Subject: REVIEW: MARS ATTACKS! (1996)

From: [email-masked] (Shane R. Burridge)
Date: 21 Mar 1997 19:58:09 GMT

MARS ATTACKS!
                       A film review by Shane R. Burridge
                        Copyright 1997 Shane R. Burridge

Mars Attacks!  (1996) 102 min.

I've looked forward to Tim Burton's credit sequences ever since the
delirious, operatic opening moments for BATMAN RETURNS.  On this
score, MARS ATTACKS! doesn't disappoint  - that he can make so much of
so little (namely, hokey-looking saucers flying through space) is
ample proof of his talent.  Unfortunately, it's so tantalizingly
powerful that - for a while at least - the rest of his film appears to
suffer by comparison.

The story, inspired by a series of trading cards, is so by-the-numbers
that it hardly seems worth recounting here, but for the record:  A
fleet of alien spacecraft take up position in orbit around the Earth. 
 The US president (Jack Nicholson), mistakenly persuaded of their
peaceful intentions, finds himself running for cover as the White
House and most of the surrounding neighborhood are suddenly laid to
waste.  He isn't the only one - the storyline jumps between several
characters in different locations, all faced with the same crisis.  If
you think this sounds like the same plot used in INDEPENDENCE DAY,
you're right - and this provides another rather troublesome area of
comparison.  ID4 was a megahit of a movie, a huge, global rocket-ride
with big effects that netted big box office.  MARS ATTACKS! is
deliberately cheesy, a skewed marriage of mainstream pop and Burton's
own eccentricity.  But Burton's film has a significant saving grace:
it is directed by Tim Burton.  While the aliens of ID4 leveled entire
cities with anonymous blasts from their huge starships, the Martians
of MARS ATTACKS! work on a more.....*personal* level.  It is at the
point when the Martians make their first appearance that the story
begins to pick up:  they are hilarious, but also provide the film with
an unexpectedly vicious edge.  Under any other circumstances, Burton's
grotesqueries would come across as merely violent (I don't doubt that
many younger viewers in the session I attended gathered enough
material for a few week's worth of nightmares) but his idiosyncratic
goofiness still presides.  

It's very likely that MARS ATTACKS! won't be as funny as some
moviegoers would hope, nor provide the big-budget sci-fi thrills that
others may be expecting.  The main reason to see it is to behold
Burton at work, once again re-inventing the pop culture that defined
his childhood.  And of course, there is the appropriately stellar cast
he has assembled - as if he didn't have enough to contend with while
wreaking havoc on the planet he also has to juggle enough screen time
for the likes of Nicholson, Pierce Brosnan, Glenn Close, Annette
Bening, Rod Steiger, Michael J. Fox, Sarah Jessica Parker, Martin
Short, Danny de Vito, Tom Jones, Natalie Portman, and Joe Don Baker. 
It's amazing that the Martians even get a look-in - but they'll be who
you remember most afterwards.