Since science fiction is about the future, a place we'd all like to get to somehow, be it via lightning-powered machines or by the regular day-by-day kind of time travel, you would think we'd be interested in seeing visions of it that'd be fun to live in.

The key flaw there is stories about the future are by definition happening to other people--and there's nothing we like more than watching other people suffer. Even better when it's the whole world getting ground down by the Great Heavy Boot of Unfunnery, like in 1988's They Live

Roddy Piper is an honest man looking for honest work. Right until he stumbles on an alien conspiracy. Hidden from view, controlling us with subliminal messages, these foreign invaders own everything around us--and the only ones who can stop them are Piper and a small group of renegades who use special sunglasses to see through their lies.

Most movies would totally drop the ball on a premise like that, but writer/director John Carpenter pushes it as far as it'll go. Once Piper starts being able to see the secret messages, he sees billboards telling us to "Obey," "Consume," to "Marry and Reproduce." Money's printed with "This Is Your God." Subtle? Like a screaming pink elephant, but subtlety is not what They Live is about.

That extends to more than its politics and gonzo media satire. Above all else, including a certain immortal line about a lack of bubblegum, They Live is famous for its goliath fight scene.

It's got lots of fights, but I'm talking about the fight. The one where Piper and Keith David, his buddy from the construction yard, whale hell out of each other in an alley for over five straight minutes. The one with the eye-gouging and hair-pulling and the body slams. By the end their faces are so ground-up you could serve them between a Big Mac bun. There's no kung fu choreography here, just two huge dudes punching each other until they fall down. And then fall down again. About ten more times.

All that wild action only comes after Carpenter uses a repetitive but creepy score and a brooding, dialogue-light first act to build an atmosphere of weirdness and impending chaos. Remember, it's only paranoid if it's an unreasonable fear.

They Live is a fine sci-fi action flick that's also a booming class-war broadside. Why don't we see more movies like this? If you answered "Because our alien overlords won't let us," I'll see you in the obituaries next week.