After the debacle that came with 1993’s Last Action Hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger needed a hit, and fast. Happily for him, director James Cameron waited in the wings.

Up to that point, Schwarzenegger’s most successful outings came with Cameron. 1984’s The Terminator became the actor’s cinematic breakthrough as an action star, and 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day solidified his status as a premier film personality.

As such, it made sense that Schwarzenegger would return to prominence alongside Cameron. While Lies didn’t live up to the heights of their previous collaborations, it nonetheless succeeded on many levels and it re-established Schwarzenegger as a prime talent.

Unfortunately for him, this return to form wouldn’t last long. After a modest hit with 1996’s Eraser, Schwarzenegger experienced a series of flops. From 1997’s Batman and Robin to 1999’s End of Days and 2000’s The 6th Day, Schwarzenegger quickly lost a great deal of his previous popularity.

Although not a great film, Lies did provide one of Schwarzenegger’s best performances alongside T2. Actually, I think he offered stronger work during Lies because it became a more challenging role, as instead of the robotic Terminator of those films, Lies forced him to play a James Bond-esque hero with a mix of dimensions involved.

Schwarzenegger stars as Harry Tasker, and the start of the film establishes him as a slick dude in the 007 mode when he suavely infiltrates a party and obtains important information about a terrorist organization. Tasker also seduces sexy Juno Skinner (Tia Carrere) and seems set as a bulkier Bond.

However, once this escapade ends, we discover the twist: Tasker leads a double life. He lives with wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) and daughter Dana (Eliza Dushku), neither of whom know anything about his secret agent activities.

They think Harry works as a computer vendor and leads a dull existence. While Tasker pursues the terrorist organization run by Salim Abu Aziz (Art Malik), a substory emerges when Helen becomes involved with a phony spy named Simon (Bill Paxton). Tasker fears that Helen’s cheating on him and teaches both parties a lesson.

However, as that secondary tale progresses, worlds collide and Helen learns the truth about Harry’s real job. Taken captive by Aziz’s gang, the rest of the movie shows their attempts to escape and also prevent the use of a nuclear weapon on US soil.

Basically, this all feels like Bond with a twist. The opening sequence clearly emulates similar scenes in 007 flicks, right down to a tip of the hat to Sean Connery’s wetsuit-to-tux transformation in 1964’s Goldfinger.

The family angle keeps Lies from turning into a total rip-off of Bond, and that aspect of the flick helps give it an interesting premise. We’re pretty accustomed to loosey-goosey secret agents, so it feels fun to see what happens to a family man who gets involved in the trade.

Surprisingly, Schwarzenegger lives up to the challenge. I expected him to do well in the action hero side of the role, but he also makes Harry Homemaker fairly believable.

Granted, it can feel somewhat hard to accept this buffed-out Austrian stud as an ordinary computer salesman, but within the parameters of the part, Schwarzenegger dies nicely. He makes Harry seem much more “average” than I would think possible.

Schwarzenegger also handles the role with more natural humor than usual. All of his action parts boast their expected quips and one-liners, and Tasker acts as no exception.

These seem much less self-conscious and forced than usual, and Schwarzenegger handles other comedic elements with aplomb, such as a scene in which he pretends to be under the influence of a truth serum. Cameron appears to bring out the best in Schwarzenegger, and Tasker provides one of his most successful performances.

Another acting-related surprise comes from Tom Arnold as Harry’s sidekick Gib. Prior to Lies, Arnold was known virtually exclusively as Roseanne Barr’s obnoxious husband, and I greeted his casting in Lies as a disaster in waiting.

However, Arnold provides a strong turn through his lightly comic and glib performance. Perhaps the one thing harder to accept than he-man Arnie as blah computer salesman would be tubby and whiny Arnold as a secret agent, but darned if he doesn’t make it work.

Granted, it helps that Schwarzenegger does all the heavy lifting, while Gib remains left to do the technological grunt work along with assistant Faisal (Grant Heslov). Nonetheless, I still find Arnold to offer a nicely funny and human performance.

Curtis also makes Helen’s transformation from frumpy housewife to agent-in-training work pretty well. On one hand, it remains tough to believe that either husband or wife in this ordinary, approaching-middle-aged suburban couple would have such hot bodies, but Curtis manages to hide her sexiness until the appropriate time.

