They Live Reviews

They Live is a paranoid thriller that stretches a paper-thin budget with inventive special effects that serve the story and a message that still holds water today.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

They Live is the looniest movie of the season and also one of the most engaging.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

The joke is in the material; the idea itself is funny and daring. And some time soon, They Live suggests, with grim, knowing wink, the joke may be on us.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Carpenter sweeps aside political preaching to allow the film to finish on a note of humour when the aliens are finally revealed for what they are.

Full Review

A loopy movie that got its messages right.

Full Review | Original Score: B+

They Live is thought-provoking while maintaining its B-movie credentials.

Full Review

An erratically amusing throwback to the science-fiction paranoia films of the 1950s.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

A fantastically subversive film, a nifty little confection pitting us vs them, the haves vs the have-nots.

Full Review

All in all, an entertaining (if ideologically incoherent) response to the valorization of greed in our midst.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Carpenter's ability to fuse the bawdy humor and action with an intelligent script make for a genre film that is both thoughtful and entertaining

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

great cult flick

| Original Score: 3.5/4

The black-and-white visuals disturb for only so long, and while themes of indoctrination and conspiracy prove initially intriguing, the film quickly descends into fistfights and gunfire.

Full Review

An excellent Carpenter film, if you can get past the fight scene.

| Original Score: 4/5

The loopiest, and coolest, entry in the director's canon.

Full Review

Kicks ass and chews bubblegum -- metaphorically speaking.

| Original Score: 4/5

Piper is easily the star of the show, making They Live Carpenter's best film -- I don't care what you say.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5

As is often the case with Carpenter, the concept is better than the execution.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

Credibility isn't the problem with John Carpenter's They Live... but execution is.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

One of John Carpenter's better paranoid thrillers, featuring the great line of dialogue, I'm here to chew bubble gum and kick some ass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!

| Original Score: 4/5

Apparently the (rent) alien invaders (this) never read the studies (movie) that proved that (it) subliminal advertising (ain't) doesn't work (bad).

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4