James Cameron’s 1994 action blockbuster True Lies had been neglected for so long during the home video era that most fans gave up hope for a decent release of it years ago. Remarkably, after literal decades of unfulfilled rumors, what seemed impossible finally happened. Cameron’s production company Lightstorm Entertainment (via its current corporate distributor, Disney) remastered the film – in 4K Ultra HD, no less – and released it to VOD streaming platforms in late 2023, followed by physical media editions in early 2024. Sadly, the results are a decidedly underwhelming effort.
Technically, a high-definition copy of True Lies was released on the obscure, tape-based D-Theater format back in 2003, and that HD master had also popped up on cable TV syndication and on various streaming services over the years. However, D-Theater was a huge market failure adopted by almost no one, and the film’s availability on cable or streaming was typically limited to very brief spurts that came and went with little notice. Through the past two decades, for most viewers’ purposes, the movie remained trapped in the substandard quality of a non-anamorphic letterbox DVD release from way back in 1999, which itself was cloned from an even older Laserdisc-era master. By that measure, just about anything would have to be an improvement.
| Title: | True Lies |
| Year of Release: | 1994 |
| Director: | James Cameron |
| Watched On: | 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray |
| Available On: | DVD Blu-ray (bundled with the 4K UHD) AMC+ Various VOD platforms |
I reviewed True Lies when it briefly re-appeared on a few streaming services last year ahead of the short-lived spinoff TV series on CBS, and won’t repeat the entire movie summary here. With just a few minor reservations, I still find the film a hugely entertaining piece of crackerjack entertainment, and I don’t think James Cameron should feel any embarrassment about having it on his résumé. Unfortunately, if industry rumors are to be believed, the director himself mostly turned a blind eye to the movie after the real-life terrorist events of 2001. Reportedly, Cameron even personally scuttled studio plans to reissue the film on DVD in the early 2000s, and refused to approve its release on Blu-ray, until now.
Ever since the Blu-ray format launched in 2006, rumors circulated year after year after year that both True Lies and The Abyss (Cameron’s other most neglected title) were in the works and would be released imminently. Year after year, those rumors proved false as Cameron decided to sit on them. Astoundingly, that situation changed in mid-2023 when both films, as well as the director’s Aliens, were granted new 4K remasters. The Abyss even got a theatrical re-release. (No such luck for True Lies.)
The new 4K transfers were all released first to digital VOD streaming platforms at the end of 2023, followed by physical media a few months later in early 2024. The latter come in the form of 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray + standard Blu-ray combo packs. At the time of this writing, the regular Blu-rays are not available separately, only bundled with the 4K discs.
As a collector, I decided to wait for the physical disc copies. Frustratingly, although all three of these James Cameron films were scheduled for release on March 12, 2024, supply chain distribution issues have caused significant delays across many retailers, including Amazon. My copies of True Lies and Aliens arrived a couple weeks late, and I’m still waiting on The Abyss.
True Lies comes packaged in a standard keepcase with a slipcover. Both feature very lazy PhotoShop cover art (duplicated on the disc menu) that show Arnold Schwarzenegger’s arm positioned at an awkward angle. At this time, I’m not aware of any special collectible packaging editions or SteelBook releases.
The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
Since they hit VOD streaming platforms in late 2023, all three of these reissued James Cameron films have come under intense scrutiny and criticism from fans for the quality of their 4K remastered video transfers. Well before the physical Ultra HD Blu-ray edition was released, much less before I finally received my own belated copy, I’d heard numerous reports describing the controversial new A.I. processing Cameron employed to remove grain, sharpen detail, and generally make all three movies look less like film and more digital, as is his current preference. Of the three, The Abyss was said to have the best (or perhaps least objectionable) results, while True Lies was supposedly the worst. I started with True Lies and can confirm that it definitely doesn’t look great. This disc is a pretty big disappointment.
Before I get too far into the details, let me just say that, even with all its flaws, I don’t think True Lies is unwatchable. If nothing else, the disc is at least of high-definition quality and should be a significant improvement over the old non-anamorphic letterbox DVD that most fans will be upgrading from. In most scenes, the new grain removal and sharpening algorithms don’t have the smeary appearance or edge halo artifacts familiar from typical DNR or edge enhancement. That said, the look they do produce can be disconcerting in its own right.