She does nicely when placed in more active circumstances. Some aspects of her role go for goofiness too strongly - she seems almost buffoonish at times - but Curtis usually provides an endearing and sympathetic performance.

Across the board, True Lies delivers most of the goods we desire from this sort of bigger-than-life flick. The action sequences become broad and expansive, and Cameron manages to ratchet up the tension and excitement well.

In addition, the story itself seems fairly compelling. So why do I feel Lies ultimately fails to achieve greatness?

For one, Cameron offers some of the least focused storytelling of any of his films. After we start to get involved in the terrorist tale, we go off on a long detour to explore Helen’s potential affair with Simon.

While this kind of tangent becmes necessary to allow Helen to learn the truth about Harry’s secret life, it definitely doesn’t need to become nearly this long and involved. The film’s main plot gets totally lost in the shuffle as we spend many minutes in the pursuit of Helen’s status.

In addition, Cameron exhibits a bizarrely misogynistic tone during Lies that seemed absent from his prior films. Cameron always earned points as a director who presented women in strong roles.

Both of the Terminator flicks as well as 1986’s Aliens and 1989’s The Abyss displayed women as bold, assertive characters who still managed to appear sympathetic and compelling.

To a degree, that occurs during Lies as well, since we see Helen’s growth toward the end of the movie. Nonetheless, she fails to even remotely achieve the strength associated with those other roles, and Lies exhibits a surprisingly nasty tone toward women throughout the flick.

The male characters toss around the word “bitch” an awful lot, and the general tone seems to condone subservient and almost sadistic attitudes toward women. The scene in which Harry and Gib interrogate Helen borders on being perverse. This tone doesn’t ruin the film, but it certainly takes away from my enjoyment.

Even in 1994, Lies also came under attack for its use of Middle Eastern characters as villains, but these concerns feel less warranted. For one, they don’t seem single out anyone specifically for their nationalities, and the movie avoids the use of any gross stereotypes.

Aziz gives us a bright and charismatic character who just happens to be the bad guy, ala Hans in Die Hard. I understand the sensitivities felt by folks of these nationalities, but I don’t think the film goes over the top in those domains.

Ultimately, True Lies delivers a very good action movie, but some missteps mean that it doesn’t achieve greatness. Despite these flaws, I still enjoy much of True Lies, but I can’t regard it as a total success.

True Lies appears in an aspect ratio of 2.39:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This turned into a mixed bag.

The film went through a process that essentially stripped away all grain and then “restored” the image through the use of AI. The end result sometimes looked very good – and other times not so much.

Part of the problem stemmed from the removal of grain, as this could leave the image with a “plastic” feel. That didn’t occur on a persistent basis, but humans and organic elements tended to seem unnatural, even if some scenes fared fine.

For prominent instances, go to the scenes at Harry’s headquarters. Due to the interior sets and lighting, I suspect these acted as some of the movie’s grainiest, so that removal damaged them the most.

Whenever we visit Harry’s HQ – or Helen’s workplace, too – the characters looked mushy and artificial. Indeed, faces could lean almost cartoony due to the uncomfortable mix of grain removal and AI “reconstruction”.

Sharpness became a casualty as well. While most of the movie showed good delineation, more than a few shots came across as somewhat soft.

Again, these tendencies tended to reflect settings, so scenes with brighter lights fared the best. Also, closeups delivered better definition than wider shots.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering materialized, though some light edge haloes occasionally arose. The movie included no actual grain, but the transfer featured a light layer of artificial grain. I saw no print flaws.

Much of Lies went with a heavily blue tint, though some shots emphasized more of an amber feel. 30 years down the road, I can’t claim whether or not these tones accurately reflect how the movie looked theatrically or if James Cameron revised them, but they came across well as depicted here.

Blacks seemed deep and dense, while shadows boasted appealing clarity. While parts of Lies offered solid visuals, the occasional mushiness and the artificial “plastic” look took over too often for this to become anything more than a “C+” presentation.

Happily, the DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack of True Lies offered a much more satisfying affair. The mix seemed very strong as a whole, and it added a great deal of depth to the film.

