shawn

Versus

Ryuhei Kitamura· 2000· Blu-ray

5.0 / 5

“Epic is an understatement.”

I avoided this one for years. Heard about it constantly when I was younger, and the praise was so loud and so consistent that I assumed there was no way the movie could clear the bar. Hype-proofed myself out of watching it. Finally caved today. It blew my fucking socks off. Versus doesn't pick a lane — it wraps the entire concept of genre around its middle finger and waves it at you for ninety-some minutes. Action, violence, martial arts, sword fighting, gun fighting, undead yakuza, deadpan comedy, all crashing into each other in the same forest. It shouldn't work. It absolutely works. There's a kind of conviction to its lunacy that most movies can't fake — Kitamura clearly didn't care about being respectable, he cared about being fun, and the result is one of the most purely entertaining films I've ever sat through. The lesson, I guess: sometimes the hype is right. Sometimes you've just been depriving yourself.

Testified April 27, 2026

Last Action Hero

John McTiernan· 1993· 4K UHD + Blu-ray

5.0 / 5

“Jack Slater is the best action star of all time.”

Watching Last Action Hero as a kid, I felt like I was let in on something. Like I'd been let in on a secret, and that secret was cinemagic. I was Danny Madigan, ticket stub in hand, watching Arnold Braunschweiger, I mean Schwarzenegger, crash through the screen and into the world. It was the first time a movie pulled me in on the joke without making me feel like the joke. It's a comedy action film that breaks the fourth wall without ever feeling cheap about it. The meta stuff works because the film genuinely loves the genre it's skewering. This isn't a sneer, it's an affectionate roast from inside the room. You can feel the writers and Arnold himself in on the bit. The cartoon cat detective, the chalk outline gag, the Stallone Terminator 2 poster, all of it playing with the language of the action movie at a level audiences in '93 weren't ready for. And true to its name, it was foreshadowing what was to come, this film was a visual embodiment of the modern action star looking in the mirror and laughing nervously. The genre never really came back from where this film pointed. Watching it now, the satire reads sharper than contemporary reviews ever gave it credit for. One of my favorite action films of all time, and the magic hasn't drained out of it. That doesn't happen with most childhood loves. Usually you go back and the spell is broken. This one still works.

Testified April 27, 2026