Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)

Have you ever noticed that sequels seem to pop up like hotcakes? All of Pierce Brosnon's Bond movies came out within a few years of each other, the Matrix sequels opened six months apart, and the average period between Friday the 13th movies is two years. But look at the Terminator movies. T2 was made seven years after the original, and it was another twelve years before the third chapter of the trilogy was made. Such a long period of time between them can only mean they'll have plenty of time to make each sequel as good as they possibly can, right? Not always.

Let's catch up with the plot: John Connor (Nick Stahl) is a homeless drifter living "off the grid" so there's no paperwork or computer files to prove he exists. Why? He's still scared that a Terminator might try to hunt him down again. That's when Skynet decides to alter their game plan a little. Since they can't find John Connor in the past, they'll go back in time to kill all of his lieutenants while they're just teenagers and twenty-somethings. To accomplish this, Skynet sends back the T-X (Kristanna Loken), a new-and-improved Terminator armed to the teeth with her own built-in weapons.

Anyway, John wrecks his motorcycle and tears up his leg, so he breaks into an animal hospital and fixes himself up. Around that time, Kate Brewster (Claire Danes), who works at said animal hospital, shows up and finds John. They don't know it yet, but Kate will end up being John's second-in-command and wife. She's also next on the T-X's hit list. Speaking of the T-X, guess who else shows up at the animal hospital. Yep, you guessed it. The T-X discovers that John's been there, and decides that she's gonna kill both him and Kate. Luckily for our heroes, somebody else has been sent back in time, too. What kind of Terminator movie would it be without a T-800? I just don't know. A programmed-for-heroism T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) shows up in the nick of time and saves John and Kate, leading to one of the wildest and most destructive chase scenes I've ever seen.

We also learn why Skynet and Terminators still exist, despite the destruction of Cyberdyne Industries at the end of T2. Turns out the government had just contracted Cyberdyne to assist the military in the creation of Skynet, and Cyberdyne's destruction just slowed things down for a decade or so. But during Skynet's evolution, a super-virus has infected just about every computer in the world, affecting everything from the civilian Internet to government security. The military plans to use Skynet to combat the virus, but for a few crucial minutes, machines would be in complete control. Air Force official Robert Brewster (David Andrews), who just so happens to be Kate's father, wants to avoid using the untested prototype, but he's being pressured by his colleagues to take action. While Brewster weighs his options, Kate flees the T-X with the help of John and the T-800. Knowing that Skynet will soon launch and Judgment Day is bound to occur, the trio head for Kate's father's Air Force base and try delaying the end of the world.

Those of you who liked the last twenty minutes of T2 will like T3. The movie just beats the viewer over the head with the action, squeezing in plot points whenever it feels like it. Unlike its two predecessors, all of the moments in which we try to develop dramatic tension between our three heroes doesn't work that well. Sure, the actors tried their best, but it just didn't really do anything for me. I thought Nick Stahl was good, but he didn't convey the same arrogance or brashness of Edward Furlong. Stahl's John just came off as being a whiny little turd. But then again, I guess that time has made John a different person, so maybe I should be a little more forgiving.

Claire Danes, I was less than impressed with. Even though she brought depth to a poorly written, nearly useless character, Kate serves as nothing more than the cynical victim who becomes a tough believer by the end of the movie. She's no replacement for Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor (who we learn during T3 died of leukemia between the two movies). You know, I heard that Linda Hamilton turned down the movie because she didn't want to be remembered for just Sarah Connor. Besides the Beauty and the Beast TV show, what else has she got? She might have some people who remember Children of the Corn, but if people don't know her as Sarah Connor, they'll probably have no idea who she is. I also don't know why they didn't just cast Linda's twin sister Leslie to play Sarah. Leslie had an extremely brief appearance in T2 (as the T-1000 imitating Sarah at the end), and I couldn't tell them apart.

There's also Kristanna Loken as the T-X (or "Terminatrix," as she's been called). While I didn't think she was as intimidating a villain as the T-1000, but still manages to look mean just through her movement and facial expressions. And finally, there's the ubiquitous Arnold Schwarzenegger. Even at 50 years old, he still has what it takes to be an action star. And despite his awful attempts at comedy (such as the holiday "classic" Jingle All the Way), his deadpan delivery provides good laughs in otherwise boring scenes. Stan Winston's effects team gets a thumbs-up for this one. Despite the over-reliance on CGI, I thought everything looked extremely believable. And I must applaud them for designing the T-1 robots. They're real robots, folks. No puppets or CGI there. I also thought Marco Beltrami's score wasn't bad. Sure, it wasn't as good as Brad Fiedel's scores from the prior movies, but it wasn't awful.

