I SHOULD love TRUE LIES. I mean, I love the track records of almost all those involved, and this was a hugely successful movie packed with explosive action. It's a film that mixes in ample comedy with the thrills and most people seem to love it. Yet it's a film that leaves me somewhat cold, and no amount of sophisticated special effects shots can change that.
Sadly, what we have here starts out as a promising Bond-style spy thriller that gradually descends to the level of a lame comedy, padded out with sleaze and pee jokes masquerading as family cinema. Man, I don't know what Cameron was thinking when he wrote the screenplay, but he clearly didn't employ the services of an editor to take out a lot of endless padding. TRUE LIES is an example of a director at his self-indulgent worst.
Don't get me wrong, I love the spy stuff in this film. Arnie is at the top of his game, throwing plenty of workable humour into the mix, and the action scenes look highly impressive; the ending with the fighter jet is something that hadn't been done before (and hasn't been attempted since, for that matter). However, the fights do fail to be immersive, and there's always something dumb around the corner (like the machine gun falling down the steps) waiting to take you out of it.
The worst thing, for me, is by far Jamie Lee Curtis's character. She's supposed to be this mousy, bored housewife who transforms into a feisty femme fatale, but I didn't buy it for a second. The main plot is forgotten for a whole hour or so while the movie takes a detour into laboured comedy as Arnie investigates his wife's private life, and this part is excruciating in the extreme; even a funny turn from the reliable Bill Paxton can't change that.
I was puzzled when I heard that Curtis won a Golden Globe for her performance in this film. It's the worst I've seen from her, and a surprise given that she was so good expressing fear in the early slasher movies of her career. Her acting here is embarrassingly bad, and it's no surprise she disappeared from our screens afterwards (aside from appearing in some best forgotten HALLOWEEN sequels). The film's nadir is the ultra-humiliating striptease sequence which is sleazy beyond believe, and Cameron's attempts to lighten the mood with some slapstick comedy just fail. God, what was he thinking? I watch B-movies on a regular basis and even the sleaziest fail to objectify women in this way.
There's lots of other bad stuff too, including the most racist depiction of Arabic characters that I've seen in a Hollywood movie (Art Malik should be ashamed). Cameron was planning a TRUE LIES 2 before 9/11 and went on record to say that the sequel was cancelled because 'terrorists weren't just funny anymore'. I've got news for you Cameron, they were never funny, and that becomes clear watching this.
Cast-wise, Tom Arnold clearly relishes the comedy sidekick type role, but it's so one-note that it becomes tiresome around the halfway mark. And watch out for an excruciatingly bad turn from Tia Carrere, who gives a performance that's even worse than Curtis's! Incredible, but true. My favourite part of the film? The gag with the rocket launcher, in which Cameron makes up for a mistake earlier in his career; when scripting RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, he had Stallone firing a rocket launcher from a helicopter, leaving the guys behind him unscathed. He corrects that here, and it's the funniest thing in the otherwise mildly disappointing movie.
Sadly, what we have here starts out as a promising Bond-style spy thriller that gradually descends to the level of a lame comedy, padded out with sleaze and pee jokes masquerading as family cinema. Man, I don't know what Cameron was thinking when he wrote the screenplay, but he clearly didn't employ the services of an editor to take out a lot of endless padding. TRUE LIES is an example of a director at his self-indulgent worst.
Don't get me wrong, I love the spy stuff in this film. Arnie is at the top of his game, throwing plenty of workable humour into the mix, and the action scenes look highly impressive; the ending with the fighter jet is something that hadn't been done before (and hasn't been attempted since, for that matter). However, the fights do fail to be immersive, and there's always something dumb around the corner (like the machine gun falling down the steps) waiting to take you out of it.
The worst thing, for me, is by far Jamie Lee Curtis's character. She's supposed to be this mousy, bored housewife who transforms into a feisty femme fatale, but I didn't buy it for a second. The main plot is forgotten for a whole hour or so while the movie takes a detour into laboured comedy as Arnie investigates his wife's private life, and this part is excruciating in the extreme; even a funny turn from the reliable Bill Paxton can't change that.
I was puzzled when I heard that Curtis won a Golden Globe for her performance in this film. It's the worst I've seen from her, and a surprise given that she was so good expressing fear in the early slasher movies of her career. Her acting here is embarrassingly bad, and it's no surprise she disappeared from our screens afterwards (aside from appearing in some best forgotten HALLOWEEN sequels). The film's nadir is the ultra-humiliating striptease sequence which is sleazy beyond believe, and Cameron's attempts to lighten the mood with some slapstick comedy just fail. God, what was he thinking? I watch B-movies on a regular basis and even the sleaziest fail to objectify women in this way.
There's lots of other bad stuff too, including the most racist depiction of Arabic characters that I've seen in a Hollywood movie (Art Malik should be ashamed). Cameron was planning a TRUE LIES 2 before 9/11 and went on record to say that the sequel was cancelled because 'terrorists weren't just funny anymore'. I've got news for you Cameron, they were never funny, and that becomes clear watching this.
Cast-wise, Tom Arnold clearly relishes the comedy sidekick type role, but it's so one-note that it becomes tiresome around the halfway mark. And watch out for an excruciatingly bad turn from Tia Carrere, who gives a performance that's even worse than Curtis's! Incredible, but true. My favourite part of the film? The gag with the rocket launcher, in which Cameron makes up for a mistake earlier in his career; when scripting RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, he had Stallone firing a rocket launcher from a helicopter, leaving the guys behind him unscathed. He corrects that here, and it's the funniest thing in the otherwise mildly disappointing movie.