Movie Review: Mars Attacks! (1996)

What amazes me most about this movie is that such a huge cast of noteworthy people — movie stars, celebrated actors, rising stars, TV stars, cult icons, and James Bond himself — are all in this movie that’s essentially just a joke. It’s a pretty stale satire of ’50s alien invasion films, with all the trappings of bad ’90s movies.

The cast includes Jack Nicholson in a dual role, Michael J. Fox, Pierce Brosnan, a young Natalie Portman, Jim Brown, Rod Steiger, Danny DeVito, Glenn Close, Martin Short, Annette Bening, Sarah Jessica Parker, Christina Applegate, and Pam Grier. Most of them deserve better.

The person I most enjoyed here was Jack Nicholson, which surprises me. I usually don’t like him because he just plays Jack Nicholson, but here he plays two wildly different characters. I suspect the influence here was Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove, and while Nicholson isn’t near the comedic talent, he is still the best actor in the cast.

There’s only so much of this intentionally silly nonsense I can take. The aliens look ridiculous. Sure, the design is delightfully cheesy, reminiscent of the aliens in This Island Earth.