While not as good as the work of James Cameron, I must also applaud Jonathan Mostow for having the ambition to attempt a Terminator film. But hard as he tried, the resulting effort was simply "okay." Not good, not bad, just there. I know T2 was a hard act to follow, and Mostow does try to hit the mark, but it's a miss by just a narrow margin. Now how are they gonna follow up on that ending?

Final Rating: ***

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

After the runaway success that was The Terminator, the public began begging for a sequel. Unfortunately, due to some legal problems, nobody could acquire the proper rights to do it. For almost a decade, the project floated in limbo while those involved with the first film went on with their lives. James Cameron directed such films as Aliens and The Abyss, Arnold Schwarzenegger became one of the biggest action stars in history, Linda Hamilton didn't do anything noteworthy (other than the Beauty and the Beast TV show with Ron Perlman), and Michael Biehn's character died at the end of The Terminator, so why would he be in the sequel? But finally, Mario Kassar's now-defunct Carolco Pictures acquired the final rights, and seven years after the original, Terminator 2 was a reality.

The nuclear war between humans and machines is still inevitable, but the machines refuse to give up. The original Terminator programmed to kill Sarah Connor in 1984 failed, so the machines sent a second Terminator back through time to attack her son. In both instances, the Human Resistance was able to send back a lone protector. In the present of 1994, a burst of energy signals the arrival of another Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger). He's not the same, but he just looks like it. He arrives at a biker bar, where he starts a brawl while acquiring clothes, a motorcycle, and a shotgun. Meanwhile, a Los Angeles police officer stops to investigate an electrical disturbance in a vacant alley. A smaller figure (Robert Patrick) jumps the officer from behind, takes his gun and uniform, and steals his police car.

Both are on the trail of young John Connor (Edward Furlong), a disillusioned preteen living with foster parents in suburban LA. John and a friend decide to head to the mall, stopping briefly at an ATM, where John hacks into it with an ATM and makes off with 200 dollars. His friend discovers a familiar picture in John's knapsack, asking who the woman in the picture is. The woman is John's mother Sarah (Linda Hamilton), who is locked in a maximum-security mental hospital, thanks to her stories about a cyborg assassin trying to kill her and the coming nuclear holocaust.

John and his friend head to the local mall, where the two visitors from the future intercept them. Running from the man he thinks is a cop, John runs right into the Terminator, who whips out his shotgun. John turns to run but finds himself looking down the barrel of the cop's weapon. In the ensuing shootout, John realizes that the Terminator is actually there to protect him and it's the cop who's hunting him.

Separated during the battle, John flees on his dirtbike. The cop follows at an unbelievable speed, first on foot and then in a gigantic tow truck. The chase continues into a flood canal, with the Terminator following behind on his motorcycle. He saves John from being crushed, and the truck meets a fiery crash at a narrow crossing. The Terminator and John quickly leave the scene, at which point the Terminator (who I'll call the T-800 from hereon) explains that an adult John sent him here from the future. Their adversary is an extremely advanced Terminator, named the T-1000. It's made from what the Terminator calls "mimetic polyalloy," allowing to imitate almost anything it touches. After deducing that the T-1000 may imitate Sarah to get to him, John demands that they free her from the loony bin.

But Sarah has her own plans. The police ask her about pictures of the T-800's mall appearance, linking it to the other T-800 from 1984. While apparently comatose, she manages to snatch a paperclip she uses to later escape from her cell. John and the T-800 arrive just in time to save Sarah from the T-1000, heading for a secret weapons cache in the desert near the Mexican border. However, a nightmare of the future convinces Sarah that she needs to act, and stop the war at the source.

T2 is one of my favorite movies, and for good reason. It's probably one of the best action movies I've ever seen in my life. It far succeeds the original movie in almost every category. The action and stunt work is quite possibly the best seen in any movie of its kind. We see a variety of motorcycle stunts, a chase scene involving a giant tow truck, numerous shootouts, a motorcycle jumping from a building to a helicopter, a chase scene involving a helicopter and a SWAT van, and in the most ambitious stunt in the movie, a real office building being destroyed in an explosion (with no CGI or miniatures being used). For all of the action, none of it is gratuitous. It's all done to advance the story.

