Matcollis
This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.
StunnaKrypto
Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.
InformationRap
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Cody
One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.
Michael_Elliott
The Last Movie (1971)* 1/2 (out of 4)If you knew nothing about THE LAST MOVIE and you just started watching it, it's highly unlikely by the time it was over you'd know what it was about. The film is an incoherent mess but apparently it was supposed to be about an extra (Dennis Hopper) filming a movie in Peru. After the movie wrapped the extra stays behind and falls in love with a local girl. This here leads to a land development deal as well as a group of local Indians using the movie sets to try and film a movie not knowing that movies are fake.Say what? Hopper was on the highest of highs in Hollywood after the smashing success of EASY RIDER so he went to Peru to film this movie and it pretty much became a disaster. The drugs, the confusion, the fights and everything else that was going on pretty much ended Hopper's career as a director and the film was a financial disaster. Even to this day it's pretty hard to find unless you know where to pick up bootlegs. Is THE LAST MOVIE one of the worst films ever made? Technically speak it probably is.For my money Roger Ebert's review of this is spot on. In it he talks about how films can be saved by the editor who can usually find enough material to make a story make sense. That's certainly not the case here. Apparently Hopper can back with hours upon hours worth of footage but as I said in my opening paragraph, if you didn't know what the film was about you certainly wouldn't be able to figure it out watching the movie. Nothing in it makes a bit of sense and scenes just happen for no reason and they end without a resolution. There are moments where the screen fades to all black and we just hear the dialogue. There are moments where "scene missing" appears and then there are scenes that appear to be out of place with the rest of the story.A non-linear movie? That's what the supporters will tell you. If someone is able to watch this film and take something away from it, more power to them. I personally found this to be an incredibly bad movie and a film that's story is so bad with what material we're seeing that you can't help but call it technically awful. With that said, there's some entertainment value to get out of it because you just sit there wondering what was going on and how things ended up the way they did. You get several of Hopper's friends showing up including Peter Fonda, Julie Adams, Rod Cameron, Samuel Fuller, Michael Greene, Sylvia Miles, Tomas Millan, John Phillip Law, Kris Kristofferson, Dean Stockwell and Russ Tamblyn.THE LAST MOVIE certainly deserves its notorious reputation in Hollywood's long history. It's easy to see why the film bombed when it was released and it's easy to see why no one has really tried to get it back into release. With the various behind-the-scenes battles you do have to wonder if there's perhaps more footage out there and perhaps a coherent film could be put together. With Hopper now gone it's hard to tell. THE LAST MOVIE is certainly a bizarre little number that I'm guessing only its director knows what it's meant to be.
lcrews
Hopper's second directorial effort was doomed to cult status from the start. But, starting with the post-modern film school generation of the 1990s, it has started to get its just due. This is a challenging film to a viewer of any sort, but is a fascinating piece of art nonetheless.The only thing I have to add is a reaction to some other commenters. Anyone suggesting that this film should have been edited into chronological order, or not have jump cuts, or the "Scene Missing" title cards is clearly missing the point. One of the major themes of the film is the artifice of Hollywood film-making, and having those illusions disrupted is key to the film's impact. Granted, theses are tricks lifted from the French New Wave, but they are put to great use here.
Mike Siegel
'Watched the film tonight again. After 20 years. EASY RIDER being among my three all-time favorites, I knew there would come the time, when I appreciate THE LAST MOVIE for what it really is - AN AWESOME EXPERIENCE, one of the most interesting films of the 70's and an important work of film art. Seems that time was tonight... :) I loved it, at the same time it hurt. The film finally should be widely available, a dedicated SE DVD as for Fonda's HIRED HAND (that too is much much better than people thought years or decades ago... great film).Hopper first went out to become the greatest actor in the world. He maybe could have been, but his character made it impossible for him to act after great early successes. He became a photographer. Could have been one of the greatest photo artists ever. He basically stopped because he became a film maker. He could have been right next to the most famous & successful directors in America. The faith of THE LAST MOVIE stopped him from that. YET, in all of these (and more) professions he became a top-player, an Icon, a forerunner and a master. An inspired creative human being, an enrichment to my life.
jaymohn
Winner in Venice film festival, 1971. It says so right at the beginning of the film (if you can find a copy). Don't write it off because you hate it - there are redeeming qualities, especially for those who have a critial background in film esp. Brectian techniques/theoriy. You have to try to understand the film in the context it was produced in as well. 60's counter culture, questioning one's relationship to everything especiallt that of film and its questionable representation of reality. Again, don't write it off if you don't understand it. Films like this take lots of thought and repeated screenings.