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100Director James Cameron always works on a mega- canvas, yet he's brought off something unique here.
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Much of the appeal of True Lies comes from the smooth grafting of battle-of-the-sexes comedy onto a high-tech action picture.
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88On the surface, True Lies is an affectionate homage to James Bond movies, ratcheted up to meet the action/adventure expectations of today's audiences.
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88One of the best things about True Lies is that it's genuinely funny.
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83True Lies is so eager to give you a giddy good time that you're more than happy to let it work you over. It's a likably disposable pop cocktail.
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80The net result is unbeatably good fun, helped along by that inherent fantasy that one man can create global mayhem without stopping to worry who's going to clean up afterwards.
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80As the perfectionist creator of bravura set pieces, Cameron is still the leader of the pack. [14 Jul 1994 Pg. F1]
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75The director, James Cameron, is a master of action (he worked with Schwarzenegger on "Terminator 2"), and when he's doing his thing, no one does it better.
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70Here is a film that carries within itself not only the parody but the very material it exploits and subverts. [05 Sept 1994 Pg. 34]
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70The comedy is extremely broad (with Curtis eliciting almost as many laughs as Schwarzenegger), the action sequences are as well crafted as one can expect from Cameron, and the meaning is as root basic as anyone would wish.
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60This mixture of comedy and super-agent spectacle works well at first. But when Schwarzenegger's family and working worlds link up -- an inevitable development -- the plot becomes increasingly ridiculous and overwrought.
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50Let others recharge that tired Die Hard formula. Cameron invents a new kind of family therapy that saves your marriage and the world. [15 Jul 1994 Pg. 01.D]
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50The catch is, once you get past the stunning special effects and the mind-numbing stuntwork, there's not all that much there.
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50Deceptively labeled a domestic epic by writer-director James Cameron, the $100 million movie is, in fact, a weird hybrid of action juggernaut, buddy cop caper and reactionary soft-core pornography.
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40For a viewer sympathetic to Schwarzenegger's and Cameron's best selves -- the ironist with muscles and the mordant fabulist -- True Lies is a loud misfire. It rarely brings its potent themes to life.
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40Yet even with its ribald laughs and spectacular action sequences (clearly seeking to up the ante on the latter front), the movie gets mired in a comedic midsection that wears the audience down, sapping their energy before the film shifts to a chaotic third act that just doesn't know when to quit.
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30The tale begins and ends in a flurry of joke violence; Cameron has decided to spoof what he used to take seriously, and the result, though bright and deafening, feels oddly slack -- he loosens the screws, and our interest drops away.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 2 out of 4
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Mixed: 1 out of 4
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Negative: 1 out of 4
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JaredC.0Arnold's worst acting, worst role, with great action being ruined by that.
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R.Dalvi5