Rating: 
Summary: Carpenter-esque
Review: John Carpenter hits home with another conceptual "makes ya think" movie. As always, the excellent supporting soundtrack by Carpenter enhances the gloomy mood of the picture (see Prince of Darkness, Escape From New York, etc. for the same effect). This is a highly enjoyable movie one can get involved in. Roddy Piper is perfectly cast. Where's my sunglasses and bubblegum? See it.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent movie once you get past its trappings.
Review: They Live is an excellent movie on several levels after you break through the trappings of looking at it as just what is shown, and see the larger picture. It is a fun movie to watch. Not being terribly long, it gets to its point fairly directly, and it does not hem and haw around with multiple subplots that do not matter to the end point of the movie. On another level, it has several elements to it that make it "serious". It makes a statement that humans have the potential to live not in reality, but in an artificial reality created by others. The statement "When you get more than two humans together in one place, the average IQ of the group drops by one point for each person after two" applies--just imagine every human together, sleeping away in blissful ignorance of the fact they are just livestock. As Charles Fort said, "The Earth is a farm. We are someone else's property."
Rating: 
Summary: I really liked this one
Review: What can I say? The acting was bad, the aliens looked rubbery, the story was a little disjointed and John Carpenter still can't get it through his head that he shouldn't do his own soundtracks...but what a fun movie to watch!Why a movie so poorly done works so well when movies with all the right ingredients (like "Outland") are so intolerable is beyond me. "They Live" just plain clicks on every level that it could. It is a bizarre twist on so many eighties science fiction and horror films and so damn funny without really meaning to be (most of the time) that you can't even classify it. The movie just gives and gives and gives. It gives us one of the most hilarious fight scenes in film history. It gives us a professional wrestler as a leading man--and he does a decent job of filling the role. It gives us the classic buddy movie pair-up. It gives us moral judgment, aliens that look like the product of a demented attraction between a salamander and an imitation leather recliner. It even gives us the mandatory alien on top of a big breasted, naked blonde scene. You'll laugh, you'll cry, it will become a part of you. It's the most emotional movie experience of the 20th century. It makes "Citizen Kane" look like an "Our Gang" episode. Makes "Casablanca" feel like a rerun of "I Love Lucy"--not even the good episodes, one of the ones after they moved to California. Makes "Showgirls" seem like it was only about a bunch of naked women dancing around for money--uh...wait a minute...Never mind! See this movie! Buy this movie!! Buy the rights to distribute this movie!!! Let it become your life, your soul, your reason for being!!!! How many exclamation marks do I have to use to convince you to SEE THIS MOVIE?!!!!! It's actually kind of fun to watch.
Rating:
Summary: I'd call it a sleeper hit... it'll make you think.
Review: A great "us against them" movie. The alien discovery scenes are great and nothing can touch the "classic" 15 minute long fight scene. After all, it's Roudy Roddy Piper. To me, it echoes back to the classic Red Scare commies-are-among-us movies of the 50's and 60's.
Rating:
Summary: Rowdy Roddy Piper kickin some Alien butt.
Review: This movie despite having a plot which does not seem to home in on all of Roddy Piper's acting skills. Will however leave you with a satisfied feeling. "For I came here to chew bubble gum and kick some a**, and I just ran out of bubble gum."
Rating:
Summary: Excellent analysis of the media drug on a slumbering society
Review: Roddy Piper does a good job playing an average joe who with the help of the "special glasses" he aquires "wakes up" to find society is controlled subliminally by aliens. Confused, alarmed, and finally ready to "kick some..." he sets out to wake everyone up starting with his buddy who wants to stay "asleep"! Many cool overtones too, like a blind preacher who "knows", a church that helps open "blind eyes", etc. There are no good special effects here, but well worth it just for the 1984 type storyline. One of my favorite "cult classics"
Rating:
Summary: A tour de force of action and political manifesto!
Review: Set in the height of the Reagan revolution, this brilliantly conceived film is the most counter-cultural "big budget" film to question the excesses of capitalism and fragmentation of society by media and consumerism. Plus, plenty of shooting and explosions. Highly entertaining and instructive.
Rating:
Summary: Good enertainment; a a message about the Reagan era
Review: Film work on several levels; funny, scary, and a political commentary of the times.
Rating:
Summary: One of JC'S greater and most stuning pieces of work!
Review: Around the time of 1988 John Carpenter realsed They Live! a look into a drifter's world leaving only truth leaft in the shadows, and finally we find that the Truth is out there! The idea though of glasses being able to see an alien race does sound a vit dreary, but the movie is very, very, very enjoyable!
Rating:
Summary: THEY LIVE Review!
Review: John Carpenter's brilliant cinematic attack on "Reaganomics" stars Roddy Piper as an unemployed drifter who soon discovers (using special "sunglasses" that only he seems to have) that a number of the people making the moves in our country are actually aliens. With the help of a few skeptical friends and an underground movement, Piper decides that "he's through be Daddy's little boy" and declares war on the unwelcome visitors. "They Live" mixes social commentary on the "rich get richer, poor don't get a f--king thing" economy of the late 80's with the paranoid science fiction tales of the 50's for a good little film. It's all in good fun though as our hero takes on the alien visitors with more ammo and one-liners than you can shake a snake at. In one of the most memorable scenes, Piper and Keith David have a fist fight that literally goes on for what seems like forever. Carpenter's musical score is simple but it gets the point across. The violent finale ends with a humorous conclusion that certainly makes for an entertaining pay-off. While I have enjoyed Carpenter's work since, I can honestly say this was probably his last truly effective pic. He has since more or less stuck to making fun but predictable genre films and re-visiting the plots of films he already made years before. Much of the same can be said for Piper who after turning in a brilliant performance with dialouge tailor-made for his unique sense of humor has been stuck on the straight-to-video roles ever since. You're better off picking up the VHS version of "They Live" as the first release of the film on DVD has very little new to offer. It would be good to get a DVD edition of this film with some extra added features. Well, regardless of how you see it, this is an excellent movie worth checking out.
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