Directed by Tim Burton, written by Jonathan Gems, based on the Mars Attacks! bubblegum cards by Topps, starring Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Jim Brown, Danny DeVito, Michael J. Fox, Pam Grier, Tom Jones, Lisa Marie, Sarah Jessica Parker, Natalie Portman, Martin Short, Sylvia Sidney, Rod Steiger, Paul Winfield
Bluesy: A LAFF RIOT!
Trap: FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY! SEE IT WITH AN ALIEN YOU LOVE!
Bluesy: THIS MOVIE KICKS E.T.’S BUTT!
Trap: THE PERFECT HOLIDAY STOCKING STUFFER!
Bluesy: NEVER BEFORE HAS MASS DESTRUCTION BEEN SUCH FUN!!!
Trap: Okay, now that we’ve shamelessly angled to get our names in the newspaper ads, what did you REALLY think of the movie?
Bluesy: What angled. I was being sincere. I loved this film. It was the most consistently funny thing to enter my life since my last boyfriend.
Trap: Well, I only met him once, but on the whole, I’d say this was more entertaining. Although it’s really more a succession of set-pieces than anything else – I mean, it’s based on a set of bubblegum cards after all and has all the narrative coherence that this would imply – it begins with the President (Nicholson) being informed that a fleet of Martian flying saucers are rapidly converging on the earth. As he and his advisors prepare to welcome them, we are introduced to a variety of fatuous media people, pompous scientists, self-serving politicians, gung-ho military types, plus the occasional ordinary Joe or Jane, all of whom have different ideas about what the visitors have in store. This opening is a bit slow, but the ultimate payoff is worth it. After an initial attempt to welcome the Martians goes horribly awry, the film really gets down to business – devising ever-more wildly gruesome ways of killing off the cast, and wreaking havoc on as many American icons as possible.
Bluesy: Yes, Burton’s twisted humor is finally is unleashed in full form. Actually this movie parodied so many things so well… I could probably break it down and dissect it to death, but then again, that would be giving away most of the jokes. The beginning wasn’t particularly slow for me, in that I found the whole idea of setting up all these characters, as they do in all horror or alien films, funny in and of itself. I just found myself laughing right from the start. The aliens were finally just what we wanted to see… evil incarnate. They looked evil from the get go, they sounded evil… watching them make fun of everyone trying to be civilized was incredibly. In fact, I’d say everything about this movie was fun, outlandish, and twisted… to the max. It reminded me of such great satire as DR. STRANGELOVE, with science-experiments worthy of the cow scene in O LUCKY MAN, and some one-liners and sight gags reminiscent of AIRPLANE (the first one, the funny one). The widely talented cast of recognizables seemed to be having such a good time being silly and getting annihilated… they must have had a helluva good time on this set making this movie.
Trap: I bet -- Burton clearly loves cheesy 50s sci-fi films like EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS and has a lot of fun duplicating their look and feel while simultaneously sending them up (an effect only amplified by Danny Elfman's theremin-inflected score). Nevertheless, there's a tremendous buoyancy, in spite of the massive carnage and the high body-count. The Martians may be an "advanced civilization", but they act more like bratty little kids pulling the wings off flies and laughing about it (mark my words, if you have kids, they’re soon going to be driving you nuts mimicking the Martians’ evil "ack ack ack!" laughter). This spirit of gleeful anarchy drives the film as a whole, and it’s hard not to get caught up in it. It’s all just good, clean, subversive fun watching the cackling little gremlins giving the various self-serving, witless, or deluded humans their just desserts.
Bluesy: Ack, Ack, Ack is right. Hmm, come to think of it, my boyfriend used to laugh that way. Maybe I dated an alien and didn’t even know it.
Trap: Well, I wouldn’t put it past you. Maybe next time you’ll be more careful about dating outside your species. Ack Ack Ack!
Bluesy and Trap Rate-a-Flick:
Mars Attacks!
Bluesy:
Fun 
Bouyant
