For a certain type of film fan, there’s been a question swirling around in their minds for decades now and it’s centered on writer/director James Cameron. No, it’s not about when the next Avatar entry in the expected five-film series will be released, but when will some of his earlier works *finally* receive their due on physical media. We’re talking about Aliens (1986), which hasn’t seen a 4K UHD release, and The Abyss (1989) and True Lies (1994), which haven’t received anything more recent than a DVD edition. Now these questions are answered as these three films, along with Titanic (1997) and the first two Avatar films are receiving special collector’s 4K UHD editions from Lightstorm Entertainment and 20th Century Studios — each one with their own unique special features to highlight the occasion, each one with their own specific release date. Here, we’re going to take a look at Cameron’s action comedy True Lies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger (The Terminator), Jamie Lee Curtis (A Fish Called Wanda), Tom Arnold (Touch), Bill Paxton (Twister), Tia Carrere (Wayne’s World), Art Malik (The Little Mermaid (2023)), Eliza Dushku (Bring It On), and Grant Heslov (The Birdcage), available on digital December 12th, 2023, before a physical release in March 2024.
A scene from James Cameron’s TRUE LIES. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios and Lightstorm Entertainment.
The Tasker Family — Harry, Helen, and Dana (Schwarzenegger, Curtis, and Dushku, respectively) — live a typical life in the Washington, D.C., area. He works in computers, she’s a legal secretary, and their daughter is your average teenager. Unfortunately, they are so out of sync with each other that none realize how far they’re drifting from each other. Part of the problem is that Harry is actually a federal officer whose work has him on-call at all hours, seven days a week, and his family doesn’t know. At least, they didn’t until his two lives collide in an unexpected way and, if he can’t find balance, it may result in more than losing his family, but a high cost of innocent lives, as well.
Born in 1980, I’m right in the range of major releases by Schwarzenegger and his fellow action stars. Both Conan films got lots of play in our house thanks to TBS, The Terminator (1984) is the first R-rated film I saw (at home), Commando (1986) and The Running Man (1987) were favorites due to HBO, and then we get to movies like Twins, Total Recall, and Kindergarten Cop, an incredible string of films released in 1990. Growing up, in a weird way, alongside Schwarzenegger’s career, my favorite of them may well be True Lies, though Last Action Hero (1993) often jockeys with it for first positon. The blend of spycraft, verbal and physical comedy, action, and romance is pitch perfect, executed with such specificity that one doesn’t necessarily notice the extreme level of talent on display. The way that Schwarzenegger as Harry tries to hide in a party crowd by doing the tango, while also searching for goons, required a level of self-awareness and presence on Schwarzenegger’s part in order to do multiple tasks at once. There’re the one-liners and physical performance from Arnold’s Gill, Harry’s best friend and work partner, as he celebrates having not been so much as graced by the bullets fired at him by Malik’s terrorist Salim. Of the brilliant moments in the film, few top Curtis’s as Helen trying to dance and falling off the bed pole, a moment that Schwarzenegger was not aware was going to happen resulting in his genuine, not-scripted reaction being on screen, fits both the heightened tone of the sky/thriller elements and the grounded rom-com that flows throughout the central conflict of the film. My favorite moment, however, belongs to Malik and his Looney Toons-esque physical reaction to realizing he’s hanging onto a missile is to sort of do a double-take (though more of an exaggerated turn) just before Harry sends the missile flying toward Salim’s co-conspirators. It’s a moment that would still play if it were Wile E. Coyote getting screwed over by another one of Acme’s products. Each of these moments and many others (too many with Paxton) continue to generate laughs, as do the stunt work, the set pieces, and the general character work by the performers. In short, if you loved True Lies before, the film ages well enough that one won’t regret a revisit.
When it comes to the remaster, I’m going to be comparing this against the 1999 DVD that I owned prior to the digital copy provided by20th Century Studios for this review, just to help set the stage for the comparisons to come.
