Mars Attacks!
Mars Attacks!
PG-13 | 13 December 1996 (USA)
Mars Attacks! Trailers

A fleet of Martian spacecraft surrounds the world's major cities and all of humanity waits to see if the extraterrestrial visitors have, as they claim, "come in peace." U.S. President James Dale receives assurance from science professor Donald Kessler that the Martians' mission is a friendly one. But when a peaceful exchange ends in the total annihilation of the U.S. Congress, military men call for a full-scale nuclear retaliation.

Reviews
beetle-259-554148

Okay, so what do you get when you take War of the Worlds, Earth vs the Flying Saucers, Independence Day, and combine that with the mind of the director of Ed Wood, Beetlejuice, and Edward Scissorhands who grew up watching those types of movies? The result is Mars Attacks!, a sci- fi parody with an all-star cast; Jack Nicholson, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Jessica Parker, Danny DeVito, Jack Black, Paul Winfield, Annette Bening, Rod Steiger, Natalie Portman, Lisa Marie, Glenn Close, Martin Short, Michael J. Fox, and Jack Nicholson!!Oh yes, this movie has stars a-plenty! This movie has more stars on Earth than you see in space!This movie is one that you either love or hate. I love it! Though there are reasons why I rated it 9 stars rather than 10. One reason is because a lot of the characters I wanted to see live don't survive. Hell, one of my favourite characters dies very early on.If this was another movie, the dated CG would've made me dock another star. But for the type of movie it is and for the genre it's spoofing, the now-poor CG works. In the '50s and '60s alien invader films that this makes fun of, the effects were dated in 1996 (strings visible that hold up the saucers, aliens obviously people in suits, etc). As a result, the effects in here being dated now unintentionally harks back to the dated effects of the '50s and '60s.One very interesting scene is when one of the buildings in Vegas is destroyed. In real life, that building was actually scheduled to be demolished! Tim Burton got permission to film the demolition of the Landmark Hotel and Casino from multiple angles and it's demolition was used in the film so when you it destroyed in the movie, it was actually destroyed (though no one was actually inside.).My mom told me that she saw this in the theatre and that it was the most terrifying movie she'd ever seen. Goes to show that Mars Attacks! isn't for everyone.So if you like Tim Burton, alien invader films, sci-fi comedies or even all three, definitely give this film a watch.Also, keep an eye out for the meat packing tycoon from Ed Wood, one of Burton's earlier films. He plays an investor in this film too.

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DoctorHver

Bland and boring film with awful cgi, heck even Toy Story was more realistic CGI than this and Woody and co came out year earlier.I have honestly not much to say about this film. Other than I found it very funny and extremely boring back in the day.Despite some good casting it falls on every level in all form and execution.

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Irishchatter

I have heard of this movie before but I never got to sit down and properly watch it until last night. It was unbelievably funny, I honestly didn't think it was one at all, I thought it was just a normal sci-fi film with such laughs! Jack Nicolsan as usual, did a great job in doing a few times such as the president of the United States, a crook and the scientist who translates what the aliens are saying. Seriously I would rather nominate him as a president than Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump these days! It would make the world a better place like haha!Anyways even if the movie was full of laughs, it's even sad to when the Aliens killed off the best stars such as Michael J. Fox, Danny DeVito, Sarah Jessica Parker, Pierce Brosnan and Jack Nicolsan with his few roles. However I'm glad they kept the other stars like Nataile Portman and the others. Portman is just so gorgeous in this as a teen, she really stands out in any movie! I would give this movie 8/10 for its humour and honorary of B movies out there!

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homerthefreak-786-658831

It makes sense that this movie was based on a trading card franchise, because that's pretty much what it felt like. It was as if they turned a bunch of the scenes from the cards into scenes in a movie and stitched it together into a coherent plot. Like a lot of stuff happens, but it doesn't really mean anything. Like for example, two people are captured by the aliens, and then eventually they die when the spaceship crashes, but they don't really do anything when they're on the ship. The cast was packed with stars I did not expect, but even they didn't really do anything. They were just there, in that situation. All this movie has is that at the end there's a basic conflict resolution, but until then everything going on just feels very random. It's never explained why the aliens acted peaceful for one second before attacking, or even why they're attacking. Again though, I can't fault it too much on all of this because this does make it feel more faithful to the source material. That's the problem with having the source material be a trading card game. It just feels... weird... that this movie exists.Besides that, a complaint I have is that I feel like they should have probably made this movie with an R-rating. As I look at some of the trading cards the movie was based on, they seem pretty violent, and I think this movie would have had a lot more to work with if it was rated R. The aliens aren't even supposed to have green blood. It's red, like ours. Also, imagine Jack Nicholson cussing out some aliens.

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