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.

Oeuvre: Tim Burton - Batman

The sequels and remakes have used the additives of 'Returns', 'Forever', 'Begins', 'V. Superman', and 'And Robin' but 25 years ago, there was only one 'BATMAN.'

While you know all the players, you may not know the plot.  Orphaned billionaire Bruce Wayne protects Gotham City as the masked vigilante known as Batman.  His life is complicated when he falls for Vicki Vale, a famed photographer pursuing the true identity of the fabled Batman.  But when an old enemy returns from the dead as the twisted Joker, Wayne must put his personal interests aside and stop this madman once and for all.

There's a whole generation out there who think Batman begins and ends with Nolan and that Burton's films, while revolutionary for the time, are dated by todays standards.  While that is occasionally true, there is still much to admire.  A quarter of a century later, 'Batman' still stands out for its dark imagery and mythic atmosphere.

Michael Keaton is a Batman.  He doesn't overcompensate with a deep, gravely voice.  He rarely speaks in anything over a whisper.  Everything about his Batman is minimal, from his quiet but stern composure signifying that he is, in fact, badass, to his simple, pitch black costume, thanks to Bob Ringwood.  But where Keaton truly excels is as Bruce Wayne.  The character has proven impossible to capture by everyone who has played the part by everyone except Christian Bale and Keaton.  Keaton's Wayne is vulnerable, bordering on aloof.  He's a slightly stuttering recluse who doesn't know how to talk to people.  You'd never guess that he puts on a cowl and beats up muggers but that's what is so great about him.

The object of Wayne's affections Vicki Vale played by Kim Basinger, a last minute replacement for Sean Young.  What makes her character so interesting is that she begins the story pursuing Batman but turns her eye to Wayne who she finds more interesting and elusive.  Almost any other movie would have the opposite, no matter how predictable.

Michael Gough is a considerably better Alfred Pennyworth than Michael Caine ever was.  Like everything else in this movie, he's understated compared to Nolan's often self-important reboot.

And then there's the show-stealing Jack Nicholson as Jack Napier but you can call him... the Joker, a maniacal lunatic who plans to take over Gotham with the ingenious use of cosmetics.  Lex Luthor can keep his real estate schemes, our guy's got makeup!  Nicholson plays the part very traditionally.  He is slightly more ominous than Cesar Romero ever was but he's also just plane goofy.  He has a prosthetic grin permanently stretched on his face but you feel that Jack would have been smiling like that regardless of the makeup.  He's clearly having a ball.

One aspect of the story that I admire greatly is the Batman/Joker dynamic.  You get the same "you made me!  No, you made me!" talk that all superhero movies feel the need to saddle themselves with, but here we get a variety.  Batman confronts Jack Napier, the Joker confronts Bruce Wayne, and finally, Batman confronts the Joker.  With every interaction the relationship is different and in every scene it grows.  That's rare, even for superhero movies these days.

Danny Elfman's score opens the film and presents itself as the most memorable Superhero score next to John Williams' Superman over a decade earlier.  Sparing a very few exceptions, these two giants have not been topped.  It's ominous, its fast, its energetic, its just Batman.  But the rest of the soundtrack is pretty fantastic too.  The Joker's motif, 'Waltz to the Death' is fun to listen to and works incredibly well when juxtaposed to the grim aesthetic.  And the track 'Descent into Mystery' which plays as Batman travels back to the Batcave for the first time gives me chills.

With the help of Production Designer Anton Furst, Burton's Gotham is a thing to behold.  Skyscrapers so high they pierce the thick, story clouds that shroud Gotham in a perpetual darkness.  Wayne's mansion feels authentically exaggerated and his Batcave will continue to set the gold standard by which all other Batcaves will be judged.  The world exists in a timeless age, where men wore trench coats and fedoras, but computers also exist.  And yet, it never detracts from the story.

There are things that age the story (I'm looking at you, Prince!), and there are massive jumps of logic that some won't be able to make (where did all those goons on the church rooftop come from, anyway?) but if you're willing to look past all that, I think Tim Burton's Batman is a treat.  There are so many aspects of the movie that still haven't been topped, despite the six films that have followed it.  But if you think its unique, wait till you get a load of 'Batman Returns.'