The soundfield appeared to be consistently excellent. Throughout the film, all five channels displayed active audio that really involved the viewer.

From quieter, atmospheric scenes to the many loud and aggressive bits, Lies was an auditory wonder. The sound popped up in logical and well-localized spots, and it all blended together smoothly.

Surround usage seemed to be active and almost constant. The action shots made excellent use of the discrete capabilities of the 5.1 mix, as I heard a lot of split-surround information. Ultimately, the track worked tremendously well and ably supported the film.

Audio quality was solid as well, with speech that sounded natural and warm. Music sounded bright and vibrant, and the score also added positive bass response.

Effects appeared accurate and full, and they packed a solid punch when necessary. True Lies remained an excellent soundtrack.

How did the Blu-ray compare to the DVD from 1999? Audio brought a similar soundscape but offered superior dynamics and clarity.

A non-anamorphic affair derived from a leftover laserdisc scan, the DVD didn’t even look good on my old 36-inch tube TV. I never re-reviewed it when I got bigger widescreen sets, but I must imagine that it would fare even worse on those sets.

As such, it came as no surprise that the Blu-ray offered vastly superior visuals when compared to that ancient DVD. Even with all the issues I found here, the BD nonetheless offered a massive upgrade over that awful DVD.

The DVD included only one extra, and it reappears here: the movie’s trailer. While not packed with new materials, the Blu-ray does offer a nice assortment.

We start with Fear Is Not an Option, a new documentary about the film. It runs 43 minutes, 27 seconds and involves writer/director James Cameron, former Fox Head of Production Jon Landau, Digital Domain visual effects supervisor John Bruno, and actors Arnold Schwarenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Bill Paxton (from 2012).

“Fear” looks at the project’s origins and development, story/characters, stunts and action, sets and locations, effects, a variety of scene specifics, and why Cameron never produced a sequel.

If I wanted to complain about “Fear”, I would gripe about the limited roster of participants. Given the production’s enormous scope, you’d think we’d hear from more than six folks.

That said, I feel delighted that we get a long and fairly involved discussion, and I love that Cameron, Schwarzenegger and Curtis all returned to discuss the film. Because Cameron let the film languish in Home Video Limbo for decades, I figured we should feel lucky enough to simply finally get an update on that awful 1999 DVD and I didn’t anticipate any extra at all, much less a good new documentary.

Even with the semi-limited roster of cast/crewmembers, I still find a lot to like about “Fear”. Throw in lots of good footage from the shoot and this turns into a solid documentary.

By the way, don’t end “Fear” until the credits start. Cameron offers a funny story about why Harry says “sorry” so much in the film.

Along with the aforementioned trailer, everything else shows up under the banner of Archives. Original Script occupies 154 still screens.

As expected, this presents the film’s screenplay, though with a twist because it also shows some handwritten notes and sketches by Cameron. It delivers a cool addition.

More stills arrive via Storyboards that cover the movie’s action scenes. We get 378 of these and they offer an enjoyable glimpse of the planning processes.

Blueprints breaks into five subdomains: “Tasker House” (7 images), “Omega Sector” (1), “Mall Bathroom” (2), “Trailer Park” (2) and “Bridge” (5). These show designs for those sets.

Though interesting, these would’ve worked better as one compilation and not five smaller groups. Each section includes so few elements that navigation becomes clunky.

Three more Galleries complete the set: “Unit Photography” (76 frames), “Location Photography” (5) and “Posters” (19). All work well, though I especially like the posters since that domain comes with a bunch of unused concepts.

True Lies comes with some glaring flaws, but it provides an exciting and enjoyable take on the secret agent game. It falls short of greatness, but it still seems like a very good flick nonetheless. The Blu-ray offers terrific audio and an array of bonus features but visuals suffer from too many issues related to grain removal and other tampering. This becomes a more than watchable presentation but not one that replicates the movie in an authentic manner.

Note that as of March 2024, this Blu-ray version of True Lies only comes as part of a package with the film’s 4K UHD edition. Normally I don’t review discs that don’t enjoy solo releases, but given that the film never saw a Blu-ray release prior to this set, I suspect plenty of fans will buy the 4K just for this BD so I figured it deserved its own write-up.

To rate this film, visit the original review of TRUE LIES