded, of course in the scene where Slater is being chewed out by his hammy boss. Danny tells Slater, "He's only mad because you destroyed more of the city than usual..."
258* HiddenDepths:
259** Jack Slater. He's leading a pitiful life that even his screenwriters didn't expect.
260--->'''Danny:''' Look on the good side. You have a great daughter. And your ex-wife wouldn't call if she didn't want you back.\
261'''Jack:''' Danny, do you think I would have married someone so stupid who can't tell my real voice from a taped one? I pay a cashier to call me at work, so the guys think I have a life. My ex-wife is happily remarried. She ''never'' calls. And Whitney--why can't she be a normal teenager? On prom night she stays home to field strip an AK-47! She's going to die a young maid, I know it. I'm going to buy it soon, too.\
262'''Danny:''' [[ComicallyMissingThePoint No way. You can't die until the grosses go down.]]
263** Danny's adoration of Slater is due to Jack being all he has for a father figure.
264** Jack is also apparently ''very'' charming when not having to exercise action movie tropes 24/7 - and pleased to realize it, too.
265** Lt. Dekker (DaChief) spends most of his screen time screaming his lungs out and chewing out Slater for the excessive amounts of carnage his CowboyCop antics leave behind... and in one of the previous films, one of the sub-plots was his marriage going through a rocky state and Jack helping him. Dekker even called Jack "[[OddFriendship his best friend]]" at that time, which probably explains why Dekker has given Jack his badge back every time he takes it OnceAnEpisode (InUniverse). When Danny brings this up, Dekker turns to Jack and gets angry because they were going to keep it a secret between them.
266* HighPressureEmotion: The police chief displays this during a TurnInYourBadge speech, his face rapidly becoming bloated and red with sweating streaming down it and steam pouring from his ears. By the end of the speech, he's [[{{Angrish}} essentially yelling garbled abuse at the main characters which neither can understand]].
267* HighVoltageDeath: How Slater dispatches the Ripper. While on a rainy rooftop together, the Ripper throws an axe at him; Jack takes the axe and uses it to chop open a nearby powerbox, then climbs onto the side of the building and pushes the cut power lines into the puddles the Ripper is standing in.
268* HollywoodBeautyStandards: A kid named Danny is transported into the action movie world of Jack Slater, who is played by Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger, and spends much of the time trying to convince him that they are really in a movie. One of the things he points out is that there are no unattractive women around; even the extras are tall, blonde bombshells. Slater, being a movie character himself, can't see the problem, brushing it off as "This is California."
269* HollywoodHealing: Parodied when the titular hero gets shot in the [[RealLife Real World]]... and rapidly goes into shock from massive blood loss. The GenreSavvy sidekick manages to save him by bringing him back into the world of movies, where he gets right up and shrugs it off since it's [[JustAFleshWound only a slight flesh wound]] according to action movie tropes.
270* HollywoodHomely:
271** In-universe. Danny explicitly points out how there are no "unattractive people" in Jack's world. Jack sees nothing unusual about it.
272** Averted when Benedict gets to our world, on the other hand: he gets to see some of the real thing, particularly a young prostitute who rather half-heartedly tries to solicit him.
273%%* HurricaneOfEuphemisms: Lt. Dekker has dozens of them for his anus.
274* IAmNotLeonardNimoy: In-universe: The opening credits of ''Jack Slater IV'' give an [[AndStarring And Introducing]] credit to Meredith Caprice, the fictional actress who plays Whitney. When he actually meets her, Danny keeps accidentally calling her Meredith.
275** ActorAllusion: This was Bridgette Wilson-Sampras' first film role.
276* IdiotBall: "You're a very brave young man. Unfortunately, you're not very bright. If I were you... I might be looking for the other half of the ticket."
277* IfYouEverDoAnythingToHurtHer: {{Invoked|Trope}} when Danny growls at Benedict when he has Whitney in his clutches, "If you harm one hair on her--" Benedict interrupts, "Stop!", deliberately plucks a hair out of her head, then snaps it in front of Danny, daring him to finish his threat.
278* IJustWantToBeNormal: Jack. During a conversation with Danny, he admits that all he really wants is to be a good cop, and hates how he keeps getting tangled up in "crazy adventures". He also desires this for Whitney, unnerved by how his lifestyle has affected her.
279* IKEAWeaponry: The Ripper's axe.
280* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: The thugs in the beginning. Again, {{lampshaded}} as usual. Happens again later when the mooks use their machine guns on Slater as he escapes with the corpse.
281* ImpressivePyrotechnics: ''Every'' explosion features a far-larger-than-life fireball as if the exploding object was filled with gasoline.
282* ImprobableInfantSurvival: [[spoiler:Averted]] in Jack's world, [[spoiler:played straight]] in Danny's.
283* IndecisiveParody:
284** While obviously sending up action films of the 1980s and early '90s, this film can't seem to decide what kind of spoof it is. The premise is a self-aware action comedy having fun with the Arnold Schwarzenegger formula (while also having its moments of seriousness and self-reflection), but it often goes into straight up farce that even the worst [[ExploitationFilm exploitation]] [[BMovie B-movie]] wouldn't have (as they wouldn't have the budget to include [[RogerRabbitEffect a cartoon cat]] or [[DeliberatelyMonochrome black and white Bogart]]). The movie bounces between the two approaches and suffers for it, a flaw most of its detractors point out, ''if they're even aware that it's a parody at all!''
285** Something that further muddies the waters is that the "real world" segments feel less like going from a typical action movie to the real world, and more like going from a ludicrously silly and over-the-top action movie to a more standard-issue late 80s/early 90s action movie. The setting's a lot grittier and Jack picks up injuries more easily, but he still gets away with performing insanely risky stunts with little to no consequence, and his second fight with the Ripper somehow seems even ''more'' absurd than the one which took place in ''Jack Slater III''.
286* InstantDeathBullet: Benedict's test kill is this. One of the few tropes in this movie played straight in the real world section (we don't see where he shoots the guy, but he was using a match-grade revolver at close range and might have aimed for the head).
