A review by Brooks Rich
I think Tim Burton's masterpiece is the film Ed Wood. It is a loving tribute to the man considered to be the worst director in history and Burton tells his story through a sympathetic lens. Then in 1996 Burton decides to try and make a spoof of '50s black and white UFO invasion films, Burton probably thinking of Ed Wood's infamous Plan 9 from Outer Space. Mars Attacks was a somewhat big hit but nowhere near the big science fiction hit of 1996. That was a little film called Independence Day, which is leagues better than Mars Attacks.
I loved Mars Attacks when I was a kid but now after rewatching it I realized that it just doesn't work. The film is somewhere between spoof and just a full on comedy. It never really knows what it wants to be. Are you a spoof of other films? Are you just a comedy film? Why is this scene being treated like a serious alien film? For the sake of this article I'll call it a spoof though because I guess it leans more into spoof then just comedy.
Practically every major actor and actress in Hollywood is in this film. Most are doing good work and having fun. I think this film maybe could have been saved if you had performances more like you had in Airplane, where serious actors of the time said silly lines as straight as possible.
The alien design is funny and I love their stupid voices. There are great gags in this but it never comes together for me as a whole. One joke will work like crazy and another will fall flat. If we are going to call this film a spoof, the jokes are way too inconsistent for that.
Mars Attacks was kind of the end of Burton's golden age in my opinion. I do like Sleepy Hollow a lot, which came out after this, but Burton never made anything like Ed Wood or Beetlejuice after this, though he came close. Big Fish and Big Eyes are both very good films for different reasons. I wanted to start with Mars Attacks because for me it is that middle film between when he made his best films and when he started to slip.
I loved Mars Attacks when I was a kid but now after rewatching it I realized that it just doesn't work. The film is somewhere between spoof and just a full on comedy. It never really knows what it wants to be. Are you a spoof of other films? Are you just a comedy film? Why is this scene being treated like a serious alien film? For the sake of this article I'll call it a spoof though because I guess it leans more into spoof then just comedy.
Practically every major actor and actress in Hollywood is in this film. Most are doing good work and having fun. I think this film maybe could have been saved if you had performances more like you had in Airplane, where serious actors of the time said silly lines as straight as possible.
The alien design is funny and I love their stupid voices. There are great gags in this but it never comes together for me as a whole. One joke will work like crazy and another will fall flat. If we are going to call this film a spoof, the jokes are way too inconsistent for that.
Mars Attacks was kind of the end of Burton's golden age in my opinion. I do like Sleepy Hollow a lot, which came out after this, but Burton never made anything like Ed Wood or Beetlejuice after this, though he came close. Big Fish and Big Eyes are both very good films for different reasons. I wanted to start with Mars Attacks because for me it is that middle film between when he made his best films and when he started to slip.
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