Great observation. I think the problem is that Arnold's image overshadowed the accessibility of the character. Regardless, I still think that True Lies is superior to other action comedies because the comedy doesn't spoil the action. Action comedies tend to have no real stakes, because even the villains tend to be goofballs who we aren’t meant to fear. Well, there’s this aspect or that the action tends to have too much slapstick and therefore not really a fun experience for people who like their action movies to be serious.
That is the key to the movie’s success. If you look at something like Paul Feig’s wretched Spy, you can see what went wrong. Paul was torn between wanting to make a spy comedy and wanting to make a spy movie that could be taken seriously in terms of real danger leading to real action. He was persistent on the movie not being perceived as a spy spoof because he knows that parodies tend to have lousy action.
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Drooch (5333)
4 years ago
Well Feig failed again, because Spy was totally goofy and overcompensated with that awkwardly gory throat-melting scene.
But all that pales into insignificance compared to the blatant woke propaganda at the end where all the female leads, villains and heroes, give each other a smile and nod because they’re all on ‘team woman’ after-all, and the real enemy is straight white men - cut to Statham being an egotistical dufus fucking about on his jet-ski.
🤮
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