True Lies is something of an oddity in director James Cameron's body of work. The story of a seemingly boring family man who lives a double life as a secret agent is basically a very blithe, mild and old-fashioned romantic comedy stuck in the (at the time) most expensive action movie ever made ("basically," ha! - there's nothing "basic" about that, or about anything Cameron does). True Lies is weird, more than a little misogynistic, and all over the place with its tone and content - one minute, a bunch of terrorists are being shot and blown up, and the next minute, Arnold Schwarzenegger is doing the tango with Tia Carrere.
True Lies is also as great a movie as anything Cameron's ever done. Yeah, we said it - True Lies is as good as The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, you name it. It's Cameron cutting loose, and when Cameron cuts loose, somewhere around $120 million (back in 1994!) gets spent. Cameron loves action, and he's really an old sentimental softie when you get right down to it, and True Lies is... well, it's not a perfect mix of the director's passions, but a rambunctious and joyous one nonetheless.
There are many reasons why True Lies is one of the best movies ever made. Here are six of them.
