Mars Attacks!
Mars Attacks!
PG-13 | 13 December 1996 (USA)
Watch Now on Prime Video

Watch with Subscription, Cancel anytime

Watch Now
Mars Attacks! Trailers View All

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
Jeanskynebu

the audience applauded

SnoReptilePlenty

Memorable, crazy movie

Intcatinfo

A Masterpiece!

Siflutter

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

View More
dandbone

The movie is about Martians invading the Earth. The reason is unclear, but as the movie progresses, it turns out they are purging the planet of everything uncool. By uncool I mean redneck soldiers, politicians, generals, fashion, sex addicts, trailer park dwellers, crooks, scientists, journalists and lawyers. In the end, uncoolness becomes a weapon against the aliens.There is a subtext in the movie, that civilization itself is uncool and maybe we should return to simpler times when men used to live in tepees.There are lots of great jokes in the movies, and some of them aren't exactly obvious. My favorite is the one with the hydrogen fusion and the laughing gas.There are lots of characters, most of them being stereotypes. That is actually not a bad thing, and many of the jokes derive from these characters and their perception of the alien invasion. There are lots of A-list actors in the movie and, though they each have little screen time, they make their characters unforgettable.I wish that Hollywood would make more movies like this, instead of sinking hundreds of millions on Avatar and other Muppet shows.

View More
Thomas Drufke

Tim Burton doesn't usually delve into the Sci-Fi realm of filmmaking, so Mars Attacks seemed like a good deviation for him while still maintaining his style. Burton certainly does that, with sometimes satisfying and always ridiculous results.One thing it undeniably has is an unbelievable cast. Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Michael J. Fox, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Jessica Parker, Martin Short, and Danny Devito star in this insane sci-fi romp. And that's just to name a few. In some ways, this is Tim Burton's Independence Day. The story is structured in a similar way with an ensemble cast sharing the load with interweaving stories. The aliens have similar intentions but with a slightly more comedic approach and horrific special effects.I was not on board with this film for the first 45 minutes. There were far too many characters to keep track of and I didn't really feel connected to them anyway. The film also seemed to be taking itself way too seriously. But once the aliens reach Washington D.C., it turns into a completely different film altogether. So in one hand, it's an uneven directing job from Burton. But on the other hand, the change of tone midway through kind of adds to the ridiculousness of the whole thing. Either way, I enjoyed my time with this sci-fi romp.Overall, it's a charming little sci-fi project from Burton, and we haven't really gotten one of those from him since. Although the budget skyrocketed to 70 million, which is a lot for the 90's, the story feels more personal and smaller scale than the similar Independence Day. The effects are brutal and would have been better off using stop motion like Burton had originally planned. But all of this pretty much leads to a harmlessly entertaining comedy that hits more often than not.+Tonal change helps+Cast+Ridiculous-Don't really care about all the characters6.8/10

View More
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.

View More
Mr-Fusion

There's something warped about "Marts Attacks" no mater how you look at it. For one, it's based on a line of trading cards - which actually sounds reasonable with the Hollywood culture of today, but certainly not that of 20 years ago. The bad guys are big-headed martians who speak in "ack-ack"s. And they threw a lot of money at this thing; it looks expensive.But this script is terrible. How can you cast every actor working in 1996 and have such awful writing? There's a staggering array of talent here that's wasted on flat material. There are glimpses of solid comedy; like the martians vaporizing all of Congress. And I do still like Jack Nicholson's "I want the people to know that they still have 2 out of 3 branches of the government working for them, and that ain't bad." (the government cynicism here is tickling).But aside from a couple of nonverbal gestures from Rod Steiger, this is shockingly unfunny.4/10

View More