287* InstantEmergencyResponse: Lampshaded in that same scene. Benedict is shocked to discover that you can steal a car in the real world without police sirens instantly sounding. To test this new situation, he walks up to a man and shoots him, then waits for the sirens. When that doesn't work, he yells that he's just shot and killed someone and wants to confess, to which the only response is someone off-screen yelling at him to quit making a racket. Cue the AsideGlance and EvilGrin.
288* IronicEcho:
289** Danny tries to make one out of John Practice's CharacterCatchphrase ("How do you get to Carnegie Hall?"), with little success.
290** When Benedict escapes from the movie, Danny suggests leaving after him. When Jack asks if he has a way to get back, Danny tells him he can't nitpick every single little thing. Upon reaching the real world, they find that Benedict's nowhere to be found, and Danny promptly wonders how Jack can get back. "That's a good question. But we wouldn't want to nitpick."
291* ItIsNotYourTime: [[spoiler:In Danny's encounter with the Grim Reaper, he worriedly asks if he's going to die soon. The Grim Reaper says no, he'll die as a grandfather.]]
292* ItsPersonal: Invoked in the ''Hamlet'' parody.
293-->'''Arnold Schwarzenegger as Hamlet''': Oh, Claudius? You killed my father. (picks up guy) Big mistake. (Flings Claudius out the window).
294* ItWorksBetterWithBullets: Subverted when the BigBad Benedict tries to shoot Jack Slater (Ahnuld), only to hear the familiar *click*. Slater and the BigBad have had [[GenreBlindness trouble adjusting to the real world]]; Slater thinks he's forgotten that guns don't have unlimited ammo here, and calls him out on it. Benedict tells him that he simply left one chamber empty and shoots him.
295* IWishItWereReal: The movie subverts this trope by showing how the "real" and "fictional" worlds may be entirely too different from each other for their inhabitants to cope. Though Danny has issues of his own.
296-->'''Jack:''' In my world [[CriminalMindGames they just leave clues]].\
297'''Danny:''' But we're not in your world.\
298'''Jack:''' [[ChandlersLaw Or they show up and kidnap me.]]\
299'''Danny:''' That kind of stuff doesn't happen here, Jack. Because ''this world stinks!''
300* JustBetweenYouAndMe: "Since you're about to die anyway, I may as well tell you the entire plot." It's a nod to the trope, which has been {{Lampshaded}} in the film twice by then as a 'Classic Movie Mistake'; the second in an IronicEcho.
301* KarmaHoudini:
302** The burglar since this is real life and not a movie; kind of a WhatHappenedToTheMouse example because he's about as petty as a crook can get (didn't even find much to steal) and [[MakeRoomForTheNewPlot far worse things were about to happen]].
303** Also, two petty thugs Benedict happened to see beating and possibly killing a man for his shoes, which was part of his education in how unresponsive police in some parts of our world are to crime.
304* KinderAndCleaner: InUniverse with ''Jack Slater 4'' -- the film happens to be PG-13 instead of the R of the series' previous installations. As a result, when Danny Madigan [[TrappedInTVLand enters the film]] and tries to prove to Slater that it's a movie, he tries to make Slater say the F-word (or some other "hard" insult) and then points out Slater's reluctance as proof (PG-13 movies by law can only say "fuck" 4 times or less, but it's an unwritten rule in the industry that it [[PrecisionFStrike must only be uttered once]]). In the final act, Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger himself appears in the world premiere of the film and cheerfully reassures some reporters that this movie has a smaller body count than the previous entry in the series.
305* LampshadeHanging: More lampshades than a Shriner Convention. Mostly by Danny pointing out how crazy the film world is.
306* LargeHam: The chief of police and Benedict. The chief apparently can only talk in incoherent angrish.
307%%* TheLastTitle: The title.
308* LawOfInverseRecoil: Played straight naturally in the Movie world. In the real world, Jack fires his Desert Eagle pointed up and is knocked down.
309* LeftTheBackgroundMusicOn: After a big car chase with heavy music playing, Jack Slatertakes a tape out of the car's stereo causing the BGM to stop and inserts a new tape with different BGM.
310* LicensedPinballTable: Released by Creator/DataEast in 1993. [[Pinball/LastActionHero Click here.]]
311* LifeWillKillYou: TheGrimReaper from the Seventh Seal movie appears in the real world and does what the Grim Reaper tends to do. When he confronts the protagonist he tells him that he will die. For one moment, the kid thinks he is going to be reaped, but the Grim Reaper just tells him he'll die as a grandfather.
312* LighterAndSofter: In comparison to most of Schwarzenegger's other movies.
313** It still manages to have its share of grim moments, due to several examples of WouldHurtAChild, with Slater's son being killed by the Ripper in the third movie and Danny put in danger a few times, including an encounter with a robber.
314** The PG-13 world of the ''Jack Slater'' movies is this to the (unrated) "real world", to the point Benedict is initially shocked at the sight of underage women prostituting themselves and people being murdered for their shoes.
315* LimitedWardrobe: While not pointed out in dialogue, the brief look in Slater's closet during the once-a-movie "shoot the assassin hiding in the closet" sequence has a line of identical outfits ([[WallOfWeapons complete with an entire shelf of]] [[HandCannon Desert Eagle pistols]]).
316* LonelyBachelorPad: In the movie-within-a-movie, Jack Slater's apartment is unfurnished, and very unremarkable, besides the ninja hiding in the closet and the closet full of identical outfits.
317* MadeOfIron:
318** Slater, at least in the movies. When he arrives in the real world, he's genuinely shocked that punching out a car window with his bare hand hurts. A case of RealityIsUnrealistic subverts this, unique to Schwarzenegger -- he famously punched out a real car window by mistake in ''Film/TrueLies'', and didn't notice.
319** Also, Danny, to an extent, as he manages to brush off falling off a rooftop and crashing through a house with little to no injuries.
320* TheMafia: Vivaldi, the BigBad of ''Jack Slater IV'', is a Sicilian mobster who's seeking control over drug trafficking on the US West Coast. To that end, he's made peace with his rivals the Turelli Mob (another example) while [[spoiler:actually plotting their murders]].
