Memory is a funny thing, especially with movies from the 1980s. Revisiting movies from that time too frequently makes one question how one could've thought it was pretty good when on second glance, it's quite not so good. Such as it was with Coming to America for me several years ago and once again with tonight's feature, the 1988 (same as Coming to America!) John Carpenter cult classic They Live.
WWF (now WWE) wrestler Roddy Piper stars as Nada (something I just learned from the credits as he's never referred to by name), a drifter newly arrived in Los Angeles from Denver, seeking work. After snagging a job doing construction, a co-worker, Frank (Keith David), takes him to a shanty town where he can stay. (So the homeless problem isn't a recent phenomenon?) While watching TV, the broadcast is interrupted by a hack where the speaker warns that humanity is cattle and a signal must be shut off at the source.
The next day Nada notices leaders from the camp going to a church across the street. He's told the church lets them use their kitchen to feed the shanty folk, but when he goes to check the place out he finds the church choir heard practicing is a tape and there's a lab and boxes of sunglasses. After the church is raided by the police and the shanty town bulldozed that night (why at night?), he goes back and finds a box of sunglasses hidden away.
Later, while walking downtown, he puts them on and discovers they reveal subliminal messages emblazoned across every magazine and billboard commanding people to "OBEY" or "CONSUME"; money says, "THIS IS YOUR GOD." More concerning is that the glasses also reveal that amidst the normal folk in the city are bug-eyed aliens who look like skinned people. Soon, the aliens realized Nada can see them and he's on the run.
After convincing Frank to try the glasses after the film's signature brawl scene, they go to ground & eventually locate a resistance cell who made the sunglasses and think they have a plan to end the aliens' control of humanity.
They Live is one of those movies whose key bits have seeped into the collective memory of culture so that even people who haven't seen it are familiar with lines like Nada's signature, ""I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass....and I'm all out of bubblegum," or understand that "They Live glasses" means being able to see the truth hidden from others, or the extended brawl (a tribute to the throwdown in John Wayne's The Quiet Man) which was itself the basis for the Cripple Fight scene on South Park, these nuggets have lent the movie a stature that it sadly doesn't merit.
The pace is extremely slow and the drama is hampered by Piper's amazingly inert performance. As Rowdy Roddy Piper, he was one of the top names in pro wrestling in its first big heyday along with Hulk Hogan, Macho Man Savage, Jake "the Snake" Roberts, etc. with a larger-than-life persona and in interviews he's a charming fellow, but his Nada lives down to the name as every cutaway to his blank, gormless mien makes one wonder what he's thinking. When "acting" across from David, the gulf between talent and whatever this is yawns wider. (If you doubt the talents of Dwayne Johnson or Jon Cena, watch this and reevaluate.)
The plot only really picks up in the last act when the Carpenter's themes (he wrote the screenplay under the nom de plume of Frank Armitage, adapting a short story and comic book as well as other sources) of control and collaboration are explicitly stated. The power of media or the promise of riches to induce humans to collaborate with these invaders are valid & resonate even now, if not more so.
The manipulation of society with social media apps which algorithmically groom users into specific attitudes and beliefs echoes the subliminal images portrayed here. Even The Matrix touched upon it with the character of Cypher colluding with the Machines to destroy humanity as long as they plug him back in so he can be comfortable believing he's eating steak.
But the script is too thin everywhere else and so forgettable that beyond what I've mentioned, I didn't remember any of it. Perhaps a smarter updated remake would work, transferring the themes to apps, AI, and algorithms which seemingly brainwashed sheeple to sleep via doom scrolling.
Technically, the 4K HDR transfer is nothing special. The print is clean and colors are good, allowing for the low budget production, but there's little visual pizzazz and the HDR grading looked like a bright SDR picture. Audio is mediocre with little surround activity, but true to the source.
I was surprised at how mediocre They Live is compared to how I remembered it. Too slow, too thin, and generally muddled, it buries the memorable bits and interesting premise under a slack script, slow direction, and weak lead performance.
Score: 4/10. Catch it on cable/streaming.
Spoilerific trailer which lays out the whole plot and showcases the best bits.
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