Mars Attacks! Character Name: Taffy Dale Go back Reviews From James Berardinelli's Film Reviews Mars Attacks! - 2 out of 4 stars United States, 1996 U.S. Release Date: 12/13/96 (wide) Running Length: 1:47 MPAA Classification: PG-13 (Martian gore, violence) Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Cast: Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Jessica Parker, Martin Short, Jim Brown, Pam Grier, Michael J. Fox, Danny DeVito, Lukas Haas, Sylvia Sidney, Rod Steiger, Paul Winfield, Natalie Portman, Tom Jones, Joe Don Baker Director: Tim Burton Producers: Tim Burton and Larry Franco Screenplay: Jonathan Gems Cinematography: Peter Suschitzky Music: Danny Elfman U.S. Distributor: Warner Brothers What do you get if you use Tim Burton, the inspired and irreverent director of Batman and Ed Wood, to combine an invasion force of bug- eyed, big-brained Martians, a star-studded cast featuring some of the biggest names in Hollywood, and a huge special effects budget? Sadly, one of 1996's most disappointing motion pictures. Mars Attacks!, Burton's half-satire/half-homage to '50s B-movies, is a stillborn affair that could have been -- and should have been -- a whole lot hipper and funnier. If you've seen the two- minute theatrical trailer, you've seen nearly everything that's worthwhile in the feature. Mars Attacks! depicts a Martian invasion of three parts of the United States: Washington D.C., Las Vegas, and the plains of Kansas. Along the way, we meet a gallery of underdeveloped (or, in many cases, completely undeveloped) would-be-characters. In Washington, there's President James Dale (Jack Nicholson), his wife, Martha (Glenn Close), and his daughter, Taffy (Natalie Portman). In the face of the attack, the Commander-in-Chief is not-so-ably assisted by a bumbling staff, which includes a sex-obsessed speech writer (Martin Short), a "nuke-em-now" general (Rod Steiger) and his peace-loving counterpart (Paul Winfield), and a clueless scientist (Pierce Brosnan) who knows nothing but says a lot. Meanwhile, in Vegas, the Martians encounter real estate mogul Art Land (Nicholson), his alcoholic-turned-spiritualist wife, Barbara (Annette Bening), a rude gambler (Danny DeVito) who could care less about the invasion, a former heavyweight champion (Jim Brown) trying to get back together with his wife (Pam Grier), and the irrepressible singer, Tom Jones (himself). In Kansas, we're introduced to a smaller group: teenager Richie Norris (Lucas Haas), his daffy grandmother (Sylvia Sidney), and his gun-loving father (Joe Don Baker). Finally, there are the two New York-based reporters who cover the Martian situation: hair-obsessed Jason Stone (Michael J. Fox) and his vacuous girlfriend, Natalie West (Sarah Jessica Parker). With such a mammoth cast, it's not surprising that only a few actors get more than token attention. Even Glenn Close, who is billed second, has a total of ten minutes of screen time and only a handful of lines (memorizing dialogue must have been exceptionally undemanding). Jack Nicholson, who has by far the most number of scenes, splits his time between two personas, halving (rather than doubling) his effectiveness. There's absolutely nothing in any of these characters for an audience to latch on to. There are a few nicely-executed comic performances. Natalie Portman gives us a bored First Daughter who has perhaps the best line (taken in context) in the entire movie ("I guess it wasn't the bird"). Rod Steiger effectively emulates George C. Scott's war-mongering General Turgidson from Dr. Strangelove. Pierce Brosnan and Sarah Jessica Parker make for a fun-but-brainless (or maybe that should be "body-less") pair. And Jim Brown does a fine job playing off of his Blaxploitation image by punching out aliens left and right. Mars Attacks! contains a number of genuinely funny moments that occur both through the dialogue and as a result of the visual approach (there's a Godzilla cameo, the "bowling over" of Stonehenge, and a sequence where the Martians toy with the Washington Monument before toppling it). Unfortunately, too many attempts at comedy don't succeed, creating long stretches between laughs. Another problem is that, on more than one occasion, when Burton finds a gag that works, he overuses it. And, instead of going for truly corrosive, Dr. Strangelove-type satire, the focus is on less-vicious, more obvious forms of mocking. In addition to its other faults, Mars Attacks! is not well-edited. In fact, there are portions that border on incoherent. The movie lurches disjointedly from scene-to-scene as the tone careens from turgid to fast-paced. Plot doesn't really matter, which is a good thing. Burton has used a 1962 Topps trading card series as his inspiration, combining War of the Worlds-like Martians with images and scenarios familiar from bad 1950s alien invasion flicks. Many of the special effects (especially those involving flying saucers and mass destruction) have an intentionally cheesy edge, and Danny Elfman's score contains throwback elements. The overall problem is that the idea of Mars Attacks! works a lot better on paper than in practice. A word has to be said about the relationship between Mars Attacks! and this summer's phenomenally successful Independence Day. Although the two films were developed separately and during the same time frame, the temptation exists to say that this film is satirizing the earlier blockbuster. While that's not the case, Mars Attacks! does lampoon the genre that spawned ID4. Of course, that won't prevent the Warner Brothers marketing department from connecting the two. I was anticipating a lot from Mars Attacks!, but what I got was a shell of my expectations. There are too many characters, too little story, and too much unfunny and repetitious material. The first half is painfully slow, forcing us to suffer through the needlessly laborious exercise of meeting and learning something about each of the characters. Despite Burton's effort and ingenuity, there's never an effective comic or sci-fi payoff. From time-to-time, Mars Attacks! gives us tantalizing glimpses of brilliance, but those moments only illustrate how flawed and unsatisfactory the rest of the film is. © 1996 James Berardinelli