321* MageInManhattan: Benedict uses the magic ticket to leave his movie and enter the real world. He realizes that outside of movies bad guys can win and plans to take over the world by releasing villains from various horror films. Luckily the heroes stop him.
322* {{Malaproper}}: Vivaldi, who keeps mixing metaphors and getting idioms wrong, which finally gets him killed by an exasperated Benedict. In the opening scene of ''Jack Slater IV'' he even raises his thumb instead of his index finger when claiming himself to be "Number One."
323* MatchCut: Danny's ImagineSpot of the castle in ''Hamlet'' blowing up to a cartoon explosion in a [[WesternAnimation/WileECoyoteAndTheRoadrunner Wile E. Coyote & Road Runner]] cartoon.
324* MeaningfulName:
325** If you're going to employ a [[TheDragon Dragon]], don't pick a guy named Benedict! There's also the Pandora Theater. And stay away from gangsters named "The Fart".
326** Oddly, while the Pandora is a real theater in Los Angeles - and the film was shot in it - there is no Pandora Theater in New York.
327* MediumAwareness: Danny, justified as he is literally trapped in a movie. However, this only extends to the ''Jack Slater'' movie he finds himself in; he never shows any awareness of his "real world" being a movie from ''our'' perspective.
328* MediumBlending: Danny sees an animated cat interacting with regular people once he's within the film, as well as a digitized black-and-white image of Creator/HumphreyBogart.
329* MenAreTough: Parodied. After returning to the real world, Danny wakes up to find that Jack has been spending time talking with his mother, he enjoys the Mozart music playing in the background, and he joins her in lecturing him for going to the theater that night.
330-->'''Danny:''' ''Moooooom!'' You turned him into a ''wimp!''
331* {{Metalhead}}: Slater's music of choice is heavy metal. Late in the film, Danny actually reacts with dismay when he witnesses Slater enjoying classical music (which does not exist in Slater's world).
332* MistakenForRacist: When Danny attempts to use a [[RogerRabbitEffect cartoon cat]] and a [[DeliberatelyMonochrome black-and-white Bogart stand-in]] being on the police force as evidence that the world is a movie, Jack takes it as him being [[FantasticRacism prejudiced against them]] and believing they can't be good cops.
333* MobWar: Sicilian mobster Vivaldi is plotting to [[spoiler:kill off the Turelli Mob with a gas bomb, after making a fake peace with them]].
334* MoodWhiplash:
335** Danny's encounter with the burglar, which leaves a ChekhovsGun ([[spoiler:the key to the handcuffs]]) and gives Danny and Jack an explanation for the latter's presence to his mom.
336** Also when Danny and Slater [[spoiler: enter the real world, Slater's acts of GenreBlindness are initially played off for laughs. The duo chase Benedict through New York in stolen cars, ending up in a back-alley where they are challenged to a game of chicken. The scene is tense, Danny warns Slater he could die, but Slater drops off Danny and speeds off. However neither vehicle manages to build much speed (unlike in the movie world). Compared to all the things Slater has survived up to this point, as well as what most action heroes survive, most viewers won't be expecting much of a crash, even if it is the real world. Cue the actual crash at around 40 kPh which causes the cars rears to lift off the ground. It does not help that Slater's taillights go out and one of the car horns goes off.]]
337** The Ripper, knowing he's a fictional character, is a sociopathic even in the context of being in the real world, and decides to forgoe movie tropes and just off Danny immediately.
338* MoreDakka:
339** At Leo The Fart's funeral, when Jack steals the corpse, every single guest, even the priest, the nuns and several little old ladies pull out military grade automatic weapons. Then again, [[HandWave it was a Mafia funeral]].
340** The goons in the black van shoot at Slater with a Gatling gun.
341** How about the helicopter that ''shoots through an entire building''?
342** Jack's glove compartment contains an ''arsenal'' of handguns.
343* SugarWiki/MostWonderfulSound: In-Universe, Jack's reaction to hearing Mozart, or classical music in general, for the first time.
344* MotorMouth: DaChief. At one point, he starts speaking so fast and so angrily that smoke literally starts coming out of his ears and Danny and Jack actually ask each other if they can get what he's saying.
345* TheMovieBuff: Danny
346* MrExposition: Jack's favorite second cousin, Frank, who conveniently expires after delivering a RedHerring.
347* MsFanservice: Whitney, courtesy of skin-tight shirts and LegFocus. It's probably why Danny is so moony-eyed when meeting her, since he's seen her actress in other media (it's implied she's a teen model.)
348-->'''Danny:''' ''(swooning)'' It's her first film.
349* MundaneFantastic: The Jack Slater series is apparently more over the top than its premise as action films would suggest. When Danny points out a [[RogerRabbitEffect cartoon cat]] and [[DeliberatelyMonochrome black and white]] officer on the force, Jack doesn't think anything of it besides Danny sounding discriminatory.
350* MurderByMistake: Played with. A gunman supposedly attempting to murder the head of the Tortelli crime family missed and struck the very large Leo the Fart instead. However Slater realizes that if the gunman sent by Vivaldi was the [[ImprobableAimingSkills surgically-precise]] [[TheDragon Benedict]], there was no way he would have missed his intended target. This, combined with a break-in at the morgue where Leo's body was being prepared, and the recent theft of poison gas from a military convoy, leads Slater and Danny to piece together Vivaldi's intent to assassinate the ''entire'' Tortelli family.
351-->'''Danny''': You mean...\
352'''Slater''': Yep. Leo the Fart is going to pass gas one last time.
353* MusicalGag:
354** After Danny says, "They always look dead. In ''Film/DieHard'', a guy is hung and at the end of the movie, he comes back.", the soundtrack plays a few notes from the ''Die Hard'' score. Both films were composed by Music/MichaelKamen.
355** After Frank's home is blown up at the opening of ''Jack Slater IV'', one of the RedShirt cops (an old man that resembles Danny Glover) lives long enough to say he was two days from retirement before expiring. Right as he does, a saxophone riff from ''Film/LethalWeapon'' plays.
