Mars Attacks!
It's almost like making a $100,000,000 movie based on a half-forgotten series of trading cards was a bad idea. Tim Burton's 1996 adaptation of the early 60s trading card series offers ten minutes or so of really great visuals recreating classic scenes from the series chronicling Earth being invaded by Martians. The trouble is, those 10 minutes are spread out over the film's 106-minute runtime.
Held together by duct tape and a series of plot threads involving boring characters we'd all rather see killed off then spend a minute longer with, the dark comedy doesn't play quite as well in 2026 as it did 30 years before given the inept government run by Jack Nicholson's President Dale is somehow still more coherent, and far less corrupt, than the current Trump administration. Nicholson bizarrely also does double duty in another role as a would-be casino owner whose entire plot could be removed from the film without any ramifications to the narrative.
Familiar faces are packed in both major and minor roles, almost all of them completely forgettable. Natalie Portman gets off a fun quip or two, and there's certainly some odd fascination with what happens to Sarah Jessica Parker's reporter, but otherwise the filler does little more than get in the way of the Martians actually attacking (which is what everyone paid to see).
Opening with perhaps the film's most iconic scene of the film recreating the Burning Cattle card, it takes almost another 40 minutes before the film follows it up with any more Martian shenanigans as we're forced to sit through good actors like Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Michael J. Fox, Pam Grier, Jack Black, and others all spinning their wheels until the real story gets started, or interrupting at any point where things start to get interesting.
While I think you could put together a fun highlight video of the movie's best moments, attempting to watch Mars Attacks! from beginning to end proves to be a brutal slog with scant rewards. The new 4K includes two featurettes on the film's creation and special effects. A limited edition steelbook also comes with several cards featuring various scenes and artwork as well.
- Title: Mars Attacks!
- IMDb: link
