MARS ATTACKS!
A film review by Enrique Conty
Copyright 1996 Enrique Conty
At one point in Mars Attacks!, director Tim Burton decided to use 1970's B-movie stock footage to show crowds running away from the Martian onslaught. It was at this point that I knew the movie had its heart in the right place.
Mars Attacks! is based on the notorious 1950's trading card set from Topps. Said card set depicted an invasion of Earth (well, mostly the US) by aliens from the red planet, who are eventually beaten by humanity (well, mostly red-blooded American men). The cards lurid illustrations depicting things like a Martian incinerating a dog as its young owner watches in horror were considered too extreme for their time, so the card set was removed from the market shortly thereafter. Through the decades (maybe because of the controversy?), the Mars Attacks! cards have become an icon of counterculture Americana, like the B-grade sci-fi films of the era and "gentlemen's magazine" model Betty Page. Given Tim Burton's penchant for wonderfully grotesque humor and the same "cheesy is good" sensibility that made shows like Mystery Science Theater 3000 so popular, it was natural that he eventually would get around to try his hand at some sort of B-movie spoof.
In Mars Attacks!, bug-eyed little green men from the rocky red planet board their shiny flying saucers, and come to Earth under the guise of peace, but their sinister intentions are revealed as they pull out their bright primary-colors disintegrator pistols and start shooting death rays at everything that moves. Yes, there is a certain sense of *innocence* to the Martians, who carry on with child-like glee as they play gruesome practical jokes and generally have fun blowing up things. At the same time, one wants to keep seeing them go through their antics, and be soundly defeated (they're *evil* martians, after all). It's a strange and quirky brew, certainly not suitable for everyone. But if you're the kind of person who can find the humor in a scene where the martians topple the Washington Monument and push it around juuuust right so it lands on top of a Boy Scout troop trying to run away, you'll find Mars Attacks! a rewarding experience.
Like a disaster movie, the story has *4* major arcs, and plenty of "hey, I know that actor!" faces in the cast: - Two vacuous TV reporters from NYC cover the aliens' arrival. - A redneck family from Kansas whose older son is on "Martian detail" at the Martian landing site in Pahrump, Nevada (an actual place!). - A motley cast of Las Vegas wheelers and dealers (including Tom Jones as himself) flee the martian troops. - The President Of The United States and various cabinet members deal with the situation (including Pierce Brosnan as a perfectly dashing and smarmy Science Advisor). This is the movie's fatal flaw: there is just too much stuff going on in the movie, and too much time wasted introducing the large cast. I'd have cut 1/4th of the movie's cast, and tightened up the pace of their introduction: most of them are eventually going to be vaporized, crushed, clobbered, stabbed, mutilated, defenestrated, and otherwise disposed of anyway. Bring the martians on, they're the true stars of Mars Attacks!.
Don't get me wrong, though: I enjoyed Mars Attacks! quite a bit, and many of my sci-fi fan friends absolutely loved it. But, again, it's not for everyone.
-- Enrique Conty | conty@cig.mot.com | http://www.mcs.net/~conty Come to Anime Central, the Midwest's Best Anime Convention! April 3-5 1998, Holiday Inn O'Hare, Rosemont, IL. (A suburb of Chicago) Visit our website at http://www.mcs.net/~docangst/3w/ac/
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