356[[/folder]]
357
358[[folder:N-Z]]
359* NarrowedItDownToTheGuyIRecognize: In-universe, Danny pegs John Practice as TheMole based solely on the fact that he's being played by Creator/FMurrayAbraham, who played Salieri in ''Film/{{Amadeus}}''. ''He's right!''
360-->'''Jack''': Danny said not to trust you. He said you killed Moe Zart.\
361'''Practice''': Moe who?\
362'''Jack''': Zart.\
363'''Practice''': ''(shrugs)'' Ah, you know, [[ButForMeItWasTuesday I've killed a lot of people]], I can't remember half of 'em.
364* NeverRecycleYourSchemes: Discussed in-universe, where Slater suspects Benedict planted a bomb inside the gangster called "The Fart" to kill the other mobsters attending his funeral. Danny points out that it wouldn't be a regular bomb, since they've already had a lot of explosions in the movie. An annoyed Slater tells him not to start the "movie talk" again, then recalls a break-in at a chemical factory, and believes that Benedict planted a gas bomb inside "The Fart".
365* NoInnerFourthWall: Jack Slater finds out he's a movie character from his fan, Danny. Danny never finds out that he's a character from ''Last Action Hero''.
366* NoMoreHoldingBackSpeech: A villainous example:
367-->'''Benedict:''' Gentlemen. Since you are about to die anyway, I may as well tell you the entire plot. Think of villains, Jack. You want {{Dracula}}? Dra-cool-la? Hang on, ''[takes out the [[PlotCoupon ticket]]]'' I'll fetch him. Dracula? Huh. I can get Film/KingKong! We'll have a [[Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet nightmare with Freddy Krueger]], have a surprise party for UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler; [[Film/SilenceOfTheLambs Hannibal Lecter]] can do the catering, and then we'll have a christening for Film/RosemarysBaby! All I have to do is snap my fingers and they'll be here. They're lining up to get here, and do you know why Jack? Should I tell you why? Hmm? Because here, in this world, the bad guys can win!
368* NonFatalExplosions: Benedict's explosive eyeball wipes out Jack's ex-wife's home in a gigantic fireball. Cut to next scene and Jack and Danny have a lot of soot on them but they are otherwise perfectly okay.
369* NormallyIWouldBeDeadNow: Fatal wounds simply are not anymore if one crosses over to the Hollywood-Reality.
370* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Lampshaded and mocked. Danny points out that Slater's thick Austrian accent is weird for a native Angeleno. Slater's response? "[[VotOcksent Egghcent? Vaht egghcent?]]"
371* NoticingTheFourthWall: Half the plot of the movie revolves around this, with fictional police officer Jack Slater not only having to face the repercussions of being transported to the real world, where the physics of his overblown action film world do not apply, but eventually even bumping into the actor who plays him. HilarityEnsues. Naturally, Slater does not take any of it well.
372* OffOnATechnicality: In ''Jack Slater III'' the Reaper mentions he got only ten years in prison after his bloody ax was ruled inadmissible since Jack found it due to an illegal search, which presumably would have put him away for far longer otherwise.
373* OhCrap: Slater has a moment of this when clinging onto a piece of metal from the [[ElevatorFailure broken elevator]] which eventually gives in and let's him [[SlowMotionFall fall in slow motion]].
374* OncePerEpisode: Jack appears to randomly shoot into his closet when he comes home, but then a dead assassin falls out. Apparently there's ''always'' one in there. He then says it costs him a fortune in closet doors.
375* OnlyAFleshWound: Played with and lampshaded: [[spoiler: Slater suffers a gunshot wound from Benedict in the real world, causing a race against time to get him back into the movie world, where the doctor "wouldn't even call it a flesh wound."]]
376* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Lampshaded - since the screenwriter for ''Jack Slater IV'' never bothered to give the nerdy freshman "Skeezie" an actual name, he doesn't have one. "Skeezie" is the full name he gives on a police report (He doesn't even know how to finish spelling it. "I-E... no, 'Y'").
377-->'''Skeezie:''' ''(to policeman)'' Skeezie. S-K-E...
378* OtherMeAnnoysMe: Jack Slater, the character played by Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger in the [[ShowWithinAShow ''Jack Slater'' film series]], comes into the real world, meets the real Arnold Schwarzenegger, and can't stand him.
379* OutOfCharacterAlert: Danny warned Jack that Practice is TheMole. After telling him of Benedict's plan, Practice says they should take the side entrance, which alerts Jack because...
380-->'''Jack:''' Who do you work for, Practice?\
381'''Practice:''' What do you mean?\
382''[Both walked into a dead end.]''\
383'''Jack:''' I mean we both know there's no side entrance to the building.\
384''[Practice pulls a gun at him]''
385* OutsideContextProblem: Played with when the villain attempts to '''become''' this trope by escaping Jack Slater's world of Action Tropes for our own: one where the bad guys ''can actually win''. For him, it's a mind-blowing concept and opportunity.
386* ParentalBonus: Sharon Stone has a brief cameo as the same character she played in ''Film/BasicInstinct''.
387* ParodyAssistance: A film originally written as a parody of the kinds of action movies that Creator/ShaneBlack wrote and Creator/JohnMcTiernan directed wound up with Black doing rewrites on the script and [=McTiernan=] directing it.
388* PerpSweating: After Danny has demonstrated to both Jack Slater and Lt. Dekker that he knows quite intimate details of their lives and friendship, they drag him into an interrogation office and grill him on who he is and how he could know those things. Neither of them believe [[TrappedInTVLand his tale]] by the end, but Dekker makes Danny into Jack's [[KidSidekick new partner]] at the end all the same.
389* PlotArmor: Lampshaded. [[spoiler: When Slater is shot in the real world, part of the post-climax is getting him back into the movie world]], making this a rare case where the trope is ''actually invoked''!
390* PluckyComicRelief: The kid realizes he is this during a game of "Chicken" ''with a car'', while riding a ''bike''.