I thought the acting was fine as well. As the "good" version of his character from the prior Terminator movie, Schwarzenegger is given much more to work with this time around. The T-800 is given some depth and development. He's not the same heartless killing machine, but a more sentimental role. But despite the sentimentality, Arnold's still a tough guy, especially early in the movie. Linda Hamilton also shines as Sarah, who's now become a tough soldier, instead of the scared-of-everything waitress from 1984. The fact that nobody believes her ranting and raving about the end of the world give her character some much-needed growth. In fact, her machine-like determination almost makes her what she fears the most.

As the T-1000, Robert Patrick does a very effective job playing the leaner, meaner Terminator model in contrast to Arnold's T-800. In some scenes, he comes off as being very snide and sarcastic; in others, he's the devil in a cop uniform. And for such a scrawny-looking villain, he's actually just as intimidating as Arnold in the first Terminator movie. However, I wasn't a fan of Edward Furlong. He's not horrible, but his extreme lack of acting experience is unavoidably noticeable.

I also enjoyed Brad Fiedel's score, which improved from the prior film, yet still remained somewhat similar. I guess if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It makes some scenes absolutely perfect, and fits well within the context of the film. In one scene, Sarah stalks Miles Dyson, the designer of Skynet, outside his home with an almost Terminator-like intensity, which is complimented with a reworking of the classic Terminator theme. Great stuff.

There is no rating I can give Terminator 2 besides five stars. T2 is one of those movies that will blow you away and still have you come back for more. I said earlier that it's one of the best movies I've ever seen, and I meant it. If you haven't seen it, you should.

Final Rating: *****

The Terminator (1984)

Most action movies seem to just blend together. Gunshots, explosions, meathead heroes, and generic villains. But there's been one film that's stood out in both the action and sci-fi genres, withstanding the test of time as one of the most popular movies ever. You might have heard of it. It's a little flick called The Terminator.

The year is 1984. Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) is an average girl in Los Angeles, with a crappy waitress job and a ditzy, man-crazy roommate. Sarah doesn't know it yet, but she's an important woman. Her yet-to-be-conceived son John will lead the human race to victory in a nuclear war against an artificial intelligence called "Skynet" in the year 2029. It's around that time that the machines devise a plan to win the war before it begins. They send a cyborg assassin called the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) back to 1984 to kill Sarah before John is born, thus preventing him from leading the Human Resistance.

Luckily for her, the human army has discovered Skynet's scheme, sending their own soldier, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), to the past to protect her. Will the Terminator accomplish its mission, or will Reese be successful and protect Sarah and the unborn John? (Since there's two more Terminator movies, I guess the answer is obvious. Work with me, people. I'm trying to establish some drama.)

So we've got all the elements of an action/sci-fi movie. A robot from the future that likes to shoot people and blow stuff up goes back in time to shoot women named Sarah Connor and blow up stuff in 1984. What's more action and sci-fi than that? It also made Arnold a bona fide superstar. Sure, there were those Conan movies and Pumping Iron and the Mr. Universe titles, but playing a machine made him famous. Maybe you could blame James Cameron for casting him in the role that made him famous, prompting him to make movies like Batman and Robin and Jingle All the Way before becoming the governor of California. And you thought you hated James Cameron for making Titanic. Now you can hate him for having a hand in making a Austrian bodybuilder the leader of the most important state in America. (I kid, Arnold. Please don't go back in time and kill my parents. I like my parents.) Regardless of all that, this movie's a classic for good reason. We've got a love story between Reese and Sarah, explosions, Arnold being the baddest mofo ever, explosions, time travel, a shootout in a nightclub, explosions, and the line "I'll be back." Oh, and explosions. Guns too. Lots of them. What's not to love?

First off, I think the casting was great. Arnold is perfect in his role, as the heartless killing machine. It's weird knowing that O.J. Simpson was once considered for such a recognizable character, but was turned down because nobody thought he could be believable in the role. And really, does O.J. Simpson look like a killer to you? But Arnold is extremely fitting for the role. Sure, he doesn't have a lot of lines, but he doesn't need to speak to be effective. He accomplishes that by having such a dominating screen presence.

Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton are great as well. Biehn really works well as the soldier sacrificing everything to protect Sarah, while Hamilton gives off the "helpless damsel in distress" vibe that her character needed. It's unfortunate that Biehn's best scene (which is included on the DVD) was cut from the movie, because I think it could have given his character some depth. Eh, can't have everything, I guess. Brad Fiedel's score was also perfect. It sounds almost robotic, which I found to be extremely fitting. It made certain scenes (like the nightclub shootout, and the Terminator rising from the ashes of the destroyed tanker truck near the end of the movie) work extremely well, as did John Cameron's direction. His utilization of slow-motion in some scenes (like the aforementioned nightclub shootout) makes them much more effective.

Overall, I'll give the movie three and a half stars out of five. It'd have been four or maybe even five, but there's just some stuff in the movie I didn't like. The movie's low budget really shows in some parts, especially the scene where the Terminator gives itself repairs, and a shot of the skinless Terminator chasing Sarah and Reese looks a little too cheesy. Those things can be forgiven, but it's still distracting. But overall, I liked the movie, and it deserves all the praise it gets.

 Final Rating: ***½

American Psycho (2000)

Few books in recent memory have sparked as much discussion and controversy as American Psycho, written by Bret Easton Ellis. Inciting numerous protests following its initial publication in 1991 (one group called it an instruction manual for budding misogynists), it returned literary society to a day in which books were life and death, and served as more than a way to kill a few hours.

Its extreme and graphic violent and sexual content caused an uproar, many decrying it as an instruction manual for budding young murderers. Ellis's original manuscript was even denied by its initial publisher, Simon and Schuster, due to some of the company's female employees raising a stink during the editing process.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before somebody made a movie version of it. Adapted into a film by I Shot Andy Warhol director Mary Harron and screenwriting partner Guinevere Turner, American Psycho is naturally tamer than its source material, yet still manages to be a chillingly demented film.

Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) has everything a man could hope for. He's a well-to-do Wall Street power broker with more money than he knows what to do with. His fiancée Evelyn (Reese Witherspoon) is gorgeous, as is his coked-up mistress Courtney (Samantha Mathis) and his devoted secretary Jean (Chloë Sevigny). He's got designer suits in his closet and designer pharmaceuticals in his bathroom.

Bateman's entire life is based around superficial things, and like his peers and colleagues, he is fueled by a desire for more. The more he acquires, the more individuality he loses. The more individuality he loses, the less control he has over the urges that, ironically, give him his individuality. You see, Patrick Bateman likes to murder people. He doesn't care if it's a homeless person, a prostitute, a friend, someone he's just met, or even an animal, Bateman's desire to kill is insatiable. Few films can be horrific, charming, and hilarious at the same time, yet American Psycho pulls it off. A satire of the late-'80s "Reaganomics" yuppie society, the movie blends horror and dark comedy perfectly. Patrick Bateman is everything that the yuppie stereotype would lead you to believe. He is rich, self-absorbed, addicted to sex and cocaine. He and his peers are prime examples of what noted economist Thorstein Veblen referred to as "conspicuous consumption."

Outside of his murderous desires and extreme antisocial behavior, Patrick Bateman is really no different from any of his colleagues. They're just as hollow and faceless as he is. They all thrive on conforming to a materialistic, superficial mold. One scene in the film features Bateman and his friends comparing business cards prior to a meeting. Each person tries to trump the other with the details of their card, yet all the cards look exactly the same. However, Bateman goes to extreme ends to conform to the appearances and values of his peers. If the desires of his friends are comparable to those of a blood-hungry murderer, what does that say about them?

Bateman cares about nothing but status. When his fiancée suggests he quit his job, he flatly refuses. She asks why, he retorts "Because I want to fit in." However, as his murderous desires get stronger and his crimes get more frightening, his desire to be noticed becomes greater as well. He constantly brings up pointless minutiae about serial killers like Ed Gein and Ted Bundy, and randomly drops in lines such as "I like to dissect girls. Did you know that I am utterly insane?" He goes as far as to describe his job not as "mergers and acquisitions," but as "murders and executions." However, either nobody notices or nobody cares. They are completely oblivious to his admissions of guilt, like he never said anything at all. Even his blatant death threats are looked over. "I'm going to stab you and play with your blood" isn't the kind of sentence one should ignore, is it? It's like everyone is so wrapped up in themselves, that they just don't care if a serial killer is in their midst.

