Tomb

There's a peculiar trend for established action movie stars to crash and burn at the box office when they decide to switch to comedy. Actors like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger made comedies at the peak of their fame, and found that audiences were reluctant to accept them in funny roles. Some of these films are actually quite entertaining, and deserve revisiting.

•The Last Action Hero (1993): Audiences and critics were surprisingly hostile to this clever satire on action movies when it first came out, but it's time to give it another chance. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays both himself and fictional movie character “Jack Slater,” the protagonist of a series of clichéd but popular action flicks. A young fan gets magically transported into Jack's movie world and a satirical comparison of movie logic versus real logic follows. The movie characters are completely unable to see the artifice around them, even when it's blatantly obvious. Later, movie characters travel to our world and are amazed to find that the rules are different, and that bad guys can actually win. Meanwhile, typical action movies get raked over the coals for such crimes as corny dialogue, continuity errors, improbably glamorous women, fake-sounding phone numbers, etc. This film has a growing cult following, as new fans discover its joys on video and old ones come out of the closet to spread the word.

• Hudson Hawk (1991): I love this movie and I don't care who knows it. Fans of the Die Hard films, lured to the theatre by misleading action-oriented advertising, were not prepared for a ludicrous comedy and cited Hudson Hawk as one of the worst films in existence (Not even close!). Sure, this movie has a bad reputation, but it also has Leonardo Da Vinci jokes, a brisk pace, the most cartoonishly silly villains you'll ever see and insane gags every five minutes. You've got to love a production that eschews real guns in favour of whatever bizarre weapons the ADD-afflicted props department can come up with. (Switchblade swords! A double crossbow! A thing that shoots time bombs attached to giant suction cups!)

• Oscar (1991): Sylvester Stallone plays depression-era gangster “Snaps Provolone” in this whimsical farce, which didn't do much business at the box office but is funny and entertaining nonetheless. The plot is a whirlwind of marriage proposals, mistaken identities, luggage mix-ups, dim-witted gangsters trying to go straight and other assorted misunderstandings and gags. The complete lack of action scenes probably threw a few of Sly's fans off the scent, but the big lug shows a real flair for straight comedy here. Having already done three Rambo films and five Rockys, Stallone understandably wanted to branch out a bit. Unfortunately, he followed this one up with the widely criticized Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992), which flopped badly enough to put him off comedy for quite a while.

• City Heat (1984): How about Clint Eastwood? He's unquestionably an action star, but has also had some success with comedy throughout his career. Every Which Way But Loose (1978) and its sequel, Every Which Way You Can (1980), come immediately to mind, but humour turns up in many of his other projects as well, such as Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970). The thing is, when City Heat came along, Clint was right in the middle of a long stretch of serious action movies, and here he was in a wacky buddy comedy with Burt Reynolds. Clint plays a gruff, determined cop to Burt's excitable private detective, and the whole thing has a very distinctive look and feel thanks to the prohibition-era setting. Plenty of shootouts occur, with a running gag that every time Reynolds pulls out a gun, Eastwood produces a much bigger one.

• Rhinestone (1984): Here's a film with a you've-gotta-be-kidding-me plot and a director (Bob Clark) capable of everything from the widely admired A Christmas Story (1983) to the universally despised Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004). In this one, Dolly Parton makes a bet that she can turn slovenly cab driver Sylvester Stallone into a country music star. Audiences stayed away from this doomed comedy, preferring to laugh at it from afar, but were they being unfair? Is Rhinestone actually a diamond in the rough?

To be honest, I have no idea, because I've never seen it. I mean come on, it's about Dolly Parton teaching Sylvester Stallone how to sing! There's no way I'm watching that.