391--> '''Danny:''' I'm the comedy sidekick... Oh, ''shit'', I'm the comedy sidekick! '''[[ThisIsGonnaSuck This isn't going to work!]]'''
392* PoirotSpeak: Vivaldi has a thick Italian accent and frequently [[{{Malaproper}} butchers idioms]], much to Benedict's annoyance.
393* PopStarComposer: Music/{{Buckethead}} teamed up with Music/MichaelKamen to score the film (Buckethead did the guitar solos while Kamen composed everything else).
394* PostKissCatatonia: A mild version--Danny becomes quite...introverted after Whitney mistakenly kisses him, complete with stumbling walk and goofy smile, "reminding" himself that it all goes downhill from there....
395* PowerCableAttack: Slater dispatches the Ripper by using the Ripper's axe to chop a set of power lines, causing them to fall onto the wet rooftop that they're fighting on and electrify the roof.
396* PowerPerversionPotential: In-universe, upon learning that the ticket actually works, Nick considers the possibility of visiting Creator/GretaGarbo and Creator/JeanHarlow.
397* PreAsskickingOneLiner: A rather nonsensical one: "You want to be a farmer? [[GroinAttack Here's a couple of acres]]."
398* PrecisionFStrike: Subverted. Danny tries to get Slater to say a certain word - and he can't... [[GenreSavvy because it's a PG-13 movie]]. Later DoubleSubverted when Danny gets an "[[OhCrap Oh shit!]]" line. Then triple-subverted with DaChief because in fact you ''can'' drop ''one'' F-bomb in a PG-13 movie.
399* PreMortemOneLiner: "No sequel for you."
400* PublicDomainSoundtrack: The soundtrack has plenty of bits from real classical music. Most notably [[Music/WolfgangAmadeusMozart Mozart]].
401* {{Pun}}: Lampshaded. The movie delivers them by the truckload.
402* PunnyName: Lampshaded, as both Jack and Practice both make jokes on the latter's last name.
403-->'''Jack and Practice''': How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
404* PutDownYourGunAndStepAway: Double subversion in the opening. The (literally) AxCrazy serial killer takes Schwarzenegger's son hostage and orders him to drop his weapon. Schwarzenegger drops his gun (or rather, his ''arsenal'')... and also drops a frag grenade at the villain's feet. The villain, knowing that Schwarzenegger isn't crazy enough to frag his own son, figures the grenade is a fake and orders the kid to pick it up. Turns out the grenade is really a trick knife, which the kid uses to stab the villain. Unfortunately, [[spoiler:the kid still dies, as the falling bad guy manages to drag the kid with him]].
405* RageAgainstTheAuthor: Slater's got some pretty understandable anger against the writers who killed off his son in the third movie. He also rips into Schwarzenegger when he finally meets him.
406* RealWorldEpisode: From the point of view of filmography, this movie serves as one for Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger, being chock-full of both RefugeeFromTVLand and ThisIsReality.
407* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Danny gives one to ''Death'' as he approaches Slater. Seems like he hasn't gotten over his father dying.
408* RecursiveCanon: {{Subverted|Trope}}. Danny is sucked into his favorite movie where he ends up befriending detective Jack Slater, played by Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger in Danny's universe (and ours), and when they go into a video store together, Danny sees a poster for ''Film/TheTerminator'', starring Creator/SylvesterStallone.
409* RecursiveReality: There are movies in Jack Slater's universe, making them movies within a movie ... within a movie.
410* RedRightHand: Benedict's glass eye, which he usually changes and has a lot of custom eye designs including one with a powerful bomb and one with a bull's-eye.
411* RedShirt / {{Retirony}}: Lampshaded by an old cop that gets killed by Frank's house exploding, who was two days away from retiring. And just to cement the lampshade, a brief saxophone snippet from the ''Film/LethalWeapon'' soundtrack sounds off as he dies.
412* RememberTheNewGuy:
413** At the end of ''Jack Slater III'', Jack's son Andrew is killed. ''Jack Slater IV'' introduces Whitney, Jack's daughter who has been living with his ex-wife. Oddly, this is never lampshaded, aside from her [[AndStarring And Introducing]] Meredith Caprice credit.
414** This trope is probably in play with Practice, as the friend Slater has but never seen before makes him the perfect [[TheMole mole]].
415* ReplacementGoldfish: The movie incorporates Danny into the plot by turning him potentially into this for Jack.
416* RevolversAreJustBetter: Used to maximum effect by Benedict. Not only is his a HandCannon, but in the climax he's able to get the drop on Slater by leaving a chamber empty and making him think he ran out of ammo.
417* RogerRabbitEffect: {{Lampshaded}}. Detective Whiskers is a cartoon cat in a detective outfit, but nobody but Danny sees anything weird about him.
418-->'''Jack:''' He was supposed to be back on duty. He was only suspended for a month. Now shut up!\
419'''Danny:''' Listen to what I'm saying: an animated cat just walked into the squad room. Hello!\
420'''Jack:''' He'll do it again tomorrow. So what's your point?\
421'''Lt. Dekkar:''' That cat is one of the best men I've got!
422* RooftopConfrontation: Three of them: two HostageSituation moments that bookend the film and a rooftop "running away from trigger-happy Mob shooters" moment in the middle.
423* SaveBothWorlds: The second half of the movie has Danny returning to the real world and bringing fictional action movie hero Jack Slater with him. Unfortunately, [[spoiler:Benedict is there as well, and he's got the ticket to travel between movies and the real world to bring through anything he wants.]]
424* SchizoTech: Danny's ''Hamlet'' starring Arnold fantasy starts out with Hamlet throwing skulls at people and slashing them up with a sword before he whips out a submachine gun, slaughters everyone in the castle and then ''blows the castle up''.
425* ScreamingWoman: Played with with Whitney when Benedict assigns one of his mooks to beat her up in a separate room. Initially, it looks like she's screaming with terror... until she whispers "Big mistake" after the guy hits her. She then proceeds to beat the crap out of him, [[ScreamingWarrior screaming all the while]] so that as far as Benedict and all the other henchmen in the next room can tell, it'll seem like the mook is continuing to beat and terrify her, and not that she's snapped his neck, grabbed his gun, and is about to go back out and ambush the rest of the bad guys.
