It took watching and enjoyuing the movie one evening to understand what was missing in this show, and why I did not enjoy it. While it is not his fault, the problem lies primarily with Steve Howey and how he portrays Harry Tasker.
True Lies was a fun movie and, at its core, it was a story about an alpha male who is in love with his seemingly average wife and family. His marriage and family offered him a life that deeply contrasted with his real life, a supercapable spy. In that marriage, he did not have to be the ubermensch. In truth, he had been gaslighting his family so that he could enjoy the time away. But there was never a question as to who Harry really was. Harry was Superman and he played Clark Kent with his family.
In this show, Harry is very much the Clark Kent and very occassionally pretends to be Superman. While he is physically up to the role, the role he is does not make us believe.
Were Harry a more impressive man, the way his wife is written would still be annoying but infinitely more bearable. But this is not the case. So the whole show becomes unfortunately bad.
Final Update: I tried again with episode 4 and made it through 10 minutes before turning it off. A shame.
Update: I tried again with episode 3. Believe it or not, the show has gotten worse.
I really enjoyed True Lies, the movie. This show is related by its name and the name of some of the characters. It is a distant relation and suffers from severe genetic degradation.
I was looking forward to this show. Steve Howey is usually a pleasure to watch. Ginger Gonzaga is fun and energetic and a beauiful woman. I hoped that they could convey the spirit of the movie in a series. But my hopes were dashed.
I cannot review the entire first episode because I turned it off before it was completed. It was underwhelming right from the start, with a lack of energy in the opening mission. But when the leads were captured, the inevitable happened and the wife showed herself to be more capable of the two.
I expected this show would check all the diversity boxes and it did. But what made the movie such fun was both Arnold being the superspy and Jamie Lee Curtis tranforming from a quiet housewife to something more. In this show, girl power starts from the beginning. And in order to do so, it has to diminish he superspy into an insecure, lesser person.
Enough.
True Lies was a fun movie and, at its core, it was a story about an alpha male who is in love with his seemingly average wife and family. His marriage and family offered him a life that deeply contrasted with his real life, a supercapable spy. In that marriage, he did not have to be the ubermensch. In truth, he had been gaslighting his family so that he could enjoy the time away. But there was never a question as to who Harry really was. Harry was Superman and he played Clark Kent with his family.
In this show, Harry is very much the Clark Kent and very occassionally pretends to be Superman. While he is physically up to the role, the role he is does not make us believe.
Were Harry a more impressive man, the way his wife is written would still be annoying but infinitely more bearable. But this is not the case. So the whole show becomes unfortunately bad.
Final Update: I tried again with episode 4 and made it through 10 minutes before turning it off. A shame.
Update: I tried again with episode 3. Believe it or not, the show has gotten worse.
I really enjoyed True Lies, the movie. This show is related by its name and the name of some of the characters. It is a distant relation and suffers from severe genetic degradation.
I was looking forward to this show. Steve Howey is usually a pleasure to watch. Ginger Gonzaga is fun and energetic and a beauiful woman. I hoped that they could convey the spirit of the movie in a series. But my hopes were dashed.
I cannot review the entire first episode because I turned it off before it was completed. It was underwhelming right from the start, with a lack of energy in the opening mission. But when the leads were captured, the inevitable happened and the wife showed herself to be more capable of the two.
I expected this show would check all the diversity boxes and it did. But what made the movie such fun was both Arnold being the superspy and Jamie Lee Curtis tranforming from a quiet housewife to something more. In this show, girl power starts from the beginning. And in order to do so, it has to diminish he superspy into an insecure, lesser person.
Enough.