In 1962, trading card company Topps, best known for their sports card lines, released a set of illustrated trading cards featuring an alien invasion. Dubbed Mars Attacks, the cards were a hit with kids who salivated over the grotesque and lascivious art by legendary artist Wally Wood, as well as the inventive story of aliens from Mars overthrowing the human race. However, parents of the time were less than thrilled, and Topps responded by discontinuing production. But the damage was done, and Mars Attacks became an indelible part of pop culture. Flash forward to 1996, when that legacy would be revisited by Beetlejuice and Batman director, Tim Burton, in the form of a live-action film titled Mars Attacks! (this time with an exclamation point for emphasis).
The film followed the basic premise of the card series; aliens from Mars find their way to Earth, and while the Earthlings try to make peace with the newcomers, the aliens are intent on destroying everything they see. However, instead of translating Wood’s serious and vulgar depictions of the alien attack, Burton poses this film as a black comedy, with characters meeting their ends in obtuse, often ridiculous ways.
One thing to notice about Mars Attacks! is the sheer star power it boasts. This isn’t a film with one or two main stars with a bunch of supporting roles; Mars Attacks! is packed to the gills with Hollywood heavyweights, the most prominent of which being Jack Nicholson. Nicholson leads the cast as the President of the United States, but he also has a smaller role as a sleazy Las Vegas businessman named Art Land. Nicholson is almost unrecognizable as Land, and the gag is played for laughs with Nicholson chewing the scene like a steak from a $2.99 buffet in Vegas.
Alongside Nicholson are Glenn Close as the First Lady and Natalie Portman as their daughter, unexplainably named Taffy in the film. There’s also Pierce Brosnan, Martin Short, Annette Benning, Michael J. Fox, and Sarah Jessica Parker. And this is just part of the main cast. The film also boasts cameos from Danny Devito and Christina Applegate, Pam Grier and Jim Brown in a weighty side plot, and even a pre-fame Jack Black. On top of that, legendary crooner Sir Tom Jones makes an appearance as himself, and even gets quite a bit of screen time. It’s ridiculous how many recognizable faces are in this film. Hell, even Ray J. shows up in Mars Attacks! in the other of his most notable on-screen appearances.
Of course, with that many stars, the first thing that goes is any sort of development. There isn’t nearly enough time in the 106-minute run time to delve into this many characters, so most of the story is told through archetypes. Nicholson’s President seeks acceptance and plays to both sides of the argument, the First Lady is concerned with appearances over politics. Sarah Jessica Parker is the vapid fashion reporter while Michael J. Fox is the intrepid and pretentious serious reporter. It doesn’t take much to understand these characters, and most of them are terrible people to their core. Which makes it much easier when they inevitably meet their demise. These are the kinds of characters audiences root to be obliterated, and Burton knows this, and he is willing to oblige.
The irony of Mars Attacks! is that it was released six months after another hugely popular film that dealt with the same themes of alien invasion: Independence Day. But while ID4 followed the idea that humanity was overall good and deserved to be saved, Mars Attacks! left the audience wondering if the Martians had a point. The film framed its argument on the failure of authority by showing us the actual failure of the country’s power structures.
The first is the failure of the media, which Burton portrays in the cattiness between Nathalie Lake (Parker) and Jason Stone (Fox). Though these characters are in a relationship, they work for rival news networks, but the cattiness between them gets in the way. When Lake lands an interview with renowned professor Donald Kessler (Brosnan), Stone allows his petty jealousy to drive a wedge between them. But Lake is portrayed as so insipidly dense, she doesn’t even realize he’s ignoring her.
Burton also lampoons science, in the way that everything it predicted about the aliens was absolutely wrong. Kessler repeatedly states that the aliens’ advanced intelligence is a sign of their peacefulness and never deviates from this hypothesis. But everything about the aliens proves otherwise. They’re vindictive little dicks who want to destroy for the fun of it. They’re like middle-schoolers who’d found a cache of fireworks in the garage and tie them to every small animal they find.
But the strongest assault is on the government itself. This is portrayed in several ways. Firstly, in the ineffectiveness of the military. Not only are the Martians’ weapons more powerful than the humans’, but the humans are also stupid and cowardly. Billy Glenn Norris (Jack Black) is full of vim and vigor to join the army and meet the aliens. When the fighting starts, he gets a quick surge of power and rushes headlong into battle. Then his weapon falls apart and he quickly surrenders.
The military is also portrayed as bloodthirsty yet ineffectual. General Decker (Rod Steiger) is consistently advising the President of a powerful show of force against the invaders. But when the Martians breach the President’s safehouse and the general goes on a tirade to the Martian’s about America’s might, he is shrunken to the size of a mouse and disposed of by being stepped on.
Hell, even Congress is lampooned in its portrayal. As the Martian leader addresses Congress, it’s a room full of mostly old white men with a sparse woman or POC thrown in.
All of this is meant to hammer home how citizens can’t rely on authority in the face of danger. The world is saved by an accidental discovery of a donut store clerk (Lukas Haas) and his dementia-ridden grandmother. Which was something of a bold stance in the mid-1990s. That was a time that we still (mostly) believed in the country and our government. But post-9/11 and the information that came to light during the Bush administration, that sentiment took a hard 180°.
This could explain the negative critical response Mars Attacks! received. Most critics felt it was too cynical and nihilistic. I feel that’s what makes Mars Attacks! good. The aliens have no political intent; they’re not trying to make a statement. It’s not even clear what their motivations are (unlike the original card series, which shows the aliens looking to inhabit earth when Mars is under threat of destruction.) They’re just vicious little creatures with weapons of mass destruction doing what they can because they can – like little kids with fireworks.
Would Mars Attacks! have fared better in the post-George W. Bush world? Possibly. But Nicholson’s lack of party affiliation would surely have both modern audiences pointing fingers shouting, “Must be a *the opposite of what how they vote*!”
But once you get past all of that (and it’s truly easy to overlook it all), Mars Attacks! is a hilarious film with a ton of memorable moments. Some include the brightly colored explosions of the aliens’ ray-guns, leaving skeletal corpses in corresponding color or Jack Nicholson empathically telling General Decker to “Shut up! Shut up, shut UP!” and proclaiming that, “You still have two out of three branches of government working for you, and that ain’t bad.” Not to mention the alien who loses his mind when he hears General Casey’s (Paul Winfield) welcome speech translated into the Martian language.
Mars Attacks! isn’t a movie for all audiences. Its dark humor won’t resonate with everyone, and it plays more like a love letter to classic 1950s sci-fi than it does a modern (well, modern by 1996 standards) blockbuster film. But for fans of black comedies and Tim Burton films, it’s a twisted piece of alien cinema that tantalizes. Though it touches on some serious themes, it’s not a movie meant to take seriously. Just turn off your mind and watch as the big brains of the aliens explode while Tom Jones catches a falcon on his arm and sways his hips at some woodland creatures.
Mars Attacks! is currently streaming on Netflix.