426* SelfDeprecation: Aside from the SelfParody of his films, Arnold shows up at the film premiere, answering questions and hamfistedly promoting his ''Planet Hollywood'' chain of restaurants, to the embarrassment of his real-life wife Maria Shriver.
427* SelfParody: For co-writer Creator/ShaneBlack, director Creator/JohnMcTiernan, and above all else the star Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger, all of whom were spoofing the action movies they made their names with.
428* SequelEscalation:
429** Jack moans that his adventures seem to get more and more difficult to deal with. Danny tells him that the sequels ''have'' to get harder and more exciting. Jack's not amused.
430** By the time we get to ''Jack Slater IV'', it seems many of Jack's immediate family have already been killed; the first casualty that will apparently do the most damage to Jack is his "favourite second cousin".
431* SequenceBreaking: Lampshaded as well. Danny's presence speeds the plot faster than the film had originally intended.
432* ShootTheFuelTank: Subverted. When Jack Slater enters the real world, he chases Benedict until Benedict hops into a taxi. When Slater shoots at the cab, he's surprised to find that it doesn't explode.
433* ShoutOut:
434** A visual gag referencing ''Film/{{ET|The Extraterrestrial}}'' when Danny figures out that his attempt at playing chicken with Benedict won't work (there's your evidence that you're the comedy sidekick, kid).
435** The two beat cops at the beginning are very reminiscent of Riggs & Murtaugh from ''Film/LethalWeapon'', complete with saxophone riff and "three days 'till retirement".
436** Jack's slow motion fall from a building is a direct visual reference to Hans Gruber's plummet in ''Film/DieHard''.
437** Continuing the above point, Jack's son being dragged to his death by the BigBad as he falls off the rooftop in ''Jack Slater 3'' references what happens to the daughter of TheHero in ''Nothing Lasts Forever'' (the book the first ''Die Hard'' is based from).
438** ''Jack Slater IV'' is presented as "A Franco Columbu film". Columbu is a longtime personal friend and bodybuilding buddy of Arnold's, who also had bit parts in other Arnold movies.
439** When Benedict is looking through newspaper movie listings to find new villains he can bring into the real world with him, all of the movie ads are for Columbia Pictures films.
440* SlowMotionFall: Jack Slater's fall from the elevator.
441* SnarkyInanimateObject: The magic ticket that transports Danny into the movie is said as having a mind of its own. When Danny attempts to get it to take him back to the real world, it reverts to being inactive. Only after it falls into the hands of the film's villain does it decide to stay on all the time. [[spoiler:Of course, it decides to momentarily turn off again at the exact moment Benedict needs it to escape being killed by Jack.]]
442* SoftGlass: Lampshaded. While in the real world, Jack notes that his hand really hurts after punching through a car window.
443* SoullessBedroom: Jack Slater's apartment is almost totally empty. Thanks to the life of an action hero cop driving away his wife, killing his son, and taking up all his time, he no longer ''has'' a life outside of work, and the apartment is little more than a place where he sleeps. The regular repair bills for shooting the mob hitmen in his closet through the door don't help.
444* StandardCopBackstory: Parodied and implied with Jack saying that he's been friends with Practice ever since [[BadgesAndDogTags they]] [[TheVietnamVet served together in Vietnam]].
445* StandardFemaleGrabArea: Subverted. Slater's daughter gets grabbed by one of the Mooks and becomes little more than a screaming nuisance, but as soon as the mook takes her to another room she uses her screams to cover the sound of her [[CurbStompBattle dealing with him]].
446* TheStarscream: Benedict acts as TheDragon to the mob boss for most of the film, until he figures out what's going on and [[spoiler:shoots his boss, becoming the new BigBad]].
447* StealthPun: There's a ton of metal versions of Mozart in the soundtrack.
448* StepfordSmiler: Under Jack's cool attitude and action hero behaviour lies a broken man who is still suffering from PTSS, resulting from his son's death.
449* {{Stripperiffic}}: Parodied with the female police officers' {{Custom Uniform}}s.
450* StuffBlowingUp: With several {{Lampshade Hanging}}s, such as when Danny insists that the trouble at Leo Le Fart's funeral can't possibly be "just" another explosion, because the Slater film has had several explosions already.
451* SubvertedCatchphrase:
452** Early on, when Jack still doesn't believe he's in a movie.
453--->'''[[Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger Jack Slater]]:''' I'll be back! Ha! You didn't know I was gonna say that, did you?\
454'''Danny Madigan:''' [[ActorAllusion That's what you always say]]!\
455'''Jack Slater:''' I do?
456** And later in the same film:
457--->'''Jack Slater:''' You've seen these movies where they say "make my day," or "I'm your worst nightmare"? Well, listen to this one: Rubber baby buggy bumpers!
458* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Repeatedly occurs in-universe.
459** The entire second half of the film revolves around both Slater and Benedict realizing that the rules of their world don't coincide with that of the real world. Slater discovers that his gunfire won't automatically blow up a vehicle, that his hand hurts when he punches a window out, and that car crashes are much more dangerous than he thinks. Meanwhile, Benedict discovers that he can kill with impunity and no one notices.
460** This also applies to Jack's world in a rather unusual way. While all the action movie tropes are firmly set in place, reality still ensues as well as possible within the confines of the said tropes. Jack's cool action hero behaviour? Only a facade to distract others from his PTSS and loneliness. His sexy ActionGirl daughter? Yes, she is an ActionGirl and enjoys it, but she misses out on basically everything else in life, so it will haunt her later on in life. His never-seen ex-wife? She actually doesn't give two patoots about Jack, and Jack just has someone call him to ''pretend'' she's his wife so he can keep a brave face at the precinct.
461** They are both shown that the women in the real world aren't anything like the movie in their world. In Slater's case he's more at ease in just having a conversation with Danny's mom, who, though not unattractive (being played by Creator/MercedesRuehl), but hardly the supermodels he normally meets, while Benedict was caught off guard by the appearance of a very young prostitute, coming from a [=PG-13=] world.
