Mars Attacks!
Director: Tim Burton
Producer: Tim Burton, Larry J. Franco, Laurie Parker
Writer: Woody Gelman, Bob Powell, Norman Saunders
Cast:
Jack Nicholson President James Dale, Art Land
Glenn Close First Lady Marsha Dale
Annette Bening Barbara Land
Pierce Brosnan Professor Donald Kessler and “Bob” Dobbs
Danny DeVito Rude Gambler
Martin Short Press Secretary Jerry Ross
Sarah Jessica Parker Nathalie Lake
Michael J. Fox Jason Stone
Rod Steiger General Decker
Tom Jones Self
Also: Lukas Haas, Natalie Portman, Jim Brown, Lisa Marie. Sylvia Sidney, Jack Black
Way back in 1962, a couple of thousand years back, when everyone drove Dodge Dart 440s and sang about “Little Nash Ramblers”, there was a movie called It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Now, the thing about IAM4W was that it had a frantic, ridiculous plot that would have doomed most movies to utter obscurity, except in this case, they roped in nearly every American comedian alive in 1962 (plus Terry Thomas) and the result was an explosion of comic genius.
Tim Burton may or may not have seen the movie and gone “I’m gonna do that, only with cheesy science fiction movies.” The result was pretty much what you would expect when a gifted director takes a turd and spray paints it with pure gold.
The plot was based on…I kid you not…a collection of baseball-type cards that came with packs of bubble gum. I’ve seen the cards. Burton faithfully recreated the Martians from the cards, and built a B-movie plot of Mars invading Earth around them. Then, perhaps, he watched Doctor Strangelove for comic inspiration.
A lot of critics were furious. Everyone knows that Tim Burton doesn’t do comedy, except maybe incidentally. Or he does comedy, but he isn’t very good at it. Well, ok, the bit about Slim Whitman causing the Martians’ brains to explode was pretty funny. And having Jack Nicholson as the President of the United States was pretty clever. (It was ironically one of the most restrained performances Jack ever put on. He didn’t swing a single axe!). But the critics didn’t like it. Ga-rumph!
For all of that, Mars Attacks! became a cult classic and references to it keep popping up all over the place, some twenty-five years later. The distinctive “ack! ack! ack!” of the Martians turns up, for example, in a Samurai Jack where the ancient and venerable fiosaiche of the Scots’ clan reassures Jack that he is worthy of saving the Scotsman’s wife. (Parenthetically, probably the funniest episode in the whole run of SJ).
Mars Attacks! has a pretty formulaic plot. Martians arrive en masse, the idealistic scientist assures an uneasy president and bellicose and mistrustful generals that they come in peace, whereupon the Martians proceed to vaporize Congress, and just in case anyone hasn’t realized they are the bad guys, proceed to vaporize pretty much everything else. A plucky boy protagonist arises from the ignominy of being the disappointing second son and discovers the secret weapon that will destroy the Martians. (No, it isn’t water—the movie isn’t THAT silly.) The Martians all get exploded by Slim Whitman, very gruesome, and you should see what it does to the Martians! and they go away, and somehow Natalie Portman ends up as President of the United States.
I rewatched Mars Attacks! recently, part of my binging Mars-themed movies as the various landers approached the red planet, and it held up surprisingly well. Yes, it reminds me of IAM4W, and Dr. Strangelove, and yes, it still works. The trick is to not take it, or yourself too seriously. Tim Burton was having fun, the actors were having fun, and you should, too.