Customer Reviews

Mars Attacks!

5 star:		(109)
4 star:		(75)
3 star:		(31)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(40)

 

 

Hollywood has made movies from books, TV shows, even other movies. However, "Mars Attacks" may be the first time a movie was made from a trading card.

Back in the late 1960s, Topps Cards created a line of Mars Attacks trading cards. However, these cards were pulled off the shelves after only a few months because the aliens depicted on them were considered to be too gruesome. My, how times have changed.

Director Tim Burton has taken those old trading cards and recreated them into this Sci-Fi B-movie throwback. In the process, he has created a movie that is pure, guiltless fun.

"Mars Attacks" also benefits from an all-star cast, including Jack Nicholson (in a dual-role), Michael J. Fox, Sarah Jessica Parker, Pierce Brosnan, Martin Short, Danny Devito, Glenn Close, Natalie Portman, Tom Jones, Annette Bening, Lukas Haas, Jim Brown, and many others. The fact that you get to watch the aliens disentegrate (and otherwise kill) many of these stars only adds to the fun. Unfortunately, Tom Jones wasn't one of those unlucky stars. Maybe someday a sequel will be made that will rectify that. :)

Oh yeah........ did I happen to mention that Congress gets vaporized? This proves that the Martians aren't all bad!

The DVD comes with many extras, including quite a few production notes that helps you to understand how the movie came to be. This is one movie that you will want to see over and over again (especially anytime that Congress is getting on your nerves).

Having spent an hour or so reading every review of this movie on the site, I have come to the conclusion that most of the people who did not like it, were simply not bright enough to "get it". Most of the humor in this movie is sophisticated satire and irony. i.e. - you need a brain to understand what the joke is. Unfortunately it seems that that leaves about 70% of the population out in the cold sort of speak.

Also, a lot of the reviewers here trash the acting and imply that the big name actors were "only in it for the money", yet are unaware of the fact that most of those "big stars" clamored to be in this movie at lower pay scales than they are used to. Then they go on about how 2 dimensional or "broad" the acting is. Well, ..Duhhh! It's a cartoonish satirical comedy based on a series of bubblegum cards. It's *meant* to be that way.

Finaly, a lot of those who hate this movie compare it unfavorably to (their favorites), ID4 or Armageddon or some such trash as that.

Nuff said.

Tim Burton outdoes himself with this silly, but funny, spoof of 1950s flying saucer/alien invasion movies. It is absolutely zany and quite funny. There is also nothing politically correct about it, as there are no sacred cows. The film is totally irreverent of American culture and icons. Everything and everyone is fair game.

Martians have come to Earth, and they do not come in peace. Diabolical and deadly, they are bent on wreaking havoc wherever they go with their death ray guns, which serve to incinerate living beings. These bulbous headed martians with their own brand of deadly humour are hell bent on destroying Earth, while laughing and cackling maniacally.

The special effects are meant to to be reminiscent of those found in 1950s UFO flicks and in this it certainly succeeds. The cast is stellar with Jack Nicholson playing dual roles, that of President James Dale and that of entrepreneur Art Dale. Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Rod Steiger, Jim Brown, Natalie Portman, Sylvia Sydney, Paul Winfield, Pam Grier, Lisa Marie, Christine Applegate, Lukas Haas, and Tom Jones round out the star studded cast. With tongue in cheek performances, the viewer is bound to get a good laugh out of this film.

A wonderful pastiche on the campy and cheesy B-grade sci-fi movies of the 50's and 60's, MARS ATTACKS! features a pin-sharp script and a star-studded cast.

Heading the lineup are Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening and Pierce Brosnan, but there is also the game support of Danny DeVito, Sarah Jessica Parker, Lukas Haas, Natalie Portman, Rod Steiger, Martin Short, Michael J. Fox, Lisa Marie, Tom Jones and the veteran Sylvia Sidney.

The whole plot is, of course, Mars attacking Earth after a seemingly bungled translation job. The President and First Lady (played by Nicholson and Close with aplomb) and their young daughter Taffy (Natalie Portman) are taken seige in the White House when the aliens nuke the entire House of Congress.

The key to the alien's downfall belongs to the senile yet lovable old Grandma Norris (Sylvia Sidney). I won't spoil the surprise for those who have yet to see this hilarious film.

A fantastic DVD transfer is given here, with a fair few extra features.

