Secret Mission Archives - Sean Kelly On Movies

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the release of James Cameron's 1994 action-comedy True Lies. Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a covert spy going on missions with his team of Albert Gibson (Tom Arnold) and Faisil (Grant Heslov). On his latest mission, Harry tails art dealer Juno Skinner (Tia Carrere), who has ties with the "Crimson Jihad" terrorist organization led by Salim Abu Aziz (Art Malik). Harry's spy activity is unknown to his wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) and teenage daughter Dana (Eliza Dushku). When he's at home, Harry operates under the cover that he is a salesman, often away on business trips. However, the two worlds begin to collide when Harry discovers that Helen has a secret life of her own, as he catches her sneaking away from work to see used car salesman Simon (Bill Paxton), who is pretending to be a spy. True Lies Synopsis True Lies was James Cameron's third collaboration with Arnold Schwarzenegger and was their follow-up to their 1991 smash hit Terminator 2: Judgement Day. True Lies departs from the pure action and science fiction films James Cameron directed previously, as the plot features much situational comedy. This includes the casting of Tom Arnold, in arguably the signature role of his career, as Harry Tasker's partner Albert Gibson, as well as James Cameron's frequent collaborator Bill Baxon as slimy car salesman Simon, who becomes Harry's adversary for the film's second act. Happening around all the sitcom hijinks is a typical anti-terrorist spy plot. This includes Art Malik (The Living Daylights) as the main antagonist Salim Abu Aziz and Tia Carrere (Wayne's World) as the secondary foe Juno Skinner. True Lies also features an extended cameo by the legendary Charlton Heston as Harry Tasker's eye-patch-wearing boss Spencer Trilby. My Thoughts on True Lies True Lies is probably best known for its most infamous scene, where Jamie Lee Curtis' Helen Tasker has to awkwardly perform a striptease for a shadowy man she does not know is her husband Harry. Throughout this scene, the dance goes from clumsy to incredibly sexy and it marks a turning point for both characters in the film. The passion between Harry and Helen is revitalized, as he discovers that she has the same thirst for adventure that he does. In many ways, True Lies is a film that is better described as a romantic comedy than an action film, even though the film still has plenty of the latter. After spending much of the first act of the film establishing the main threat in the form of Salim Abu Aziz, the plot switches focus entirely on the relationship between Harry and Helen. I would also be amiss not to mention the couple's daughter Dana, played by an incredibly young Eliza Dushku, four years before she would become more well-known for her role on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. True Lies marks an interesting waypoint in the career of James Cameron, in how it is somewhat of a departure from his previous films, but still firmly in the action genre. Three years later, Cameron would depart much farther with his Oscar-sweeping romantic drama Titanic, which was followed by a hiatus of more than a decade, before returning to science fiction with Avatar, which in turn was followed by another lengthy hiatus before Avatar: The Way of Water. Concurrently with last year's restoration of The Abyss, the 30th anniversary of True Lies was marked by a new 4K restoration of the film. While I ended up watching the film on standard Blu-ray, lacking a 4K TV and player, I should make note of the criticisms towards True Lies' restoration. The criticism involves the use of digital smoothing, which creates a more artificial-looking appearance. An example of the criticized digital smoothing in the True Lies restoration Once again, I watched the film on a standard 1080p Blu-ray, so I probably wouldn't have noticed anything odd about the visuals. However, this is being described as a case of revisionist filmmaking, not too dissimilar to the CGI effects added to special editions of Star Wars and E.T. The Extraterrestrial. However, that aside, I still found myself enjoying True Lies, even if it's not the type of film that usually warrants a 2h20m running time.

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