True Lies/Angels in the Outfield/Forrest Gump/Mi Vida Loca/Bhaji on the Beach

Roger Ebert - Host: [after showing a clip from "True Lies"] And that airplane scene develops into one of the most incredible, off-the-wall, imaginative action sequences I've seen in any Schwarzenegger film. Unfortunately, the terrific action that opens and closes the movie is interrupted in the middle for a long sequence where the spy thinks his wife is cheating on him, and so he sets a test for her in a scene that I thought was basically cruel and not very funny. It slows things down for a while, but the stuff that DOES work in this movie works SO well, I don't have any hesitation voting thumbs up for "True Lies", which shows Arnold Schwarzenegger back again as king of the hill of the action star.

Gene Siskel - Host: Y'know, Roger, we saw the picture, I think the same way, and yet my thumb is down.

Roger Ebert - Host: Really?

Gene Siskel - Host: I, uh, the opening is fun, it's the James Bond picture- the opening, is the James Bond picture we haven't had since Connery retired.

Roger Ebert - Host: Yeah.

Gene Siskel - Host: The ending is spectacular, it'll have people cheering, and reasonably so, that's great. But when you said a long sequence in the middle, I don't think people realize how long that is. I think it's a half an hour. This whole ridiculous plot... which IS cruel, I cringed...

Roger Ebert - Host: Yeah, well, she's allegedly not supposed to know that her husband is there because the light is behind him, so she can't see his face.

Gene Siskel - Host: But Roger, but basically, all it is is Jamie Lee Curtis sticking her chest out.

Roger Ebert - Host: That's right.

Gene Siskel - Host: That's what that whole half an hour is. It's demeaning to her, it breaks the film down completely, and in addition, there's a, there's a-another subplot which is, she's involved with a guy who's pretending to be a spy, Bill Paxton, good actor, but a dumb, stupid plot. Not high-tech, not smart, it's like there's bookends to garbage in the middle!

Roger Ebert - Host: I agree with you, Gene, yet at the same time, if you ask people what are they going to an Arnold Schwarzenegger picture for, this movie is gonna give it to them in a way they haven't seen it before.

Gene Siskel - Host: Roger, I...

Roger Ebert - Host: That sequence at the end...

Gene Siskel - Host: It IS great!

Roger Ebert - Host: ...You've got, and it lasts...

Gene Siskel - Host: ...Enough to admit, I said it!

Roger Ebert - Host: ...A long time, and it just builds one thing after another.

Gene Siskel - Host: It's a lot of fun.

Roger Ebert - Host: People would really be missing something if they didn't see that.

Gene Siskel - Host: I, but Roger, but so have 'em come in at the end, because I'm telling you...

Roger Ebert - Host: Well, I mean, come on.

Gene Siskel - Host: No no no, the middle chunk of that picture is DEADLY boring and insulting.