Before I had a chance to watch the film on the evening of the 12th, I discovered a great deal of chatter referring to True Lies as far as its color grading, digital noise reduction (DNR), and other visual tweaks. There wasn’t an indication from several of those online commenters regarding how they got their stills (the official press kit is limited to two images), which suggests that they took screenshots. Without knowing if they did so off a computer or a phone (each with their own specific settings), I did my own comparison by eyeballing the sequences (a technique that’s about as credible as their own). What I discovered is that when viewing the film, streamed from an Apple TV, using the “Vivid” setting on my Sony Bravia, the whites are far brighter, there’s more noticeable blue in the majority of scenes, and the frames are very clean, presenting similarly to the screenshots I’d seen online. However, if I shifted the setting from “Vivid” to “Standard,” the color grading adjusted with the whites more toned down and the blues less prominent. The overall look of the frames continued to be clean. Shifting again into “Cinema,” the look of the film is far more grey, akin to what the DVD presents, with the skin color at its most familiar and the other color embellishments mostly absent. At no point in viewing the film in any of these settings (I did start to switch between them to judge how the feeling of the film shifted under different monitor settings) did the film feel elastic, false, or otherwise dulled. In fact, thanks to the 4K, much like similar newly-released 4K edition of Clue, True Lies is improved by having sharper detail, more distinct lines, and improved separation of color. Unfortunately, I cannot speak to the Dolby Atmos track as my Yamaha 5.1 Surround Sound system isn’t compatible, but the Dolby 5.1 audio does still do the trick, keeping the dialogue clear so that we can follow the zingers throughout the film while also maintaining great balance so that the action doesn’t overtake or overwhelm, instead delivering good immersion.
One important thing to note is that the digital version, even as a 4K UHD edition, is still not going to be the best version of the film in terms of visual and audio replication because a digital edition is always compressed and is at the mercy of whatever program and internet provider you’re accessing it from. The best indicator of the quality of True Lies will come in March 2024 with the physical edition.
Now, with such a long wait for a high-definition release, one would expect that a version marked as “collector’s edition” would include copious special features. Frankly, whether you feel that’s been delivered here will be up to you. Via the digital edition on iTunes, there is a single lengthy featurette titled “Fear Is Not an Option: A Look Back at True Lies” and an archive of various film-related materials. If you’re a fan like I, your first stop is going to be “Fear Is Not an Option” and you will be pleasantly rewarded as you enjoy making-of stories from Cameron, Schwarzenegger, Curtis, Paxton, and others, using a mix of what appears to be present day interviews and archived interviews from 2012. Those from 2012 are listed as such, which is why one presumes that the one’s without a date marking are more recent. It’s more than just your typical behind-the-scenes featurette thanks to the storytelling prowess of Cameron, who seems just as excited about True Lies now as he must’ve been then whether he’s telling you about the casting of Curtis (turns out Schwarzenegger thought she was too pretty and therefore not right for the part of conservative Helen), how Schwarzenegger underwent training to learn to tango, the reasons behind why the escape sequence from the opening sequence was excised/adjusted, Curtis’s perspective on the hotel dancing sequence, and so much more that the entire length is going to fly-by. The materials from the archive include the theatrical trailer, storyboards, unit photography, location photography, a poster gallery, and much more. Again, the way one feels about the special features will depend on how one responds to what’s provided and, while I’d have loved even more interviews, walkthroughs, and stories, what we are given feels so generous in comparison to what we had that I’m personally ok with it.
L-R: Arnold Schwarzenegger as Harry Tasker and Jamie Lee Curtis as Helen Tasker in James Cameron’s TRUE LIES. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios and Lightstorm Entertainment.
Any film that audiences have been eagerly awaiting release or updating is going to come with it a certain bias of expectation. When someone, such as I, has been waiting on an update for more than 20 years, the hype, as they say, is real. Thankfully, the 4K UHD edition of True Lies does deliver. The 4K UHD offers sharper images and great detail, while the sound is certainly much improved (but over a DVD, a lot is). It’s easy to acknowledge that the color grading may be tricky to contend with, but that may literally be an issue of what setting your TV is set for. The special features are interesting and engaging, raising the enjoyment of the film by virtue of understanding the work that the cast put in. All of these things together maintain the enjoyment one has with the film, which is what a good remaster should do, not rebrand but enhance enough that it stands as strong now as it did upon original release. In this regard, one feels comfortable recommending the digital version for those who can’t wait for the physical to drop.
True Lies Special Features*:
- Fear Is Not an Option: A Look Back at True Lies – Unveil the explosive behind-the-scenes secrets of True Lies with the cast and crew as they share untold tales of daring stunts, cutting-edge technology, and the comedic genius that brought this spy-thriller to life. (43:27)
- Archives: Script, Artwork, Marketing – Dive into the production secrets of True Lies with these exclusive behind-the-scenes documents and more.
- Theatrical Trailer
*Bonus features vary by product and retailer
Available on December 12th, 2023.
Available on 4K UHD Blu-ray Combo Pack March 12th, 2024.
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Categories: Films To Watch, Home Release, Home Video, Recommendation, Reviews, streaming
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