Dir: Tim Burton, 1996, US, 106 mins
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Pierce Brosnan, Tom Jones
Tim Burton finally pops a vein in this 1950s intergalactic pastiche. The gothic clown prince indulges all his finest and most absurd fantasies as contemporary culture and politics is trashed in gleeful Technicolor. Mars Attacks! Is Burton blowing his load in a defiantly kaleidoscopic splurge.
Earth is under attack once more from alien invaders and the US Government is only too keen to do battle. Burton, full of idiotic confidence, goes full tilt with the Hollywood budget and delivers a chaotic collage of alien invasion that suckles heartily at the teat of B-Movie legends such as Ed Wood and Roger Corman. This is Burton going bananas with doey-eyed abandon and is all the more glorious as the big-haired wizard teeters dangerously close to calamity.
Aggressively kitsch and defiantly low-brow, Mars Attacks! is Burton’s slushy homage to the nutty no-budget films plastered across multiplexes in the 1950s. Burton obviously has a loamy gift for drive-in satisfaction and here he pushes his frazzled sense of humour to bubbling point. Aided by a stream of revered actors only too keen to trash their reputations Burton delivers one of the most subversive mainstream pictures of recent years. Nicholson in a double role, including the President, is R. P. McMurphy in a skittle induced panic. Glenn Close as the First Lady is fantastically prim and rigid. Annette Bening as the New Age hippy keen to meet and greet her intergalactic neighbours is a flaccid rush of clichés. While Pierce Brosnan, as a vain scientist, and Sarah Jessica Parker, as a gormless TV presenter, have a riot as they flirt, fall in love, and have their heads inexplicably grafted onto the bodies of dogs. Chuck in Pam Grier as a feisty femme fatale and Tom Jones as, well, Tom Jones and you have a very silly spectacle high on visuals and farce but painfully low on substance.
Thankfully the true stars of Burton’s galactic opus are the Martians themselves. Creepy and oddly aristocratic in their attire they hover and glide toasting anything they care to zap emitting a cackle that would put the Wicked Witch of the West to shame. Clutching ray-guns straight out of The Forbidden Planet the Martians are more mischievous biology students looking for their next big prank than space dictator’s intent on eternal conquest. Cows get fried and presidents brain-zapped as Las Vegas joyously burns to the ground amidst chuckles and guffaws. You can almost hear Burton creasing himself as he dishes out scatological satire like spittle from a fevered loon.
Floundering from the deadweight of its silliness upon its cinema release Mars Attacks! has built up a heady cult following. Burton’s film survives entirely on the premise that we the audience are prepared to indulge the very whims that Burton cherishes so dearly. If kitschy glamarama space-style is not your thing then try Independence Day; less camp, less fun. Otherwise relish in the daft humour and neon high-jinks. As the end credits readily point out: ‘No living animals were barbequed during the production of this film.’ Fantastic.
Craig Driver
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