TRUE LIES (1994)

TRUE LIES (1994)

Tagline: When he said I do, he never said what he did.

(Action, Adventure, Comedy) [R]

In this one, Harry Tasker (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a man with a family who is also secretly a spy. He’s never told his wife Helen Tasker (played by Jamie Lee Curtis). She thinks he kinda sucks but is just pretty boring. To spice her life up she decides to help a dude (played by Bill Paxton) faking that he is into espionage. This turns out to be a huge mistake but Harry uses this knowledge to try and bring his wife some more excitement. That move leads to real danger that pushes Helen into Harry’s very real spy life. 

There are some super un-realistic moments in this flick, including a horse being able to keep up with a motorcycle, but if you are like me, you don’t go to movies for that. I loved the humor element of this thing because it brings this thing down to earth. You don’t get that in a ton of super well-produced action movies and almost NEVER in a James Cameron film. Sadly, we never got a TRUE LIES 2 due to 9/11 and Cameron not wanting to do a film at that time involving terrorism. I understand where he was coming from at that time.

The acting in this movie is superb with the exception of one role. To be honest, I wish that Tom Arnold had never auditioned for his role as Albert Gibson, but even more that he wasn’t given such a big part. While he serves as a bit of comedic relief, the movie already has plenty of comedy. Albert Gibson is like the creepy neighbor on any sitcom that you wish would get arrested.

Everyone else is spectacular. Outside of horror flicks, this might be Jamie Lee Curtis best role ever (she actually does the helicopter scene in the movie and won a Golden Globe for the role). KNIVES OUT was also pretty great for her though. She does do a racy dance in this movie which drew a lot of criticism, from mostly men. Apparently, most women at the time thought it was great. Tia Carrere makes a solid villain as Juno Skinner but didn’t seem like the type of woman that would put up with the abuse that Salim Abu Aziz (played by Art Malik who is epic in this). Salim is the main bad guy in this movie. They also do a good job of explaining his motives and thought process. I think with great villains you always want to do that to an extent. Arnold Schwarzenegger actually had to learn the tango for this movie which he said was the hardest part of filming aside from all the time he had to sit in the cockpit of the plane we see in this. In spite of what happened to her on set, Eliza Dushku does a great job playing Harry’s daughter Dana. Because this is a review of the movie, I am not going to go into the details, but you can look that up if you like. 

Overall this movie stands out as one of the more epic action flicks ever made. Cinematically it’s genius and really well done. While we do get some parts that slow down a bit, nothing drags and everything is well paced.

I have to give this movie a solid 6 out of 7. If they had cut some of the more cringy lines, I would have given this a 7, but they are just so unnecessary, it's like why Cameron, why? 

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