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They LiveRating:
Release Date: 17 October, 2000 Retail Price: $14.99 Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: Complete Cast (15 total) |
They Live Reviews
Gloriously subversive
This is John Carpenter in top form, taking dead aim at the faux-cheery sophistry of the Reagan era and blowing the lid clean off. Roddy Piper does a serviceable job in the lead role, but it's the always wonderful Keith David who does the heavy lifting here (what a grand voice).
This one came in under the radar and few people saw it, with fewer still getting the message. Considering the stifling atmosphere of present day America, a film like this could NOT get made currently.
While it can be enjoyed as an alien invasion thriller, the real fun is in the political sub-text, which is even more cogent now than when the film was made.
Poor maligned space bugs
Roddy Piper, a top pro wrestler, happens to star in a movie classic. I'd place this movie on my all time list of the 100 greatest movies ever made. And it's carried by Roddy Piper. He's not just the star. He's the movie. He, and the director, and the writer, and the costume designer. He carries every single scene on his shoulders.
It is a 1984 type story, about an evil repressive government that just needs to be overthrown. Your good guys and bad guys are very easy to delineate, if you have the special sunglasses. Put them on, and your bad guys look like who they really are - ugly space aliens. I love it.
My very favorite scene is the closer, the one they shock you with just before blacking out and going to the credits. A whore is in bed with one of the space aliens. She sees him as human. Then all of a sudden the matrix-like illusion is gone and she sees him as he really is - an ugly giant bug. It's great.
I think it would be fun, if you were an ugly giant bug yourself, to take over a planet as they did. However, the writing is definitely from the point of view of the Earth creatures that we have taken over, hahaha.
My favorite character in Men In Black is "Egger", the giant bug who is the villain and is pestered unmercifully by Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. When will we stop being so one-sided in these movies, these Earth-centered propaganda flicks, and let our hair down and have some fun taking over a planet for a change. In a few hours I have to get up and start another work week. Is that really a way of life worth preserving? Earth be damned, let's root for the space bugs.
Obviously this movie is dark with criticism of the wealthy capitalists who rule our planet. We learn, here, that they are really extra terrestrial space bugs. Okay. I think Bush is the Earthling who collaborates with them in this movie. I see a resemblance. They are both slick talkers with a southern twang, and I wouldn't buy a used car from either of them. I would typecast George Bush in that role. As for the Roddy Piper part, who would be better than the macho and colorful Ralph Nader, or Al Gore. Can you just see Nader or Gore breaking a trash can over Jim Brown's head in the sequel?
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