462* SuspiciouslyAproposMusic: When Benedict realizes the ticket is magic, the theme from ''Franchise/TheTwilightZone'' [[LeftTheBackgroundMusicOn plays on the television behind him]].
463* TakeThat:
464** Part of the playful feud Arnold has with Sylvester Stallone is played out here; when Danny goes to the video store to show Jack the guy who played him in another movie, he finds an advertisement for ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' starring Stallone.
465---> '''Jack:''' The man is an artist. It's his best performance ever!
466** The La Brea Tar Pits was a Take That to another 1993 film, ''Franchise/JurassicPark''. The Take That was made during ''production'' of both films; ''Last Action Hero'' was assuming it would be a blockbuster hit as well, so it ended up as being the equivalent of the ''Franchise/StarWars'' "billboard" being blasted by Billy in ''Film/{{Laserblast}}''.
467** The ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' parody, in addition to ribbing both the original play and Schwarzenegger movies, was also a potshot at Mel Gibson's ''Hamlet'' (1990), directed by Creator/FrancoZeffirelli.
468* TheoryOfNarrativeCausality:
469** The GenreSavvy protagonist tries to exploit the rules of the action-movie universe he's [[TrappedInTVLand trapped in]] to his advantage, playing chicken with the bad guy's car ''on his bicycle''. [[spoiler:Just in time, he realizes he's the PluckyComicRelief, not the hero, and swerves out of the way.]]
470** One of the villains kills the manager of a convenience store and expects the police to arrive immediately. When they do not, he is puzzled.
471* ThisIsReality:
472** And Benedict ''likes'' it. His JustBetweenYouAndMe speech is terrifying:
473--->'''Benedict:''' Gentlemen. Since you are about to die anyway, I [[LampshadeHanging may as well]] [[JustBetweenYouAndMe tell you the entire plot]]! Think of villains, Jack. You want {{Dracula}}? Dra-cool-la? Hang on, (takes out the [[PlotCoupon ticket]]) I'll fetch him. Dracula? Huh. I can get Film/KingKong! We'll have a [[Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet nightmare with Freddy Krueger]], have a surprise party for UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler; [[Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs Hannibal Lecter]] can [[ImAHumanitarian do the catering]], and then we'll have a christening for Film/RosemarysBaby! All I have to do is snap my fingers and they'll be here. They're lining up to get here, and do you know why, Jack? Should I tell you why? Hmm? Because here, in this world, '''''[[TheBadGuyWins the bad guys can win!]]'''''
474** Also weaponized by Jack at one point, showing he was getting almost as savvy as Benedict, in the chicken scene listed under MoodWhiplash. He realizes full well the dangers of a head-on collision in the real world, but also realizes the goon he's staring down ''doesn't''. He explicitly points out (after the fact) the model vehicle he had was better designed for a head-on collision and he was wearing a seatbelt ''and'' had an airbag, while the bad guy wasn't and didn't. He just underestimated HOW MUCH it was going to hurt.
475* TimeBomb: Played with. Slater realizes a bomb is about to go off when a series of cards show decreasing numbers [[StealthPun counting down]].
476* TitleDrop: Averted. The teacher refers to Hamlet as one of the first action heroes.
477* ToCreateAPlaygroundForEvil: Benedict finds the playground over the course of the film: [[ThisIsReality It's called the real]] [[CrapsackWorld world]]. Now he wants to invite all the cool kids (villains from various movies) in.
478* TouchOfDeath: Death can kill with a touch (complete with a tinkly "ding!" sound effect for extra LampshadeHanging).
479* TrappedInTVLand: Happens to Danny for approximately half of the film.
480* {{Troperiffic}}: The whole point of the movie is [[PlayingWithATrope lampshading, deconstructing, reconstructing, subverting and inverting]] as many action movie tropes as possible.
481* TropeTelegraphing: [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]], as the in-universe action movie plot is StrictlyFormula to its GenreSavvy young viewer. This continues to be brought up during his [[TrappedInAnotherWorld visit within the movie's universe]].
482* TurnInYourBadge:
483** Complete with smoke coming out the ears.
484--->'''Danny:''' He only took your badge because you destroyed more of the city than usual.
485** Also during the opening of the film, Slater willingly tosses his badge to his Captain before taking on The Ripper.
486** Jack and DaChief also note Whiskers is back ''on'' the force after some NoodleIncident forced ''him'' to turn in ''his'' badge.
487* TheUnpronounceable: Arnold Schwarzenegger; Jack can't even pronounce the name of the actor who plays him, and ends up calling him "[[AccidentalMisnaming Arnold Braunschweiger]]" most of the time. Danny corrects him once, and Jack's response?
488-->'''Jack''': Gesundheit.
489* TheUnreveal: Danny wrote something on a notepad and tells Jack to say the word. Jack doesn't say it nor do we see what was written. But it's presumably a F-word, which Danny uses as another "movie proof". Jack refuses to say it for that reason and thinks it's childish, but Danny thinks Jack is unable to say it because the movie is PG-13 (which only allows "shit" at its strongest).
490* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Even in a loopy action film, it's bizarre to see 1) a talking animated cat, 2) [[Film/BasicInstinct Catherine Trammell]] and [[Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay the T-1000]] strolling around, 3) a black-and-white Humphrey Bogart, 4) steam ''literally'' coming out of a man's head when angry and 5) ''every'' woman with model looks. But being a live-action cartoon world, no one (but Danny) seems to even think it's ''slightly'' out of place.
491* VillainsBlendInBetter: CowboyCop Jack Slater and hitman Mr. Benedict are action movie characters who end up in real world New York City. Jack has difficulty understanding why cars don't explode when you shoot them and becomes despondent after about five minutes of exposure to "our" CrapsackWorld, whereas Mr. Benedict (after spending a similar period being bemused that murdering people in the streets has no immediate consequences) is elated to have found a world where "the bad guys can win!" The Ripper, who Benedict later brings into the real world from his own movie, also has no trouble blending into a movie premiere wearing his freakish villain costume consisting of a yellow raincoat, dirty long hair and a collapsible axe, but only because he's mistaken for his actor showing up in character, and even then he's quickly pulled aside by the actual actor's agent, who chastises him for his behaviour and attempts to order an emergency tuxedo for him.
