“I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I’m all out of bubblegum,” says Nada (Roddy Piper), after discovering that the Earth has come under the control of aliens in John Carpenter’s They Live, which is at once a science fiction tale, a comedy, and a commentary on rampant consumerism with a generous helping of action and violence thrown in for good measure.
Nada, an unemployed construction worker, hitchhikes to Los Angeles. He’s taken in by a community of down-on-their-luck people who live in a makeshift shanty town on the edge of the city. Nada notices some mysterious activity at a church across the street and decides to investigate. He stumbles into the headquarters of what seems to be some kind of terrorist organization. Strangely, there are boxes of sunglasses everywhere. Unbeknownst to Nada, the sunglasses allow the wearer to see subliminal messages that are pumped into the media as well as the alien beings that have infiltrated our society to put them there to control us.
Once he discovers what the sunglasses reveal, Nada has to convince his new friend Frank (Keith David) that the planet is in danger. A chance encounter with Holly (Meg Foster), a TV program director, gives Nada an idea on how to stop the signal that blinds the world to their alien masters.
Watching They Live as the George W. Bush era comes to a close isn’t that much different from watching it during the Reagan era that inspired it. The script, written by Carpenter under the pseudonym “Frank Armitage”, takes direct jabs at the destruction of the middle class and the nature of humanity to prey on the weak and the poor. Thankfully, the movie never gets too heavy-handed as there’s plenty of humor included as well.
In fact, the movie’s B-movie trappings are part of its charm. Seeing former professional wrestler Roddy Piper do a respectable job being an action hero — something that Hulk Hogan has never pulled off — and witnessing what has to be one of the longest fist-fight scenes in movie history in the same movie that includes dialogue like “You… you look like your face fell in the cheese dip back in 1957” makes They Live nearly impossible to dislike.
They Live clearly has brains but, as much as it would like you to think about the world in which we live, it also attempts to make you laugh and cheer on the good guys as well. It’s the quintessential 1980s movie, even though it would appear that its message is just as appropriate now as it was 20 years ago. That’s kind of sad, actually.
4.5 out of 5.0 stars
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