Tim Burton’s major sin in Mars Attacks! is that at every turn he is busy parodying something. Yes, he is attempting to make a bad film in the vein of Ed Wood (whose comic cinematic biography he’d recently finished). Yet, a parody of such B-movie fare doesn’t mean the parody itself must be boring (this would mean Burton was adhering too strictly to making a bad film). Like much of Wood’s canon, the film never takes off and drags throughout most of its running time after setting up anticipation and failing to follow through (due in part to the oversight that none of the films that he’s channeling had the budget for a large cast and thus didn’t have to spend a large amount of time introducing characters and surrounding circumstances). As such, only a small portion of audiences, those fairly well versed in the history of cinema, will be able to enjoy the picture due to Burton’s incessant proclivity for allusion. Aside from his homages, the film does house some very funny lines yet they are sporadic and fail to fill the gaps in the storyline’s wake.
Burton isn’t content to nod and wave at some of the keystones of 1950’s sci-fi and B-productions –The Day the Earth Stood Still, Plan 9 from Outer Space, War of the Worlds–but crams any and every conceivable reference to any production which bears the slightest relevance to the action onscreen. We have an ensuing war, key Dr. Strangelove and present the President inside the War Room. We have Nicholson in a tie, take the tie off and have your in-joke with the continuity mishap in A Few Good Men, etc. etc. etc.
I will consent to the fact that there is quite a bit of satire in the film, especially in its choice of casting and characterization. Jack Nicholson plays the President as well as a sleazy Las Vegas Casio developer–enough said. Gleen Close, as the first lady, is preoccupied with her redecoration of the White House. The Press Secretary, played by Martin Short, resorts to soliciting prostitutes in his off hours and woos them by bringing them to the White House (which he gains access to by knocking on the front door before escorting his chosen mistress of the evening to the Kennedy Room nonetheless). Rod Steiger, as General Decker, plays a more patriotic (to the point of tyrannical) version of George C. Scott’s Buck Turgidson. Yet all of this poking goes nowhere because Burton fails to develop it to any effective narrative degree.
Outside of the various allusions, there are a handful of lines uttered by various characters which temporarily divert the audience’s boredom. During his acceptance speech for the Congressional Medal of Honor, the boy (Lukas Haas) who saves the world (like I’m ruining anything for you here!), thanks his grandmother “for always being so good to me, and for helping save the world and everything.” To convince his investors of the demand for another casino, Nicholson’s character declares, “If the Martians land, they’re gonna need a place to stay, just like everybody else.” After Martians vaporize a large portion of Congress, the President reassures American citizens, “[ . . . ] that they still have two out of three branches of the government working for them, and that ain’t bad.” A translated message from the Martians, speaking of the history of the universe, dictates, “For the fundamental truth, self-determination of the cosmos is the suede that mows like a harvest.”
Perhaps while writing the script, co-writer Jonathan Gems and Burton attempted to remain faithful to their inspiration, the 1962 Topps trading card series of the same name. Yet in so doing, they didn’t bother questioning if the original narrative could sustain itself as a film. Alien invasion can be fun if that is what it sets out to do, i.e.–Independence Day but, having said that, this doesn’t mean there isn’t room for a comic rendition of such a production, which is what Burton hints at but disparagingly misses.
Though I will state that it was fun to see Nicholson die, not once, but twice atop Burton’s seasonal greeting (the film was released during the holiday season) of making the skeletal remains of the zapped humans green and red, the film does not deliver as a Burton production with a multiple Academy Award-winning cast should.
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