First off, I understand that a movie review is subjective. This is just my opinion. If you disagree, more power to you. Roger Ebert called Gene Siskel a no talent hack on several occasions when their opinions were at odds. For heavens sake! It's just a movie. Tastes vary.

So anyway, I love this movie. It's technically very well done from the computer generated Martians to the battle scenes. It has a ton of big name stars and the performances are pretty good. It takes a quirky, satirical shot at those awful alien invasion movies of the 50s. And it gores a lot of sacred cows, like liberals who expect an alien race to share their belief system ... The military mind who's solution is nuke first and ask questions later ... A president who's decisions are based on how they'll play on TV ... The lawyer who thinks even Martians can be bought ... The trailer trash family who see their humanitarian son as a failure ... The TV news reporter who's hair style is the most important part of any story ... and, well, I could go on but you get the picture.

And to top it off, the Martians are defeated in a more believable way that those of Independence Day: A software virus written by one man in a few days to infect a computer of alien technology?!! Give me a break! Earth was pretty lucky that aliens program in C and port to RS-232.

Mars Attacks is a guilty pleasure I'm not even guilty about.

There is nothing serious about this film. It is satire all the way and it is very good satire which takes potshots at all sorts of institutions.

The story is as simple as an old B/W science fiction movie. Earth is being invaded by Martians with superior techology and little reguard for eathlings. Instead of being an "end of the world" type picture, however, it is comedy. It is comdedic because there is a grain of truth in the elements used for the comedy:

The President is worried more about poll numbers on reactions to the Martians than about invasion.

The first lady is worried more about interior decorating than advancing ray guns.

The egghead professor manages to be wrong about just about everything he speaks of.

Reporters are shallow and vain.

The military just wants to play with its toys.

Bad music can be a deadly influence.

New Age people haven't a clue as to the real world.

Teenagers often have a better handle on things than the grownups.

It's enough to make you root for the Martians. This one is fun, irreverant and a feast of oddball ideas. What else could be expected from Tim Burton?

The first time I saw this movie, I thought it was a big dissappointment. Then I started to think about it. Usually, when I dislike something for no reason that I can really put my finger on, it is because it has challenged my expectations in some way. For this reason, I like to re-examine my feelings about those things. And often, after reflection, I realize what it is that disturbs me, and I realize why the thing that I hate addresses that, and often it makes me enjoy the thing I "Hated" more.

This movie is like that. One of the things that bothered me so much was the lack of reason for the alien attack, and their resulting brutality. A little after I watched the movie, I found out why this is so, while reading a book "Lies My Teacher Told Me," which related the following tale concerning Columbus:

In 1492, Colomubus landed in what is now the Dominican Republic. He got off of the boat, and read a short proclimation that said (essentially,) "I am taking this place over, you must now immediatly renounce your pagan gods, convert to Christianity, claim Isabella of Spain as your ruler, or I will make you slaves, and you will work until you die, and I will not be held responsible for your souls." Columbus read this proclimation in Spanish, which of course, none of the native people of the Dominican Republic could understand. They greeted him with a huge party, and Columbus proceeded to decimate the natives. The Spaniards forced the Indians to work, and rode on their backs rather than walk from place to place. Does this not strike you as ridiculous? The same kind of mindless destruction for the sake of destruction that the movie portrays?

What disturbed me about the movie was it's quiet censure of our society, our modern world, our own arrogance. In this movie we get our comeuppance, and it is delivered with the same heartless passion that our uncivilized ancestors imposed on the indigenous populations. There is no why or how, there is only the relentless onslaught of a technologically superior race that finds glee in our destruction, who no doubt, intend to usurp our world.

In the War of the Worlds, we are saved by Influenza, in real life, Influenza and small pox, brought by Euroopeans, decimated indigenous populations. Wells original parallel was intended to be a subtle irony, a tribute to our tiniest, and most unobtrusive weapon.

Here we are saved by Slim Whitman's "Indian Love Call," an outrageous twist, but not one without it's irony. Whitman wrote the song as an appeal to the romanticization of the American Indian that occurred in the late 50's. It bears no real ties to native american lore or tradition, other than it's name. It is a romantic view of a past that never happened, our "plasticization" of the very people we've killed. Isn't it odd that we would be saved by a cheesy lounge song written about a people we killed with smallpox and war, while we are being decimated with no hope of survival, in much the same manner? Its doubly ironic that something so insidious, both in sound, and concept, should turn out to be invariably fatal to our invaders. Our bad taste killed them.

