Oeuvre: Tim Burton - Mars Attacks

Tim Burton must have been inspired after binge watching the films of Ed Wood.  How else do you explain this throwback to the sci-fi schlock of the fifties that is MARS ATTCKS?

While Batman drew upon decades of rich, varied source materials, and Ed Wood was adapted from a biography, Mars Attacks is based on... trading cards.  And boy does it show.  How can I tell?  Because the story has no story.  Or maybe it has too much story.  Let's unpack this.

The "plot" is that hideous Martians visit Earth, at first, in peace (or maybe not, its never clear), and then with great malice.  During the discovery and subsequent invasion, we follow a slew of colorful characters, performed by one of the greatest casts ever assembled, including a pervy assistant to the President played by Martin Short, a jealous reporter played by Michael J. Fox, a frustrated bus driver played by Pam Grier, a snobbish First Lady played by Glenn Close, her precocious daughter played by Natalie Portman, a quiet, misunderstood teenager played by Lukas Haas, his oblivious grandma played by Sylvia Sidney, a redneck soldier played by Jack Black, Tom Jones played by Tom Jones, and Danny DeVito as a rude gambler named Rude Gambler.

But the main characters are Jack Nicholson as both the President of the United States and as an obnoxious casino owner, Annette Bening as a delightful hippie, a chihuahua-toting entertainment news reporter played by Sarah Jessica Parker, and her unlikely love interest, Pierce Brosnan as a suave Professor who smokes a pipe.

All of these actors live and die by the material written for them, which varies to a dangerously uneven degree.  Of this monumental cast, I'd say Nicholson, Grier, Bening, and Brosnan come out shining.

When the movie is at it's strongest, it skewers those silly science fiction flicks Hollywood used to crank out.  That's one of the reasons Pierce Brosnan is so successful.  His role is the most 50's B-movie of them all.  He squints off in the middle distance, pondering man's place amongst the cosmos.  He performs an alien autopsy in a round, white room, wearing scrubs and a bubble helmet.  He reaches into the alien's head and pulls out Nickelodeon-green slime.  And he's almost never seen without his pipe.

But all too soon, we reach the breaking point of the film.  Namely that Mars Attacks doesn't know what to do after Mars attacks.  Before, the movie was a comic sendup, but it builds and then crumbles into disappointing series of lame gags.  The Martians have no purpose, no end goal, and as a result, they are subjected to cartoon gimmicks that make no sense.  Why do the Martians ogle a women like horny teenagers?  Why do they pose for a family photo in front of the Taj Mahal?  Why do they use the Easter Island heads as bowling pins?  Do Martians have family vacations and cheesy group photos on Mars?  Do they have bowling?  Is it possible that we are, in fact, not so different after all?  No, its just lazy writing.

The problem is an obvious narrative issue.  The story simply lacks focus.  Brosnan and Sarah Jessica Parker have a great blossoming romance, even as they are experimented on aboard the alien spaceship.  But once there, they have nothing to do with the plot.  This is made all the more frustrating by a hint of a romance in the last 2 minutes of the movie between two characters who SHOULD have been the primary focus of the film, namely Lukas Haas and Natalie Portman.  Haas has the closest thing anyone has to a narrative ark and its a shame that the movie didn't choose to put him front and center.

The special effects in this film are sometimes great and sometimes terrible and its hard to tell when it's intentional and when its a failing.  The aliens are an unsettling sight to behold but as I mentioned, they're boring at best and irritating at worst.

The big takeaway from Mars Attacks is that it is good when it needs to be good, and bad when it needs to be bad, and sometimes its the other way around.