Movie Review - Mars Attacks

Mars Attacks (1996) - So let's see, Tim Burton directs, the cast includes Jack Nicholson, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Jessica Parker, Glenn Close, Annette Benning, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Michael J. Fox, Jim Brown (the NFL great), Rod Steiger, Natalie Portman, Tom Jones (the great Welsh singer) and Pam Grier.  It is a parody of '50s Science Fiction movies which means it has a RICH vein to mine.

So why does this movie suck?

And trust me, it sucks.  Ponderous, self conscious, unfunny, and totally missing the feeling of the movies it was trying to parody.  The idea is to twist the bad acting, writing and directing of the originals to create a quirky new look.  Instead we get a movie with bad acting, bad writing and bad directing.  There is NOTHING redeeming about this turkey.  Honestly.  Nothing.

The story is pretty much what you'd expect.  First contact with an alien race (Martians) results in the peaceniks vs the war mongers arguing over how to greet them.  When we finally do meet them the Martians immediately begin killing every Earth man, woman and child they see (all while laughing maniacally).  Eventually we discover that we can kill them with Country yodeling   Yes, I just gave away the ending.  You can thank me later.

Some movies are so good you can't take you eyes off them.  Then there are the train wrecks like this one.

Rating - * Don't Bother