ALIEN NATION (1988)

Buddy cop movies were all the rage in the 1980’s.  Back in 1988, the police couldn’t even throw an innocent minority (then plant drugs on them and falsely accuse them of a crime) without hitting an aspiring screenwriter trying to come up with a fresh take on the already over-saturated genre. At the same time, alien films are always popular, so, it’s not surprising that somebody decided to mash-up the two genres. Unfortunately, that endlessly promising mash-up idea ended up being the tremendously average ALIEN NATION.

The story, two LAPD homicide detectives (one alien, one human) conducting a murder investigation, has potential to be interesting, but it's not.  Not even close.  First off, the murder itself isn't very intriguing: the victim was shot to death during a botched convenience store robbery.  Yawn.  Secondly, there's very little backstory about the aliens or their technology: they were originally slave laborers on their home planet, they escaped and landed on Earth three years ago.  So, has mankind used the technology found on that spaceship to advance our own technology in the last three years?  Damn sure doesn't look like it.  Is the home planet still there?  Is there anybody hunting these migrants?  Thirdly, the aliens are boring!  They literally look just like humans except with a spotty bald head.  They act like humans, dress like humans, do all kinds of normal human stuff.  I mean the only real differences are they like different foods, their organs are arranged differently and they hate salt water because it is like an acid and will melt them.  Which brings us to the next subject...the big reveal is if the aliens take this certain alien drug it will give them above average strength to the point they have to be shot like 15 times to die.  Okay whatever, but they are still susceptible to salt water, so why not just fight the roided out aliens with salt water guns in addition to high-powered automatic rifles?  It's not like the drug turns them bulletproof or something!  I don't know, maybe I'm just overthinking the entire thing because I was so goddamn bored.

Average acting, unimaginative story, underutilized Los Angeles setting, boring action scenes, lame chase scene, hammy dialogue, zero nudity, zero blood, zero gore, heavy-handed message that goes nowhere, disappointing ending.  As far as eunuchly amazeballs buddy cop / immigration allegory films go, ALIEN NATION is a solid 5/10.  It's just entertaining enough to keep you watching the entire film and just disappointing enough that once the movie is over, you wish you had taken a power nap instead.  Skip it.

If you need me, I'll be in my room writing a fan fiction story about Dirty Harry being teamed up with Willie from V and Willie doing Freddy Krueger cosplay on the weekends.

Part 2 - Alien Nation: Dark Horizon (1994)
Part 3 - Alien Nation: Body and Soul (1995)
Part 4 - Alien Nation: Millennium (1996)
Part 5 - Alien Nation: The Enemy Within (1996)
Part 6 - Alien Nation: The Udara Legacy (1997)

THEY LIVE (1988)

"They are dismantling the sleeping middle class. More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery."

Los Angeles, California.  A homeless guy (who somehow still manages to consume enough protein and steroids to look like pro wrestler Roddy Piper) finds a pair of sunglasses that reveal that the entire world is actually full of subliminal messages instructing the mindless masses to Consume, Obey, Conform and stuff like that.  They also reveal that some people (mostly those in power) are actually funky-looking aliens with faces that look like they "fell in the cheese dip back in 1957."  Now a level-headed person, if placed in the same situation, would probably keep this to themselves and investigate the situation for awhile, but no...not this guy.  Careful contemplation is not his style.  Within a few minutes of his discovery, he's yelling "...formaldehyde-face!" at a woman in a store and then straight up murdering aliens in a bank with a shotgun.  Naturally, this puts him on the aliens most wanted list.

For an older sci-fi film, THEY LIVE is still entertaining.  It's definitely watchable...medium pace, okay special effects, mediocre acting, a few memorable quotes ("I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass.  And I'm all out of bubble gum." being the most famous), a ridiculously long fight scene between the two leads (that had me rolling with laughter as a kid), brief topless scene, cool Los Angeles locations...but revisiting the film nowadays, THEY LIVE hasn't aged well.  And not all of it is the fault of the film itself.  The story, which is just a thinly veiled attack on Reaganomics, now comes off as simplistic and honestly depressing.  A few other things are...(1) there's simply not enough to the story itself, it could have easily been trimmed down to fit into an anthology collection or television show.  Or even better, beefed up to fill the entire 94-minute runtime.  (2) the ending is too abrupt and not satisfying.  (3) Roddy Piper.  He does an alright job, but his role would have been better filled by Kurt Russell.  Then again, this is all just my worthless opinion.

That said, THEY LIVE might be a little too cheesy for its own good, but it's still a fun 1980's John Carpenter outing and totally worth checking out. At this point, I'd enjoy seeing a serious remake. Maybe even one where the glasses aren't real and the main character is just insane.

Question (that's not part of the review): The nods to GHOSTBUSTERS and THE MONOLITH MONSTERS are obvious, but is the Uneeda Biscuit box in the hotel room a nod to Uneeda Medical Supply in THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD?

Question 2: Is that old dude in the hotel lobby the same guy from Metallica's "Enter Sandman" video?  That video was filmed only three years later in Los Angeles.