528: Mars Attacks!

[00:00:00] to 244. Let's get to Mars Attacks from 1996, which is directed by Tim Burton. And I will be doing a Tim Burton-centric show, hopefully in the next few months, so keep an eye out for that.

[00:00:18] But figured I'd include this one since it's a bit of a more unknown one of his filmography. It stars an insanely huge cast. Jack Nicholson, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Jessica Parker, Annette Bening, Glenn Close, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Michael J. Fox, Jack Black, Natalie Portman, Lisa Marie, the list goes on.

[00:00:44] And the synopsis is, Earth is invaded by Martians with unbeatable weapons and a cruel sense of humor.

[00:00:55] So this was only my second time watching this movie. I saw it for the first time maybe in college.

[00:01:02] I knew going in even the first time that it was a bit of a cult classic and also seems to be deemed one of Tim Burton's lesser works overall.

[00:01:17] When I first saw it, I liked it, didn't love it. I saw the charm and I liked the weirdness of it and the creepiness of the aliens, but it didn't really wow me or surpass a lot of his other films.

[00:01:32] One note in terms of the timeline of it, it did come out about six months after Independence Day.

[00:01:44] Automatically, considering that movie was such a huge hit and still remains a fan favorite in terms of sci-fi films, this movie was largely looked over by most audiences and critics.

[00:01:58] Did not do that well financially.

[00:02:00] Automatically, my enjoyment of it was about the same as it was the first time.

[00:02:08] I want to like it more and I think I'm liking it for a little while, but by far the biggest issue is this movie is so overstuffed.

[00:02:20] There are so many plot lines in this movie with all these subplots, there's so many characters, the political stuff, the regular civilians, the news people, the soldier, and so on and so forth.

[00:02:37] So whenever there's anything going on, it takes forever to circle through all of those different lines to get to whatever is about to happen.

[00:02:48] Or when the Martians come, it has to cut around to every single person watching it.

[00:02:54] And then this person knows this person and then the Martians go here and then they have to go here and it just really becomes so muddled with,

[00:03:02] okay, are we supposed to care about all these characters?

[00:03:06] Are we supposed to find them funny?

[00:03:08] Like it's a bit of a satire, kind of a parody, very much an homage to the very B science fiction movies of the 50s, which I think that works.

[00:03:17] I like that.

[00:03:20] Going back to the casting real quick, no matter if they are a little underused or wasted, the cast of this movie, like movies don't get cast like this anymore for a sci-fi B movie.

[00:03:36] The design of the aliens or the Martians, let's say, are very, I don't know if unique is the right word, but they're so creepy and they're so gross.

[00:03:48] And the effects are obviously terrible, but I think that's intentional and part of the charm.

[00:03:58] Probably the creepiest thing of the whole movie is when you see the Martians in basically like Speedos walking around the ship.

[00:04:06] Like it's so ugly, but you know, interestingly so.

[00:04:10] Or the Martian who dresses up as the woman to trick Martin Short and then pulls off the skin when they get into the president's bedroom.

[00:04:23] The look of the blasters and then when they blast a human and they turn to basically lava, they just melt and turn into a skeleton.

[00:04:40] That reminds me, one of the funnier scenes is when you first meet the Martians in the desert and then everything is fine and peaceful.

[00:04:49] And then a dove flies by one of the Martians and they take that as a threat and just start annihilating everyone.

[00:04:56] So there's good humor there for sure.

[00:05:00] And it's hard to really hate when you see a bunch of goofy looking Martians on screen using laser blasters or whatever to attack people.

[00:05:10] And especially, and I don't want to reference it too much, but in comparing it to Independence Day, there really is no comparison.

[00:05:19] Not to say Independence Day is a masterpiece.

[00:05:23] But that movie is, to me, way more fun.

[00:05:27] It's way simpler.

[00:05:28] There's much less political jargon and exposition to get through.

[00:05:34] It's really just dumb, charismatic fun that has Will Smith in the lead.

[00:05:40] And this one doesn't really know, I don't even know who the central character is.

[00:05:46] And then Independence Day has more interesting effects.

[00:05:50] Pacing is better.

[00:05:52] Spectacle is better.

[00:05:55] So while I definitely don't hate this movie, and I think it's one that I'm very glad exists.

[00:06:01] Because I've never really seen anything like it in modern movies that is so far out there when it comes to the alien stuff and the effects.

[00:06:11] That in that way it's unique.

[00:06:13] Sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better.

[00:06:18] But when it comes to the humor, like I was touching on earlier, Tim Burton, when he gets it right, he can be hilarious.

[00:06:27] I mean, Beetlejuice 2 was hysterical.

[00:06:31] Not to mention the movie he did before Mars Attacks, which was Ed Wood.

[00:06:35] And that's my favorite movie of Tim Burton's.

[00:06:38] That movie is very, very funny.

[00:06:42] What he doesn't do that well in this, in terms of the satire, is it feels like he's trying to make simply the idea of Jack Nicholson being president as that's funny.

[00:06:58] There's not much interesting or clever dialogue.

[00:07:01] It's, here's Jack Nicholson, let's laugh.

[00:07:07] That doesn't really work.

[00:07:08] I mean, he does what he can with the role, but it's the flatness of a lot of those attempts that make the movie way more underwhelming than I wish it was sometimes.

[00:07:23] Danny Elfman's score is very good, though.

[00:07:26] It's very classic UFO alien melodies, and I think all that stuff is spot on for sure.

[00:07:35] The design of the production and the costume design, especially when it comes to the humans, is, I think, considering the genre it's playing in and poking at, it's very hypersexual.

[00:07:50] So, it's one that I, you know, I can see myself going back to every so often, but if I had to choose an alien movie to watch, a sci-fi UFO movie, this is not going to be my first choice really ever.

[00:08:07] So, that one is a light three and a half out of five.

[00:08:11] So, that's a light three and a half.