“Mars Attacks!” wants to be a disaster movie, a satire, and a family comedy all at once. It never settles on one long enough to make any of them work. Tim Burton directs from a script by Charles Fleischer, and the cast includes Jack Nicholson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Danny DeVito, Glenn Close, Martin Short, Michael J. Fox, Steve Buscemi, and Natalie Portman.
Trailer, via Warner Bros. Rewind.
The Landing
Martians arrive in the desert, and the President of the United States, played by Danny DeVito, tries to negotiate peace. The Martians speak in a strange musical language, and they seem friendly at first. That lasts about ten minutes.
The Laughs
The jokes land unevenly. Some scenes are genuinely funny, especially those involving a young Natalie Portman and a talking dog. Others feel like sketches that never cohere into a larger point.
The Killing Begins
When the film finally commits to being a disaster movie, it delivers. The Martians start killing people, and the action scenes are genuinely exciting. The problem is that the setup takes so long that the payoff feels rushed.
Nicholson’s Energy
Jack Nicholson plays the President of the United States with a manic energy that mostly carries the film. He is the best reason to watch “Mars Attacks!”, even when the plot around him falls apart.
The Mockery
The movie is clearly meant to mock disaster movies themselves. That satire does not land with much force.
The Children’s Request
The film asks children to laugh at adults being killed by aliens. That request is strange, and the film never quite explains why it should be funny.
The Final Score
“Mars Attacks!” is a mixed bag. It has moments of genuine wit and a few excellent performances, but the pacing is so uneven that the highs never justify the lows. The final score is 5.7 out of 10.
“Mars Attacks!”
- Director: Tim Burton
- Writer: Charles Fleischer
- Stars: Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Sarah Jessica Parker, Glenn Close, Martin Short, Michael J. Fox, Steve Buscemi, Natalie Portman
- Score: 5.7/10
The film’s biggest problem is not its ambition. It is that ambition spread across three genres with no single one getting the time it deserves. The disaster movie payoff arrives late and rushes through its climax. The satire aimed at government response to alien threats is barely present. The family comedy asks children to find humor in death without ever explaining why they should. Only Nicholson’s performance, manic and committed throughout, holds the whole thing together.
That is the film in a nutshell: a great performance surrounded by a script that can’t decide what kind of movie it wants to be.
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