Just watched this again recently. I don't know why it tanked at the box office.

Although the director had this to say about it: About the film's failure and critical response, John McTiernan said: "Initially, it was a wonderful Cinderella story with a nine-year-old boy. We had a pretty good script by Bill Goldman, charming. And this ludicrous hype machine got hold of it, and it got buried under bullshit. It was so overwhelmed with baggage. And then it was whipped out unedited, practically assembled right out of the camera. It was in the theater five or six weeks after I finished shooting. It was kamikaze, stupid, no good reason for it. And then to open the week after Jurassic Park--God! To get to the depth of bad judgment involved in that you'd need a snorkel."

I didn't see it in the theater, but watched it on video and thought it was great. Pokes fun at Hollywood action movies, lot of 4th wall jokes. McTiernan should make an anniversary director's cut.

It was OK.

Moving this video to ant's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.