Thiel-a-Vision Review: Mars Attacks!

1/2

Once upon a time, there was a strange filmmaker named Tim Burton who made strange--yet oddly compelling--films. At first, it seemed as if he didn't have a bad movie in him. Pee Wee's Big Adventure was a hugely entertaining surprise. Beetlejuice, though uneven, had imagination and wit to spare. His first Batman flick was a triumph of production design. And Edward Scissorhands was perhaps his best, most personal film.

Then came Batman Returns. This was a film that my wife and I had been eagerly awaiting ever since we saw the first trailer. Freed from many of the constraints of the suits at Warner Bros., I couldn't wait to see Burton's true vision of Gotham City's avenger. Hoo boy. It turned out that Burton was so caught up in telling yet another tale of misunderstood freaks that he forgot--or perhaps never really knew in the first place--how to direct action sequences or relay a coherent plot.

Next was Ed Wood, my personal favorite, though that had a lot to do with my own interest in the real-life hijinks of the title character. I quickly forgave--though never entirely forgot--the stinking wretchedness that was the second Batman adventure.

When it was announced that Burton's next project would be an adaptation of the gruesome, controversial trading-card series Mars Attacks!, it seemed like a match made in...well, Mars. Burton knew weird, he could do gruesome, and he obviously had an affection for the '50s flying saucer flicks that inspired the lurid images of the old pasteboards.

Again, I couldn't wait. Movies about full-scale alien invasions were (and still are) rare, though Independence Day had coincidentally come out earlier that same year. Plus, this one had Jack Nicholson as the President! It looked like a campy, good time.

And again, I was so very wrong.

The biggest problem with Mars Attacks! is that it's meant to be a spoof. That's difficult to pull off, especially when the thing being spoofed is itself unintentionally humorous. It's far too easy for a takeoff of bad movies to be simply another example of a bad movie. A great spoof doesn't simply ape the style of its subject, it adds its own jokes to the mix.

Mars Attacks! is the sort of film that thinks having a lot of stars mugging away on camera is in itself hilarious, therefore making it unnecessary for anyone to give them something funny to say or do. There are times when that approach can work, and I still do find Nicholson as the President amusing enough. On the other hand, Nicholson also plays the pointless second role of a Las Vegas real-estate developer, and fails to find any humor in the broad caricature. A couple dozen other celebrities show up in a variety of superficial, stereotypical parts. Unfortunately, a good half-hour of screen time is expended setting up all of these uninteresting, unfunny characters, only to mow half of them down within minutes of the Martians' arrival.

Adding to the confusion is the presence of several characters who appear to have wandered in from an entirely different movie--a serious drama about a former prizefighter played by Jim Brown, his estranged wife (Pam Grier) and their kids. Brown and Grier are very good--or at least, would be if they weren't in an alleged spoof. Brown's character is seemingly killed in the film's final acts, then inexplicably arises at the very end: I sense the interference of focus groups and/or studio suits insisting on a feel-good ending to what should be an unforgiving circus of carnage.

When the circus comes to town in the form of gleefully evil, big-brained Martians, the movie kicks into gear and at last manages to have some fun. The aliens seem to be very aware of sci-fi clichés, offering (several times) to "come in peace" as a ruse to disintegrate the welcoming committee. With their "ack ack" dialogue and maniacal cackles, they appear to be having a wonderful time committing unspeakable horrors on hapless humans for the sheer hell of it. One of the best scenes occurs when a Martian saucer topples the Washington Monument (a steal from Earth vs. the Flying Saucers), taking time to nudge it just right so as to crush a fleeing troop of Boy Scouts.

The overall lack of imagination manifests itself when the secret weakness of the Martians is discovered: their brains explode when exposed to the music of Slim Whitman. Ha, very droll. The same gag (minus Mr. Whitman) had been used nearly two decades earlier in another B-movie parody, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! It wasn't that funny then, either.

Mars Attacks! has its moments...but then those pesky human actors show up and ruin the fun.

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