John Carpenter traces the social injustices in contemporary America to a plot among extraterrestrials to place themselves and their human toadies into positions of power and to hold down the rest of us through subliminally induced addictions to television, consumerism, and associated vices. There is nothing very original in all this, mixing as it does elements of 1984 and its kin with elements of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and its kin. But there is no harm in the unoriginality, and there is even some charm in its frank rudimentariness: "Flight Alpha-Seven to Andromeda is now ready for boarding." There is plenty of rhetorical rightness, too, in translating man's inhumanity into man's non-humanity. But the basic plot premise is very slow off the mark, and, once off it, is still weighted down by Carpenter's flabby wide-screen images and monotonous background music. What's worse, the catalyst to get off that mark -- and ironically the one original gimmick in the movie -- propels the action out of the realm of science fiction and into the overpermissive fantasyland of Pixie Dust and magic wands: namely, a cardboard carton of special sunglasses that enable the wearer to read the invisible ink printed on billboards and newspapers all around us ("Submit," "No Thought," "Obey," etc.) and to see through the human flesh to the metal-faced, insect-eyed aliens concealed underneath. When the hero wisecracks to an alien interrogator that he got his pair from the Tooth Fairy, he's all too near to telling the truth. With Roddy Piper, Keith David, and Meg Foster. (1988) — Duncan Shepherd