The cast also plays their characters fantastically. Christian Bale is absolutely wonderful. He doesn't play Patrick Bateman; he becomes Patrick Bateman. He takes the role and makes it seem real, right down to his sardonic personality and calm killer instinct. Even in the most over-the-top scenes, Bale is a believable character. If I didn't know any better, I'd truly believe that Bale was a psychotic yuppie. His calm, almost friendly demeanor despite the harsh, condescending words he speaks is almost comedic, but disconcerting as well. If I knew he wasn't completely serious, I'd almost think he was joking.

I also enjoyed Chloë Sevigny and Resse Witherspoon as Bateman's secretary and his ditsy fiancée, respectively. The rest of the cast (including Jared Leto and Willem Dafoe) are all great, as well, but the movie is all about Christian Bale. The whole movie rested on the ability of the actor playing that role, and Bale pulled it off excellently.

Like I said before, the movie's not just a horror flick, but a dark comedy as well. In one scene, the lead character goes on and on about the meaning of Huey Lewis lyrics and dances around to "Hip to Be Square" while hacking a colleague to pieces with an axe. It's one of those things where you don't know if you should laugh or be terrified.

But I doubt the comedy would have worked that well if it were not for the strength of both the cast, and the script penned by Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner. Harron and Turner's script is nothing short of brilliant. They never truly answer whether Bateman is imagining things or if he really is a murderer, but I believe that was for the best. Sometimes open endings like that can be very good, as they make for intriguing discussion topics after the credits have rolled.

Meanwhile, Harron's direction is also wonderful. Not only does it feature its own comedic take on the ear scene from Reservoir Dogs (or the "Singin' In The Rain" scene from A Clockwork Orange, if you prefer), but it features one of the weirdest, most insane chase scenes I've ever had the pleasure of viewing. You can't go wrong with that. I should also point out the brilliant bit of filmmaking that is the aforementioned "Hip to Be Square" scene. At the end, one side of Bateman's face is covered in blood, with his hair a wild, unkempt mess. The other side is spotless, and he looks like nothing happened. He almost appears to be a gore-soaked version of Batman villain Two-Face. I took this to be representative of his dual nature as a yuppie by day, and a sex-crazed psychopath by night. If that was the intention, bravo to Harron.

I also absolutely loved the music in the movie. Velvet Underground bassist John Cale gives us an excellent score, with both gorgeous pianos and haunting strings where needed. And the songs in the movie... holy cow. We've got Phil Collins (both solo and with Genesis), Huey Lewis, New Order, Robert Palmer, David Bowie, Katrina and the Waves, and an orchestral version of Whitney Houston's "The Greatest Love of All." Just listening to the music is an experience all to itself.

Quite a few reviewers who ride upon a high horse are quick to complain that a movie (and ostensibly, a novel) seen directly through the eyes of a brutal, sadistic serial killer is not something an everyday Joe should read. It'll never be featured in Oprah's book club. However, what makes no sense is that people can deride American Psycho for its misogyny and violence, yet praise movies like The Silence of the Lambs. The Silence of the Lambs is a great movie, don't get me wrong. But watching it, I saw a cannibal attempt to bite a police officer's nose off before beating another officer to death with a nightstick. There was also the man who kept women in a pit in his basement, starving them in order to "loosen their skin" so he could peel it off their body and craft a suit made from their flesh. The only real difference between American Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs is that American Psycho has a different point of view. The Silence of the Lambs has Clarice Starling serving as something of a moral high ground, yet if it had been told through the eyes of Buffalo Bill, it would perhaps have been closer in tone to American Psycho.

But if it absolutely had to be compared to another film, I'd say the movie is what would happen if Gordon Gecko from Wall Street was the main character of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Upon first glance, American Psycho may seem like the story of a conceited, boring yuppie who is only interesting when he's committing horrible acts of violence. But if viewed as the satire it really is, it can serve as a statement about the morals (or lack thereof) of a materialistic society. I think that statement still holds up today, in a society judges you by the clothes you wear, the car you drive, and the CDs you own. Go rent it with an open mind, and I think you might enjoy it.

Final Rating: ****½

They Live (1988)

In the pantheon of directors that use their films to make social commentaries, one of the most underrated is John Carpenter. While he may have gained fame from such cult classics as Halloween and Escape from New York, perhaps some of his best work comes in films where he had a statement to make. Take movies like The Thing and In the Mouth of Madness. One can view The Thing as a movie about McCarthyism, while In the Mouth of Madness can be seen as a cautionary tale about losing yourself in fantasy while reality crashes around you.

