Listless CBS remake doesn’t ring ‘True’
A halfhearted remake of “True Lies” for network TV? I wish I was lying.
But no, there is a remake of “Lies” on CBS (Wednesdays, 10 EST/PST,), which takes the 1994 action comedy, strips it for parts, and tries to sell you on a hollow, meaningless shell.
What else could you expect when you take a film that was reliant on the star power of its actors (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis, no less) and the vision of its director (Mr. “Avatar” himself, James Cameron) and turns it into something as generic as a network spy procedural?
Sure, the broad strokes of the story are the same. Harry Tasker (Steve Howey, “Shameless”) is a regular soccer dad by day and an operative for the government’s top-secret espionage agency by night. His wife, Helen (Ginger Gonzaga, “She-hulk”), is suspicious of his work trips and worried about their marriage. She soon learns all about his secret identity when she gets caught up in one of his missions and is recruited into the covert Omega Agency herself.
The aim here, seemingly, is to capture the jokes and explosions of the film, and put them to use in a case-of-the-week format akin to “NCIS.” It is, perhaps, not a terrible idea on paper, if the film didn’t exist as a point of comparison, and if the resulting show tried just a little harder to create believable dialogue or characters. But “Lies” is a slog to get through, hacky and hammy where its inspiration was genuinely funny and thrilling.
Howey and Gonzaga are too cutesy and slapstick for the tone the series is trying to achieve, pushing “Lies” dangerously close to parody. That the actors don’t have any chemistry as a supposedly long-married couple doesn’t help. There are supporting characters – other Omega spies, the couple’s teen children – but they are so forgettable as to barely register in the four episodes made available for review.
It’s a shame, particularly because “Lies” creator Matt Nix has already created a spy show that mixed action and humor with aplomb: USA’S “Burn Notice.” But the thrills, romance and laughs from that series were easy and freeflowing, whereas everything about “Lies” is forced and awkward.
As the latest in a long (and seemingly never-ending) line of soulless remakes, reboots and revivals out of Hollywood, “Lies” really can’t be blamed for its farcical terribleness, more a symptom of the widespread disease than anything else. Maybe 1 in 10 of these remakes might generate a genuinely entertaining, good story, but “Lies” certainly isn’t that one.
The remake is probably not going to be as good as the original. And I’m truly not lying about that.