Mars Attacks!

Hundreds of tacky looking space ships attack the earth. Thousands of rampaging, bug‑eyed Martians ruthlessly zap humanity in a mindless extermination campaign. The U.S. Congress, a herd of cows, and Tom Jones' band are all fried to a crisp. Gee. It's a shame about those cows.

This just about sums up Mars Attacks!, the latest tribute by director Tim Burton to his childhood fondness for bad movies. Unfortunately, Mars Attacks! also invokes the current (and extremely advance) state of Burton's own sense of arrested adolescence. The film plays like a simple‑minded gag thought up by an obnoxious five‑year‑old. Even during its funnier moments, Mars Attacks! barely rises to the level of a cheap giggle cooked up in the back row of a school room.

Of course, a lack of subtly is not surprising since the focus of the movie's extended homage are the zanier B science‑fiction films of the 1950s. Though the plot is loosely lifted from Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers, the trashy feel of Mars Attacks! is closer to the cruder sensibilities of such non‑classics as Invasion of the Saucer Men (a movie so poorly budgeted that a pre‑Batman Frank Gorshin was the major star). But Mars Attacks! lacks the rude zestiness of a good drive‑in movie. Heck. Mars Attacks! even lacks the genuine, raw badness of an Ed Wood movie.

Though some advance word had suggested that Mars Attacks! would play as a kind of Dr. Strangelove antidote to Independence Day's jingoistic seriousness, the comparison is thin. In many respects, Independence Day is actually a funnier film. It was also a more affectionate homage to the genre. Mars Attacks! has a weird, distracted feel to it and often suggests that Burton never really liked these lousy movies in the first place. Maybe he only watched them because he liked seeing people blow up.

Which is basically the sole focus of the movie. For reasons that are never explained, the entire population of the Red Planet charges toward earth. A blathering dolt of a US President (Jack Nicholson) stumbles around, hoping to make peaceful contact with the Martians. Then they start blasting everyone who comes within firing range. An utter dope of a scientific advisor (Pierce Brosnan) successfully argues that the Martians deadly behavior is simply a cultural misunderstanding. Then they wipe out Congress and beat the stuffing out of the scientific advisor.

Meanwhile, a crooked and extremely drunk real estate developer in Las Vegas (Nicholson again) has some vague scheme of getting the Martians to check‑in at his new casino. The developer's wife (Annette Bening) has abandoned booze in favor of New Age mysticism and Sixties style retro fashions. At the same time, the always horny presidential press secretary (Martin Short) finds himself incredibly attracted to a Martian female. The rest of the movie's long list of well‑known performers stand around with little to do until they get blasted.

OK. So once again Burton demonstrates that he doesn't give a hoot about narrative. Besides, what do you expect from a film that is based on a set of bubble gum cards briefly distributed in 1963(and pulled from circulation because of their excessive violence). Besides, both Burton and his screenwriter (Jonathan Gems) freely admit that they didn't realize that the cards even had a story. They thought that the text on the back of the cards were just advertisements (which suggests that neither of these guys can read).

Burton's best films (i.e. Batman and Beetlejuice) have usually gotten around the narrative problem by creating surprisingly strong characters and monstrously effective villains. But the human characters in Mars Attacks! are all weakly written and severely underdeveloped. Brosnan has a few daffy moments as a kind of inverted Hugh Marlowe as his smug scientist deftly misinterprets every known fact about the invaders. Likewise, Jim Brown imparts a few precious moments of dignity in his role as a ex‑boxing champion turned Vegas lounge greeter. On the other hand, Nicholson manages the unique feat of giving two of his worst performances ever in the same film.

Ironically, only the Martians have any limited appeal. Maybe its their goofy, wide‑eyed looks. Or perhaps it is the sight of their enormous, silly brains. More likely, they become sympathetic by default. After all, the Martians have no pretense of being anything other than a pack of ill‑bred fraternity boys running wild on an especially nasty set of pranks. As they make yapping noises while stitching human heads onto the bodies of Chihuahuas, the little green mirth makers are almost capable of stealing your heart. While they are at it, they will also help themselves to your kidneys, spleen, and liver.

Thanks to the superb CGI work provided by Industrial Lights & Magic, the Martians are also the most brilliantly satiric reference made in Mars Attacks! to the B movies of yesteryear. Designed to move in a slightly jerky manner like old fashion stop‑motion animated models, these pesky marauders glide about with spooky mechanical precision as they smirk their way through every slaughter.

Too bad they don't have a better film to star in. But good film making is seemingly something that Tim Burton is now determined not to do. Instead, he has become an aging prankster looking to indulge himself in minor gags that might vaguely amuse the pre‑teen set("heh heh, that was cool"). Likewise, he seems insistent on making movies that are completely lacking in any real sense of fun.

Which is one of the reasons why Mars Attacks! is a long and charmless bore.