Mars Attacks! (1996)
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Mars Attacks! Movie Review
Mars Attacks! is a 1996 science fiction comedy film directed by Tim Burton and with a huge ensemble cast. It’s a somewhat underrated, okay movie which is silly, but fun.
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“The Nancy Reagan chandelier!“
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This film is basically a parody of 50s science fiction B-movies so it should not be taken seriously. It’s a fun, spirited parody which makes fun of those films, but also embraces them and I really liked that mix personally. The humor should have been better, but I was amused a couple of times, especially during the film’s more weird scenes. It truly is a weird, very goofy and campy movie for better and for worse.
It has an enormous celebrity cast. I liked seeing all those famous actors and actresses, but it was still too much, mainly because the film’s overpopulation with characters is never earned owing to its quite short runtime of an hour and a half basically. Thus the characters mostly went underdeveloped and especially underutilized.
Jack Nicholson is one of the best parts of this movie acting wise. He plays two characters and the goofy one is unnecessary, but the president is quite memorable for sure. Glenn Close is underutilized, but Pierce Brosnan and Sarah Jessica Parker are an endearing couple. All of the others such as Jack Black in a very early role for him, Michael J. Fox in a weirdly serious role and Natalie Portman who’s quite amusing are highly underwhelming as they appear way too little in the movie.
Mars Attacks! features silly special effects which are very dated. I do wonder why the director went with the CGI because this was obviously more fitting of a puppetry route and it would have been much better that way. The CGI on the aliens is fun and they look positively silly, but still the film thus showed its age way too much.
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The score is pretty good as are the sound effects, especially of the Martians’ funny duck speech. I did like some of the humor, but most of the film ended up being too weird for its own sake and way too campy. Even though I really liked the build-up and the entire first half, the second half was an action overkill for me and I quickly lost interest. The movie surely has no point to it whatsoever, but it’s definitely hugely entertaining and thus I do not deem it Burton’s worst movie.
Mars Attacks! is a very silly, goofy and campy movie for better and for worse. It has no point to it whatsoever, but it’s positively energetic and simply very entertaining. It has way too many characters and famous actors playing them for its short runtime, but some of them are still memorable. The sound effects are good, but the special effects are dated. Overall, it’s an okay film for what it is and far from Burton’s worst movie.