A rival publication spoke to a Lightstorm Entertainment representative, who allegedly clarified that, while the new 4K edition of Aliens was upconverted from an older 2K scan and master created for the prior Blu-ray release in 2010, both The Abyss and True Lies were sourced from newer 4K scans performed more recently. I haven’t watched The Abyss yet, but as far as True Lies is concerned, in no way do I believe this is a new 4K scan. To my eye, the 2.39:1 image absolutely looks to be upconverted (with additional noise reduction and sharpening) from the same HD master that’s been circulating since the D-Theater tape in 2003.
I’m not equipped to take 4K screenshots yet, so the below are some comparisons between the new 2024 Blu-ray and the 1080p HD version that streamed on Apple TV+ and Paramount+ in early 2023, before the 4K remastering announcement. I’ve done my best to match them as close to the same frame as possible, but of course the copy that streamed in 2023 is no longer available.
As far as I can tell, both of these transfers come from an identical source. The main differences I see between them are that the new master has sharper details and very slightly more saturated colors. The color difference may only be a consequence of my grabbing the streaming screenshots off a web browser. Nothing about the colors stood out to me as new or improved during my actual viewing.
Benefit of the doubt, I suppose what streamed in early 2023 could have also come from the supposed 4K scan prior to the A.I. processing, but I don’t believe so. In both cases – the 2023 streaming and the new 2024 4K Ultra HD – the picture looks very dated in quality, with flat contrast and a generally soft appearance. Only close-ups seem to benefit much from the the A.I. enhancement, while wide and medium shots have very little detail for the algorithm to sharpen. I’d expect even a new 2K scan of the negative ought to resolve more image detail than this.
The Ultra HD disc doesn’t even look to have a new color grade. The picture has no sense of HDR or Wide Color Gamut at all. It’s clearly an SDR Rec. 709 encode mapped inside an HDR container.
The new A.I. processing has removed a lot of the film grain from the picture, but not all of it. Some scenes have a layer of light grain that may have been artificially added for texture, while a few shots here or there have a much rougher, even ugly amount of grain. Nevertheless, for the most part, the image has been heavily processed in an attempt to make it look like Cameron photographed it digitally.
Some zoomed-in screenshots making the rounds on the web have isolated individual frames with bizarre artifacts where the A.I. algorithm created squiggly lines or other weird textures on the actors’ faces, but I didn’t notice any of those during regular playback. What I did see, however, were a number of shots and scenes where the noise reduction leaves the actors with smooth hair or an unnatural plastic appearance. For some reason, Jamie Lee Curtis seems to get this the worst. Perhaps the algorithm didn’t react well to her makeup? Whatever the cause, this is distracting on more than a handful of occasions, but not consistently through the whole movie. As I said earlier, True Lies is still quite watchable, even in this less-than-ideal state.
The movie’s soundtrack has also been remixed into Dolby Atmos format on the 4K disc. The main benefit of that is to direct the sounds of helicopters and the Harrier jet to the overhead speakers. True Lies has always had an aggressive surround mix with tons of bullets and other sound effects zinging through the surround speakers. The Atmos track fills the soundstage very nicely in that regard. Sadly, it has very little bass or dynamic range, which puts it well behind older releases on the Laserdisc format, which I recall having a lot more power and heft than this (especially the DTS edition).
Be aware that the standard Blu-ray in the case only offers the movie soundtrack in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 or Dolby Digital 2.0 formats, no Atmos. I only noticed that well after initially publishing this review, and haven’t done an extensive comparison. In a quick check, the DTS track sounds to be authored a few decibels louder than the Atmos on the other disc (standard protocol for DTS), but I’m not prepared at this moment to say whether it has better dynamic range or not
The 4K disc itself has no bonus features. The accompanying Blu-ray offers a new (produced in 2023) 45-minute lookback documentary featuring interviews with both Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron. Participation by the latter suggests that the filmmaker may have finally come back around to embracing the movie again after so many years of distancing himself from it. After that are some archival items, including a pan & scan trailer, a text copy of the script, and still galleries for storyboards, blueprints, behind-the-scenes photos, and poster art.
Related
- True Lies
- James Cameron
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Jamie Lee Curtis
- Bill Paxton
Note: All screenshots on this page were taken from the standard Blu-ray edition of the film that comes bundled with the 4K Ultra HD disc, or from the 1080p copy that was briefly available for streaming on Apple TV+ and Paramount+ in early 2023 prior to the announcement of the 4K remaster.
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