Released in 1988, towards the end of Reagan’s second term, They Live is a film that I often jest represents the moment in time when John Carpenter lost his talent. There has not been a Carpenter film that followed where I did not feel robbed of my money and time for having viewed it, while before They Live there are several movies that I enjoy repeated showings.
HBO is currently showing They Live and through the gift of streaming I rewatched the movie to see if I had been too harsh in my earlier appraisal or if time would confirm my conclusions.
The film still does not work. The front half of the movie works, mostly, and the second half is a jumble of confused and clichéd scenes. The concepts and ideas behind this movie are strong, powerful, premises which are applicable today as they were in the late 1980s. The film has a viewpoint critiquing rampant capitalism, consumerism, and economic inequality. Granted the handling of this message is heavy-handed, no one can accuse Carpenter of subtlety, and setting aside if you agree or disagree it is good to see a film that takes a stand and a viewpoint. It is better to have something to say than to simply fill the screen with riotous color and explosions such as any Michael Bay franchise flick. There are better and slyer critiques on these themes, you need look no further than the original RoboCop for that, but the failure of They Live is not the stand it takes but the technique by which it takes them.
Most glaring is that the film establishes itself with a slow pace that reveals bit by bit menacing dread but then suddenly it changes into an action film that requires absurd coincidences and idiotic enemies to reach even a marginal resolution.
How does Gilbert find the boys in their hotel? How does Holly find the resistance? Why didn’t the police secure the parameter before assault the resistance? Why is the door leading to the most important device in the enemy’s possession unlocked?
None of this makes any sense.
The problems only go deeper when you try to unravel the world building. Listening to the audio commentary by Carpenter on his film Prince of Darkness illuminated for me that Carpenter doesn’t do backstory or world building and this is a great flaw for his scripts. If the aliens are here to ravish our world of wealth, then why are so many of them in common shops and stores, working as tellers in banks or regular patrol officers?
It makes even less sense the more you try to work out exactly how this functions. This movie is a series of ideas, many of them powerful, but slapped together in a manner that undercuts all of them.
I would love to see a real remake of this. Not a quick cash grab that has been done to other Carpenter properties, yes I am looking you The Fog. This could be a franchise starter. The issues, a secret alien subversion of our world, our economics, our lives, is too big for one movie. This could be a great dystopia series for adults instead of teenagers.
