It's often said of a film that it's not as good as the book it is based upon. Here's a movie not as good as the bubble-gum cards it was based upon.
Way back in the 1960s when director Tim Burton was a boy, Topps Chewing Gum put out these cards depicting a cartoonish Martian invasion of Earth, based loosely on "War Of The Worlds." Explosions, death, fire, monsters, and a glint of goonish humor, it was all a growing boy could want. Years later, his career as Hollywood's most visionary director underway, Burton decided to make a film celebrating those cards.
"Mars Attacks!" is a hodgepodge of loosely-knit moments with a cast that is way too large to support its slender thread of a story. It's supposed to be thrilling and funny, but it's neither. Instead, you have a succession of blind-alley bits with name actors embarrassing themselves, including Jack Nicholson twice as the president and as a gambler.
Pointlessness rules. "Do Martians have two sexes, like we do?" asks an androgynous reporter at a press conference. Rod Steiger as a general is shrunk and stepped on. Boy scouts are squashed by the Washington Monument when the Martians knock it down. Tom Jones is singing "It's Not Unusual" on stage when he is suddenly joined by a trio of Martians.
These are set up as punchlines, but there's nothing to punch here but piffle. There's some uniqueness to the Martians themselves, presented in early computer graphic imagery to resemble the day-glo plastic look of the bubble-gum-card Martians of Burton's youth. Jim Brown and Pam Grier offer some humor and sympathy as separated parents trying to save themselves and their two sons, and you wish they were around longer.
Everything else, especially a pathetic subplot involving a grievously sick-looking Sylvia Sidney and a puberty-challenged Lukas Haas who discover the Martians' Achilles heel, seems to have been pulled from Stephen King's wastebasket. What was Danny DeVito's purpose in the film? He has fifth billing, and maybe five lines, all of which sound improvised and not in a good way. Annette Bening is a New Age alcoholic who talks like Marilyn Monroe and runs from the invaders, the best performance but one sadly undernourished by dramatic or comic purpose.
Watching this film, I thought of "1941," another comedy spectacle that puts glitz over humor. Except this time there's not even a funny speech like Dan Aykroyd's "Was that Mickey Mouse I saw marching into Poland?" bit to latch onto, just a series of sloppy non sequiturs by actors paying Burton back for having once put them in better films. The script is lame, and like "1941" it's hard to imagine so many professional film people letting this one go through their hands without demanding a major rewrite. As with "1941," the idea is if you have a hot director with a unique visionary style, why not trust him to pull it all together?
"Mars Attacks!" is the answer. It's a sad little splat of a film, an early demonstration of CGI that also demonstrates how limited CGI as a tool can be. Burton is so much better when he lets the story dictate special effects, rather than the other way around.
Way back in the 1960s when director Tim Burton was a boy, Topps Chewing Gum put out these cards depicting a cartoonish Martian invasion of Earth, based loosely on "War Of The Worlds." Explosions, death, fire, monsters, and a glint of goonish humor, it was all a growing boy could want. Years later, his career as Hollywood's most visionary director underway, Burton decided to make a film celebrating those cards.
"Mars Attacks!" is a hodgepodge of loosely-knit moments with a cast that is way too large to support its slender thread of a story. It's supposed to be thrilling and funny, but it's neither. Instead, you have a succession of blind-alley bits with name actors embarrassing themselves, including Jack Nicholson twice as the president and as a gambler.
Pointlessness rules. "Do Martians have two sexes, like we do?" asks an androgynous reporter at a press conference. Rod Steiger as a general is shrunk and stepped on. Boy scouts are squashed by the Washington Monument when the Martians knock it down. Tom Jones is singing "It's Not Unusual" on stage when he is suddenly joined by a trio of Martians.
These are set up as punchlines, but there's nothing to punch here but piffle. There's some uniqueness to the Martians themselves, presented in early computer graphic imagery to resemble the day-glo plastic look of the bubble-gum-card Martians of Burton's youth. Jim Brown and Pam Grier offer some humor and sympathy as separated parents trying to save themselves and their two sons, and you wish they were around longer.
Everything else, especially a pathetic subplot involving a grievously sick-looking Sylvia Sidney and a puberty-challenged Lukas Haas who discover the Martians' Achilles heel, seems to have been pulled from Stephen King's wastebasket. What was Danny DeVito's purpose in the film? He has fifth billing, and maybe five lines, all of which sound improvised and not in a good way. Annette Bening is a New Age alcoholic who talks like Marilyn Monroe and runs from the invaders, the best performance but one sadly undernourished by dramatic or comic purpose.
Watching this film, I thought of "1941," another comedy spectacle that puts glitz over humor. Except this time there's not even a funny speech like Dan Aykroyd's "Was that Mickey Mouse I saw marching into Poland?" bit to latch onto, just a series of sloppy non sequiturs by actors paying Burton back for having once put them in better films. The script is lame, and like "1941" it's hard to imagine so many professional film people letting this one go through their hands without demanding a major rewrite. As with "1941," the idea is if you have a hot director with a unique visionary style, why not trust him to pull it all together?
"Mars Attacks!" is the answer. It's a sad little splat of a film, an early demonstration of CGI that also demonstrates how limited CGI as a tool can be. Burton is so much better when he lets the story dictate special effects, rather than the other way around.