TRUE LIES
A film review by Rob Furr
Copyright 1994 Rob Furr
Wham, Bam, Thank You, Mister Cameron.
The best way to start off this review is to begin with the obvious: This is a James Cameron movie, lock, stock, and barrel. To movie-goers who haven't been trapped in a cave with a projector and a 35mm print of SHAMPOO for the last eighteen years, that should mean something. It should mean that this movie, like all other Cameron movies(except for PIRANHA II, but we won't talk about that ...) has excellent, clean cinematography, a strong sense of color, unique action shots, and tightly integrated special effects. If you like Cameron's previous work, there is absolutely no reason you won't like TRUE LIES.
This is also an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. *That* should mean something as well. It should mean convincing movie violence, snappy patter delivered in an unexplained Austrian accent, and, lately, mind-bending budgets, and, again, Arnold fans will have no trouble parking their brains at the door and enjoying TRUE LIES.
That's the obvious. You should know that even before you walk in the door, much less before you sit down and let the THX promo destroy your hearing. So, even before you pay your six bucks, you know what you're getting. A little action, a little snappy patter, and enough violence to make you want to go beat up Secret Service agents.
However, there's an awful lot in this movie that I didn't expect. For instance ...
This movie has some absolutely jaw-dropping, astonishing comedy in it. I cannot think of another movie which has managed to make me laugh hard enough to injure myself and, at the same time, astonish me with the sheer movie-making spectacle. In fact, the biggest, most dangerous laughs, are, amazingly enough, *not* shown in the previews.
In combination with the eye-popping comedy (which, to be frank, is faster and funnier than almost any movie made so far this year, or, in fact, almost any movie back to, perhaps, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN,) TRUE LIES makes every cent of its gargantuan budget appear on screen. Even in portions of the movie where no sane director would spend money, Cameron not only spends money, but makes the money spent *worth it*.
Furthermore, there seems to be something approximating a plot lurking deep inside this movie. While plots aren't as important as, say, a good villain in these sorts of movies, TRUE LIES has one, and one that serves its purpose well. No, it's not HIDDEN AGENDA or IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, but, unlike some action movies, TRUE LIES at least has the decency to not hit you in the face with a blatantly rotten story line. Call it the equal of THUNDERBALL, and let it lie at that.
In fact, that's an important comparison, right there. TRUE LIES, to be quite honest, out-Bonds modern Bond. It has nuclear weapons, a fiendish organization, lots of disposable terrorists, and (so, okay, I'm a twenty-three-year-old male. I have hormones. I admit it,) two (count them, two) incredibly beautiful (and well-packaged) female characters, even though Jamie Lee Curtis does look remarkably like Annie Lennox for large portions of the movie. Pierce Brosnan and GOLDENEYES will have to aim very high to stand a chance of coming up to the level set by TRUE LIES.
Last in the list of positive commentary: the actors. Believe it or not, Tom Arnold does a good, believable job in this movie. So does Bill Paxton. So does almost everyone, except for, unfortunately, Jamie Lee Curtis, who doesn't quite seem to have her character down. It's not a grating performance, but it doesn't help the suspension of disbelief much, either.
So, if you've read this far, you probably think that I think that TRUE LIES is the greatest film ever made, that I consider it to be better than CASABLANCA, and so on. Which, actually, I don't. It has flaws, one of which is the occasional extremely slow section. (Do we really need to see Jamie Lee Curtis gyrate for *that long* From a visual point of view, it was great, especially for people with a Y chromosome, but it didn't help the movie, or her characterization, much either.)
It has the occasional weakly done minor character, like number 7, or Charleton Heston's character, or the Nefarious Bad Guy himself. (Plus, it has a thug, who has no lines, but who I would *swear* was built by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. The guy looks exactly like one of the monsters from "The Muppet Show." Honest.)
It also doesn't transcend its genre. It's a very, very good comedy, a darn good spy/action movie, but it doesn't go beyond that into the realm of the classic film, like RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK did, like the original TERMINATOR did, like THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY did. It remains firmly in its genre, and seems quite happy there.
So, it's not a classic. It's not perfect.
It's still probably the funniest movie you're likely to see this summer.
It's still probably the most spectacular movie you're likely to see. Period. Or, at least, until the *next* Cameron movie.
And, lastly, it's still highly recommended. Call it a four-star three-star-movie, on the Furr Scale (wherein the first rating is the evaluation, and the second rating is what sort of movie the film was trying to be. TRUE LIES was trying to be a three-star movie, and it did it *very* well. HEAVEN'S GATE (*, ****,) on the other hand, was trying to be a four-star movie, but did it incredibly badly.)
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