From Entertainment Weekly OUR FAVORITE MARTIANS TIM BURTON GETS JOYFULLY SPACED IN 'MARS ATTACKS' Review by Owen Gleiberman In Tim Burton's MARS ATTACKS! (Warner Bros., PG-13), a silver flying saucer, just like the ones that menaced American moviegoers in the 1950s, shoots out its crablike legs and touches down in the Nevada desert. Out strolls a crew of Martian soldiers, each with a grinning skull face, giant exposed brain lobes, and glowering white eyes that dance around like overexcited cue balls. (Think Michael Jackson in about 25 years.) "We come in peace!" announces their leader (that is, once his statement is translated from what sounds to human ears like "Ack ack ack!"). The citizens gathered in the desert break into a collective grin of exhilaration. But the joke's on them. Within moments the "friendly" Martians have whipped out their incinerator guns and are gleefully irradiating everyone in sight. Take that, earthlings! Mars Attacks! may be the first sci-fi disaster movie that's also an impish black-comedy prank. In Burton's giddily satiric epic, alien invaders want to destroy the planet, but it wouldn't be right to say they're aiming for world domination; they're more like demonic jesters out for a cosmic giggle. And Burton, the maniacal pop fantasist, is on their side. His Martians have a rude, palm-buzzer spirit that makes them successors to such Burton clown-devils as the Joker in Batman or the grimy ghost in Beetlejuice. Mars Attacks! is based on a series of Topps bubble-gum cards from the 1960s, and it's a true bubble-gum movie--it has no agenda but to delight you with one eye-popping malicious jape after another. Burton affectionately skewers the schlock of two eras: the space-invader fantasies of the '50s, with their solemnly paranoid anxiety, and the let's-kick-alien-butt jingoism of Independence Day. The very form of Mars Attacks! is a swipe at ID4, with Burton setting up a cheeky cross section of '90s America--glib reporter (Michael J. Fox), New Age 12-stepper (Annette Bening), trailer-home redneck (Joe Don Baker), unctuous chief executive (Jack Nicholson), Vegas sleazebag (Nicholson again). But the comic-strip collage lacks zing; if anything, it's as flat as the one it's parodying. Turning his sardonic gleam on "normal" America, Burton, it's clear, has no investment in these characters, and so we don't either. Still, if Mars Attacks! is more depersonalized than Burton's other work (it takes a good 45 minutes to get going), that just means it generates a lighter form of laughing gas. Burton stages the destruction of the world as lyrically surreal spectacle. Even when the special effects are a parody of '50s cheesiness, they have a funky, ramshackle beauty--the wonder of a puppet show that almost looks real. Cackling away in their spaceship, the Martians graft the head of a dim blond talk-show host (Sarah Jessica Parker) onto her pet Chihuahua. By the time they've begun using the Easter Island statues as bowling pins, the film has escalated into full Burtonian madness. We realize he's making up the rules of destruction as he goes along, using his trip-wire wit to undercut the self-importance of the blockbuster form itself. In its nothing's-quite-at-stake way, Mars Attacks! has Tim Burton's flaked-out spirit--it makes you feel like a very knowing 8-year-old, seeing through the artifice yet believing in it at the same time. B+

From Rod's Movie Reviews Right. I'm a big Tim Burton fan. Either you get Tim Burton films or you don't. I do, I loved this film. Basically it's a B-movie, the sort that Ed Wood would've made. Aliens from Mars attack earth (strangely enough), then say they come in peace, but the truth is THEY DON'T!!! It's gotta host of stars...Jack Nicholson, Michael J Fox, Glenn Close, Pierce Brosnan.....and TOM JONES (it's not unusual to be loved by anyone....it's not unusual to have fun with anyone...) And to think Independence Day was serious when it came up with much the same plot....this is miles better, and very funny. Silly, a bit slow to start off with, but a damned fine film. 7.5 out of 10 (Odran Doherty) Sorry to disagree Odran, but this was pants. Yes it's got loads of big name stars (and Michael J Fox as well) but at no point are they called upon to do anything remotely resembling acting. This is basically a one-joke movie (50's kitsch sci-fi taken to the extreme) to indulge the supposed creative talents of Tim Burton. However as with most Burton films it's simply a case of style over content as a distinct lack of anything substantial is covered over with quirky visuals. Boring boring boring. 4 out of 10 (Rod Irvine) Go back

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