Monday, September 27, 2010

Mars Attacks! [M]




From the deep crevices of the angry red planet Mars, emerges a highly intelligent breed of Martians with one thing in mind: to invade planet Earth. With their advanced weaponry that turns humans into char grilled skeletons, they are armed and dangerous, but never fear! For Earth will fight back with an unexpected weapon of mass destruction. Take that Martians!  

So here I am, with an excruciatingly sore throat and popping pills like a mad woman, completely absorbed in the chaotic sci-fi spoof that is Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks!  I haven’t seen this movie in ages and had actually forgotten how hysterical and ridiculous it was. A wonderful mess of explosions, fire, spaceships, Martians, and famous faces. 

From the deep crevices of the red planet Mars, emerges a highly intelligent race of beings with one thing in mind: to invade the planet Earth. With their advanced weaponry that turns humans into char grilled skeletons, they are armed and dangerous and intent on causing some chaos. All the world leaders’ attempts to reason or negotiate peace with them have been futile and as we scurry across the face of the earth away from their mayhem, they are laughing at us and teasing us with false apologies and declarations of peace. But never fear, because Earth will fight back and we have an unexpected weapon that’s twice as deadly as any insta-fry ray gun. Take that Martians! 

I have to start by saying that if you do try and make sense out of this film, you will go insane. The way to watch this movie is to just watch and enjoy. Lap up all the absurdness of the situation and just laugh. A tribute to the old sci-fi films that had no real story and everything just happened, Mars Attacks! is an absolute train wreck, devastating to behold, but at the same time monumental and beautiful. It’s just complete and utter chaos: buildings being blown up, politics being fried, bodies being disassembled, all at the hands of these little people with huge brains and wide eyes. 
This is a wonderful example of a film that is driven by its cast and not its script or plot. The list of names goes on and on and on: 
Jack Nicholson plays two parts, the American President and a rich hotel owner, and he is absolutely fantastic. If he ran for office and I was an American citizen, he would totally have my vote. 
The film also stars Annette Bening, Glenn Close, Natalie Portman. Danny DeVito, Jack Black, Christina Applegate, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J Fox, Pierce Brosnan, Martin Short, Lisa Marie, and Tom Jones. How can you resist that?! 
With knock-out special effects and a spine-tingling score by Danny Elfman, Mars Attacks! is a wonderfully chaotic film where everything happens for no reason. Filled with action, suspense, violence, romance, and science-fiction, it’s a film that just gets better every time you watch it. 

No comments:

Post a Comment