Hollywood has made movies from books, TV shows, even other movies. However, "Mars Attacks" may be the first time a movie was made from a trading card.
Back in the late 1960s, Topps Cards created a line of Mars Attacks trading cards. However, these cards were pulled off the shelves after only a few months because the aliens depicted on them were considered to be too gruesome. My, how times have changed.
Director Tim Burton has taken those old trading cards and recreated them into this Sci-Fi B-movie throwback. In the process, he has created a movie that is pure, guiltless fun.
"Mars Attacks" also benefits from an all-star cast, including Jack Nicholson (in a dual-role), Michael J. Fox, Sarah Jessica Parker, Pierce Brosnan, Martin Short, Danny Devito, Glenn Close, Natalie Portman, Tom Jones, Annette Bening, Lukas Haas, Jim Brown, and many others. The fact that you get to watch the aliens disentegrate (and otherwise kill) many of these stars only adds to the fun. Unfortunately, Tom Jones wasn't one of those unlucky stars. Maybe someday a sequel will be made that will rectify that. :)
Oh yeah........ did I happen to mention that Congress gets vaporized? This proves that the Martians aren't all bad!
The DVD comes with many extras, including quite a few production notes that helps you to understand how the movie came to be. This is one movie that you will want to see over and over again (especially anytime that Congress is getting on your nerves).
Tim Burton outdoes himself with this silly, but funny, spoof of 1950s flying saucer/alien invasion movies. It is absolutely zany and quite funny. There is also nothing politically correct about it, as there are no sacred cows. The film is totally irreverent of American culture and icons. Everything and everyone is fair game.
Martians have come to Earth, and they do not come in peace. Diabolical and deadly, they are bent on wreaking havoc wherever they go with their death ray guns, which serve to incinerate living beings. These bulbous headed martians with their own brand of deadly humour are hell bent on destroying Earth, while laughing and cackling maniacally.
The special effects are meant to to be reminiscent of those found in 1950s UFO flicks and in this it certainly succeeds. The cast is stellar with Jack Nicholson playing dual roles, that of President James Dale and that of entrepreneur Art Dale. Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Rod Steiger, Jim Brown, Natalie Portman, Sylvia Sydney, Paul Winfield, Pam Grier, Lisa Marie, Christine Applegate, Lukas Haas, and Tom Jones round out the star studded cast. With tongue in cheek performances, the viewer is bound to get a good laugh out of this film.
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Having spent an hour or so reading every review of this movie on the site, I have come to the conclusion that most of the people who did not like it, were simply not bright enough to "get it". Most of the humor in this movie is sophisticated satire and irony. i.e. you need a brain to understand what the joke is. Unfortunately it seems that that leaves about 70% of the population out in the cold sort of speak.
Also, a lot of the reviewers here trash the acting and imply that the big name actors were "only in it for the money", yet are unaware of the fact that most of those "big stars" clamored to be in this movie at lower pay scales than they are used to. Then they go on about how 2 dimensional or "broad" the acting is. Well, ..Duhhh! It's a cartoonish satirical comedy based on a series of bubblegum cards. It's *meant* to be that way.
Finaly, a lot of those who hate this movie compare it unfavorably to (their favorites), ID4 or Armageddon or some such trash as that.
Nuff said.
Read Best Reviews of Mars Attacks! (2010) Here
There is nothing serious about this film. It is satire all the way and it is very good satire which takes potshots at all sorts of institutions.
The story is as simple as an old B/W science fiction movie. Earth is being invaded by Martians with superior techology and little reguard for eathlings. Instead of being an "end of the world" type picture, however, it is comedy. It is comdedic because there is a grain of truth in the elements used for the comedy:
The President is worried more about poll numbers on reactions to the Martians than about invasion.
The first lady is worried more about interior decorating than advancing ray guns.
The egghead professor manages to be wrong about just about everything he speaks of.
Reporters are shallow and vain.
The military just wants to play with its toys.
Bad music can be a deadly influence.
New Age people haven't a clue as to the real world.
Teenagers often have a better handle on things than the grownups.
It's enough to make you root for the Martians. This one is fun, irreverant and a feast of oddball ideas. What else could be expected from Tim Burton?
Want Mars Attacks! (2010) Discount?
The first time I saw this movie, I thought it was a big dissappointment. Then I started to think about it. Usually, when I dislike something for no reason that I can really put my finger on, it is because it has challenged my expectations in some way. For this reason, I like to re-examine my feelings about those things. And often, after reflection, I realize what it is that disturbs me, and I realize why the thing that I hate addresses that, and often it makes me enjoy the thing I "Hated" more.
This movie is like that. One of the things that bothered me so much was the lack of reason for the alien attack, and their resulting brutality. A little after I watched the movie, I found out why this is so, while reading a book "Lies My Teacher Told Me," which related the following tale concerning Columbus:
In 1492, Colomubus landed in what is now the Dominican Republic. He got off of the boat, and read a short proclimation that said (essentially,) "I am taking this place over, you must now immediatly renounce your pagan gods, convert to Christianity, claim Isabella of Spain as your ruler, or I will make you slaves, and you will work until you die, and I will not be held responsible for your souls." Columbus read this proclimation in Spanish, which of course, none of the native people of the Dominican Republic could understand. They greeted him with a huge party, and Columbus proceeded to decimate the natives. The Spaniards forced the Indians to work, and rode on their backs rather than walk from place to place. Does this not strike you as ridiculous? The same kind of mindless destruction for the sake of destruction that the movie portrays?
What disturbed me about the movie was it's quiet censure of our society, our modern world, our own arrogance. In this movie we get our comeuppance, and it is delivered with the same heartless passion that our uncivilized ancestors imposed on the indigenous populations. There is no why or how, there is only the relentless onslaught of a technologically superior race that finds glee in our destruction, who no doubt, intend to usurp our world.
In the War of the Worlds, we are saved by Influenza, in real life, Influenza and small pox, brought by Euroopeans, decimated indigenous populations. Wells original parallel was intended to be a subtle irony, a tribute to our tiniest, and most unobtrusive weapon.
Here we are saved by Slim Whitman's "Indian Love Call," an outrageous twist, but not one without it's irony. Whitman wrote the song as an appeal to the romanticization of the American Indian that occurred in the late 50's. It bears no real ties to native american lore or tradition, other than it's name. It is a romantic view of a past that never happened, our "plasticization" of the very people we've killed. Isn't it odd that we would be saved by a cheesy lounge song written about a people we killed with smallpox and war, while we are being decimated with no hope of survival, in much the same manner? Its doubly ironic that something so insidious, both in sound, and concept, should turn out to be invariably fatal to our invaders. Our bad taste killed them.
I might suggest to those that are easily angered when their expectations of an "Independance Day" style romp are foiled, that they examine their dissappointment and ask themselves, "why did this bother me so much?" When you do, you'll often find that you are being challenged to think or look at a thing in another light by your brain, which is often smarter than you might think.
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Several male comedians' have (in the movies) a character best described as their "alter-ego', ie: a character of the opposite sex engaged in an adventure of some sort or another.