I might suggest to those that are easily angered when their expectations of an "Independance Day" style romp are foiled, that they examine their dissappointment and ask themselves, "why did this bother me so much?" When you do, you'll often find that you are being challenged to think or look at a thing in another light by your brain, which is often smarter than you might think.

"I want the people to know that they still have two of three branches of the government working for them"

Check your mind at the door on this one folks. It's a fun B-Grade Sci-Fi movie reminiscent of the B-Grade Sci-Fi from the '50's and '60's but the plot is thinner than rice paper. What do you expect from a movie that is based on the subject matter from a series of Topps trading cards made in the late '50's early '60's with a brief comeback and reprints in the late '80's. What? You want a review? OK, then why didn't you say so.

The basic plot, which is almost all of the plot, is the Martians attempt to conquer Earth, but ultimately fail of course. Jack Nicholson has dual roles as a Vegas Hotel/Casino Owner and the President of the United States in an attempt to make the movie more than just an old worn out B-Movie. That brings up a thought... If movie studios had the multi-million dollar budgets in the 1950's & '60's that they now have today, there wouldn't have been as many B-Grade Sci-fi movies produced, but I digress.

Despite the fact that this is a "low budget" movie with a big budget and stars like Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Michael J. Fox, Sarah Jessica Parker and Pierce Bronson, and a super thin plot, it is very enjoyable. It has some rather humorous moments, I won't spoil them, but if you decide to watch this DVD see how the Martians destroy Easter Island.

I enjoyed this film more than I expected and I knew that I would at least kinda like it, so my expectations were surpassed. As I said at the beginning this is a film where if you turn off your mind you enjoy it ten times more than if you think through it. A prime example of this is the way Earth is saved from the Martians. If your thinking through the movie, you'll wonder how did a kid in the Arizona dessert get the word about his Ultimate weapon spread across the world so quickly, with out telling anybody about it? Did everybody in the entire world come up with the very same idea at the same idea? I think not, that is one of the reasons I turned my mind off on this one.

Technically, from a consumer's point of view, I didn't like the way the menu is controlled, I'm not exactly sure why but I just didn't. I thought the saucer theme was cute but kind of boring, I think they could have spent some more time on the menu and had the Martians do things; for example, when you choose something to view a Martian would shoot that particular flying saucer, making it explode and then the screen would fade into what you wanted. I also hate the cardboard/plastic "Clamshell" box, I've never been a fan of those.

Now onto the Technical Gobble-de-gunk of this review.

The extra stuff is:
Interactive Menus
Production notes
Scene Access
English, French and Spanish Languages and Subtitles
Two Trailers
Anamorphic transfer on one side, pan and scan on the other
Alternate Music Only audio

I would recommend this movie to Sci-Fi fans, People who had "Mars Attacks!" cards as kids, and folks who enjoy mindless entertainment and don't need to analyze every little detail of what they are watching. I guess that means Trekkies wouldn't like this movie much.

The Picture was very good, very little disappointment there, and the sound was OK nothing unusual, although on my system it sounded weird at points, but that is just my particular set up. So... I Give Mars Attacks a 4 for Picture and a 3 for Sound.

So many people don't seem to get the joke. The movie is purposely cheezy, that is why much of it takes place in Las Vegas. I love watching the Mexican mariachi band play the national anthem ath the end. This movie is side-splitting.

While searching for Pierce Brosnan films, I ran into one of my best friends who suggested this movie. He never lets me down and knows my taste (besides that he realizes I like Pierce for his looks). This movie is hysterical! What a fantastic spoof on Sci-fi! The imaginative thoughts of Tim Burton is so clear in this 1996 film! The plot is a little weak, hence the 4 not 5 stars. It's basically about Martians that come to earth supposedly in peace, but cultural misunderstandings take place and this sets the mood for the movie. The Martians kidnap and lazer attack some earthlings while they were here visiting. However, they couldn't kill Pierce Brosnan (who would want that handsome head dead)? WHAT A CAST! There are so many headliners in here it is hard to name them all. Jack Nicholson, Pierce Brosnan, Glenn Close, Annette Benning, Danny DeVito, Rod Steiger, Martin Short, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Tom Jones amd Jack Black just to name a few. I couldn't stop laughing! Highly entertaining and a fun movie to enjoy! A great buy!