Another of these movies is They Live, a near-parody of the "Reaganomics" society of the late 1980s, where wealth ends up in the hands of a yuppie minority while the working class get poorer and poorer. While not as famous or acclaimed as some of his other films, I'm of the opinion that's it's up there as one of his best. It also marks his return to the realm of science fiction, serving as a nod to classic sci-fi movies from the 1950s, along with a dash of nihilism to boot.

As the movie begins, we're introduced to Nada (Roddy Piper), a down-on-his-luck construction worker who's just moved from Denver to Los Angeles in search of a job. Living out of a backpack he carries with him, Nada finally finds work at a construction site. But unfortunately, with no money to rent an apartment or motel room, he's forced to camp in a village of homeless people near where he works. While relaxing in the homeless neighborhood after work, Nada glances at the old, crappy television that some of his "neighbors" happen to have. It's never explained how exactly they have electricity, so I'm just gonna assume that they somehow had a generator, or patched into a utility pole. Maybe they even got an extension cord and ran it into someone's house. Just because they're homeless doesn't mean they're not resilient.

Anyway, all that's on TV are crappy fashion commercials until a pirate broadcast interrupts. A gruff middle-aged man with a beard rants off some kind of conspiracy theory, amusing Nada, who compares the rant to a similar statement that a fellow construction worker, Frank (Keith David), made earlier. When Nada notices some suspicious activity around a Presbyterian church across the street from his makeshift home, it arouses suspicions that the conspiracy ideas may actually have merit. He sneaks into the church, where he discovers a large chemistry set, and boxes of seemingly ordinary sunglasses. He takes a box, hiding it in an alley for safekeeping.

When he walks back into the street and puts on the glasses, he makes a discovery that he was never prepared for. Street signs, billboards, and magazines contain subliminal messages like "Obey," "Conform," "No Independent Thought," and "Do Not Question Authority." Money contains the message "This Is Your God."

But it's not until he bumps into a man at a magazine rack that he discovers that he can see the true face of humanity. The wealthy and important are actually aliens that are keeping humans ignorant to their plan of planetary domination through subliminal messages and hypnotism. And by God, Nada's gonna bring 'em down.

Up until the discovery of the sunglasses, the movie's atmosphere is unusual, and is relatively slow. It seems like Carpenter is making an attempt to make a bland, preachy movie about the poor and downtrodden of society. But after ol' Rowdy Roddy finds the glasses (which makes everything look black-and-white, by the way), the movie gets crazy-go-nuts. I think the only other guys that would have worked in the lead role would maybe be Bruce Campbell or Kurt Russell, but I think Roddy does what he does with excellence. His pro wrestling background helped him a lot, as he was super-intense without even looking like he was upset. Besides, I don't believe that Bruce Campbell or Kurt Russell could have made a five-minute street fight look good, nor deliver some of Nada's great dialogue. I don't know who else could storm into a bank with a shotgun and declare "I am here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubble gum" with a straight face. And while there are good performances from Keith David, Meg Foster, and George "Buck" Flower, they're all overshadowed by Roddy Piper. The movie is all his.

The movie's script is great, though its source material helped it a great deal. Based on Ray Nelson's 1963 short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning," They Live could be looked at as being The Matrix (i.e. a man discovers that the world he knows isn't what he thinks) with a smaller budget and less emphasis on flashy, over-gaudy special effects. Carpenter also proves that he can be a master storyteller when he chooses to. With a lesser director, the movie probably would have come off as silly, or unintentionally hammy, but with Carpenter, the movie remains intriguing and suspenseful. I also liked the fact that whenever the hypnotic waves of the aliens' TV broadcasts were interrupted by the pirated broadcasts, those watching got headaches. That was a pretty creepy touch that I never really see anyone mention when they talk about the movie.

Like with the majority of his movies, Carpenter also did the score for the movie. Despite not being as good as some of his other film scores (Halloween and In the Mouth of Madness stand out in my mind), this one is certainly fitting, especially in the beginning. It sounds like music you'd hear in a seedy blues bar, which helped make the characters seem even more down on their luck. If there's one thing I like, it's fitting movie scores.

Combining sci-fi and action, a cool hero, an unusual narrative, and just a ton of entertainment, They Live is one of John Carpenter's most entertaining movies. It's deserving of far more recognition than the occasional broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel or Halloween movie marathons. If you have yet to see it, check it out.

Final Rating: ****