Did a hate rewatch on this one just this week as its free on YT with ads. This is undoubtedly the only Cameorn film I dislike/almost hate. Its obnoxious cartooniness, juvenile humor, tonal changes, and excessive action are so toxically off-putting I can't help but think this was a handshake deal Arnold did with Cameron as part of a deal to reprise his role in Terminator 2. How do you go from Terminator, Abyss, and Aliens, to this junk? True Lies is like something Michael Bay would have directed before going totally Michael Bay.

For Arnie, this marks the last ride of an awesome run that started with Conan. He'd never again do anything this high-level and sophisticated (even as junk, it's Cameron Junk, which is higher than, say, Roland Emmerich on his best day). After this, it was all down hill, as Arnie did one bad actioner after another, a silly Batman movie, and three (or is it four?) too many Terminator sequels. True Lies was Arnold trying to get one more golden egg out of the goose (Cameron) before ending up on Irrelevance Island.

For Cameron, he must have done some honest reflection after this and realized, "Goddammit Jim, you're better than this. you're better than all of them." Because from then on it was only Titanic and Avatar--crowd-pleasing mega movies, rather than '90s schlock. As a fan of both those films, I'm glad he course corrected from ultra cringy True Lies.