492* VillainTeamUp: Between Benedict and the Ripper.
493* VisualPun:
494** Audio pun, anyway. All of the incidental music is revamped classical music, such as "Moonlight Sonata".
495** How does Benedict trigger the bomb hidden on Louie the Fart? ''[[ToiletHumor He pulls his finger.]]''
496* VotOcksent: A boy enters an Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger movie. Trying to convince him that this world is actually a work of fiction, Danny points out that Arnie's character, Jack Slater, has a thick Austrian accent that's quite weird for a native Angeleno. Slater replies "Egghcent? Vaht egghcent?"
497* WaitHere: Lampshaded when Jack tells Danny to stay in the car while he goes off to locate a bomb:
498-->'''Jack:''' Stay in the car. \
499'''Danny:''' No, I am coming with you. \
500'''Jack:''' ''(annoyed)'' Let us say this ''is'' a movie; if someone says "stay in the car" and the guy does not, what happens? \
501'''Danny:''' He [[GenreSavvy saves the day.]] \
502'''Jack:''' Or gets killed. \
503'''Danny:''' Good point; I will stay. \
504(Jack begins walking off) \
505'''Danny:''' Wait a minute! What if staying in the car is what gets me killed? \
506'''Jack:''' ''(aggravated)'' ...There's a gun in the glove compartment!
507* WallOfWeapons: Jack's car's glove compartment is full to the brim with guns, to Danny's surprise. Jack also holds about a dozen spare Desert Eagles inside of his apartment's closet.
508* WeakerInTheRealWorld: When Slater escapes his over-the-top action movie world and lands in Danny's "real world" he finds that he's suddenly stripped of his PlotArmor, a lot of action movie cliches that he relies on (like blowing up a bad guy's car by shooting it or punching out a window) don't work, etc., and as a result he's far weaker than he is in his home dimension. However, this is inverted by Benedict, who finds that he's no longer held back by a lot of the tropes and cliches that favor the heroes in the movie, and as such he is much more dangerous in real life than the movie world.
509* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The Grim Reaper advises Danny to use the other half of the ticket to bring Jack Slater back to his movie, and then walks out. Does the Reaper keep the first half of the ticket and use it to return to ''The Seventh Seal'' from which he was accidentally taken from? The movie doesn't tell us.
510* WhenDimensionsCollide: Although Jack Slater loses his action-hero resistance to pain when he visits the real world, Death is not so restricted, apparently carrying the laws of his home reality with him. Perhaps because in his home universe Jack is only an exceptionally athletic man, while Death is a powerful supernatural being by the standards of his universe.
511* WhyDontYouJustShootHim:
512** Lampshaded and inverted when John Practice turns against Jack; Danny's explanation of this trope is long enough for the bad guys to get the drop on him as well. ("You ain't no genius yourself, kid.")
513--->'''Danny:''' (to Jack) I don't see ''you'' coming up with ideas.
514** [[spoiler: Then double-inverted, as the bad guy does the exact same thing, except he actually gets shot, because the one who shot him is the previously-mentioned animated cat detective who is bound only to ToonPhysics and RuleOfFunny.]]
515--->'''Jack:''' Whiskers! What kept you?
516* WickedCultured: Benedict, who is ''way'' more worldly than any other character, ''especially'' [[DelusionsOfEloquence Vivaldi]].
517* TheWorldAsMyth: The premise is that all movies exist in parallel fictional universes.
518* WouldHurtAChild: Ripper takes a bunch of them hostage, [[spoiler: kills Jack's son then attempts to recreate the murder with Danny]], and Benedict seriously threatens and brutalizes Danny several times throughout the movie.
519* WoundedGazelleGambit: Benedict orders a thug to take Whitney aside and slap her around; she turns the tables on him easily, but continues screaming as if ''she's'' the one being attacked, letting her get the drop on Benedict. [[spoiler:Later on in the real world, Benedict smacks Danny into a nearby wall; Danny starts crying over a broken arm the treatment gave him, and Benedict turns his attention back to Slater, letting Danny then resume rushing him.]]
520* WretchedHive: The [[TheBigRottenApple New York City]] of the real world is portrayed this way. Two people are shot dead in the middle of a public street, with bystanders visible in the background, and one of the shooters takes the time to shout to the rooftops that he did it and wants to confess. The only reaction is [[BystanderSyndrome someone yelling at him to shut up]].
521* WrongGenreSavvy:
522** Danny realizes almost too late that he's just the PluckyComicRelief to Jack, so the bad guy car won't swerve out of the way of the kid [[TooDumbToLive playing chicken with it on a bicycle]].
523** Benedict actually. He's under the impression he can control the ticket, and tries to use it to warp out when he's about to lose. Unfortunately for him, the ticket only does things when ''it'' wants to.
524* YouAreAlreadyCheckedIn: Played with when the fictional villain "The Ripper" shows up to a movie premiere (of a later movie in the same series) and is briefly interviewed by a reporter, who thinks it's Tom Noonan (the real-life actor) dressed up as the villain. Then, the real Tom Noonan appears, dressed as himself, confusing the heck out of the reporter.
525* YouBastard: Slater doesn't particularly ''like'' being sucked into a new highly dangerous adventure each time the audience in the real world demands it. When he meets Schwarzenegger at the movie premiere, the character accuses his actor of being responsible for his suffering.
526* YouHaveToBelieveMe: Danny desperately tries to tell Slater and anyone else listening that they live in a movie world by pointing out certain things. Of course, they either [[ComicallyMissingThePoint miss the point]], make {{Logic Bomb}}s, or think he's nuts. Danny gets annoyed and frustrated.
527* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: [[spoiler:Benedict does this to Vivaldi after he learns of the magic ticket's power.]]
528
529Scared of betrayed? Maybe don’t hire a guy named BENEDICT!
530[[/folder]]

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