Questions/Comments?
CHEW ON THIS ONE for a mouthful moment: A major Hollywood science-fiction movie based on popular bubble-gum cards? Since it's the infamous, once-controversial Topps cards (55 of them were issued in 1962 by Topps Chewing Gum Co.), why not?
Did not these instant collector's items, roughed out by comic-book artists Wallace Wood and Bob Powell and finalized by another comic-book artist, Norman Saunders, depict hideous-looking alien monsters destroying Earth babies and dogs, not to mention buildings and other earthly dwellings? Did not these graphic (dare we say tasteless?) cards show hapless and beautiful Earth maidens about to undergo a close encounter not of their choosing?
But all that four-color history aside, how does MARS ATTACKS! work as a full-length, special effects-laden extravaganza?
Well, in the hands of oddball director Tim (ED WOOD) Burton, who was obviously inspired by the kind of madness that permeated DR. STRANGELOVE, it works sometimes. But not always. What do you expect in a Topps-y turvy world?
British playwright Jonathan Gems' original screenplay (developed in tandem with Burton, a great admirer of the Topps set) treats the concept of Earth's invasion as a parody of sci-fi movie styles of the 1950s. Many of the scenes look as if they had been lifted from George Pal's WAR OF THE WORLDS (1954) or Ray Harryhausen's EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS (1956). And even Danny Elfman's memorable score copies Bernard Herrmann's music for THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL to improved perfection.
Gems' less-than-a-gem whacked-out script is also a platform for satirical comments on the stupidity of government and military officials (a la Stanley Kubrick) and Las Vegas moguls (a la Howard Hughes).
But, and it's a big but . . . the bubble-gum card-inspired look of the evil, glass-helmet-wearing invaders and the cartoonish special effects (by Industrial Light & Magic) seem better suited to a full-length animated version, and never totally jive with the live action footage. The behavior of the aliens never once seems accountable for the passive reaction from the politicians and military leaders who mislead our nation through the attack. Maybe it was designed to be cute, or show us our stupid political ways (left wing or right wing, take your pick), but in this cutesy context it fails to work.
What might have blended, had the characters not been so stupidly written, instead becomes an uneven, dumb exercise in comedy-action often excruciating to watch.
One keeps waiting for one brilliant Burton touch to pull it all together, but it never arrives. Burton has always been unique and quirky in his choices, and here he goes not only over the top but completely out of sight, perhaps losing his cult following as well as general audiences.
The silly characters are endless: Jack Nicholson doubles his fun as a conservative President (who never stops making an ass of himself) and as the cowboy owner of Las Vegas' new Galaxy Hotel; Glenn Close is an insufferably snobbish First Lady; Pierce Brosnan underplays his foolishly passive expert on Martian life, falling in love with TV hostess Sarah Jessica Parker in the strangest of ways.
Others involved in the oft-dull proceedings are hawkish general Rod Steiger, press secretary Martin Short (who has one funny scene with a Martian disguised as a busty whore), Michael J. Fox, Tom Jones (in a send-up of his own singing stardom), Annette Bening, Danny De Vito, James Brown, Sylvia Sidney, James Brown, Pam Grier, Paul Winfield.