They Live
“I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass… and I’m all out of bubblegum.”
Just finished watching John Carpenter’s They Live (1988), and what an entertaining experience that was!… Up to a point, that is.
I guess it must have been some ten years ago when I caught a glimpse of it on public TV, and wanted to watch it ever since… it’s just only now I remembered, after stumbling upon Snarkerati’s Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time (pretty good list, by the way).
Now, in his ’80s fashion, this movie really kicked ass, but it was really the soundtrack that blew me away! Hypnotic blues, that’s what I think I’m gonna call it. It just kept ringing into my mind well after I had finished watching this movie, so that at one moment I had to call in the Over Kill heavy guard to help me wash it away… and help they did!
The dirty, heavy blows that Nada and Frank threw to each other in their fight scenes reminded me of action in a wrestling ring, and at a look up on IMDB I found out that Roddy Piper (Nada) indeed used to be a professional wrestler. Guess I was right on spot in this particular case.
One thing I didn’t like about this movie was the apparently unequal plot layout, with its abrupt and hard to believe final. Not mentioning the total lack of character development, I found the suspense being pretty nicely and slowly built up until the middle of the movie, when Frank is “convinced” by Nada to wear them glasses and he gets to discover that “life’s a bitch… and she’s back in heat.” After that, practically everything crumbles down. The action loses steam instead of gaining it, and the Holy Thompson character really manages to spoil the ending; just the ending, for in the plot it’s not at all remarkable. Such a shame.
Well, had to do it once… Never tried to write a movie review, and guess this is going to be the first and last time when I do it.
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