Review: Mars Attacks 4K UHD
I have a bit of a soft spot for Mars Attacks!, because it’s Tim Burton at his most bonkers. I doubt anyone would ever get the money to make a similar film on this scale again. It feels like somebody gave Burton a huge Hollywood budget, a cast of the most famous actors at that time (Jack Nicholson) and then let him loose to do whatever he wanted.
The story is wonderfully daft. Martians arrive on Earth apparently wanting to make peaceful contact with us. They are tiny and have enormous exposed brains, covered by 1950s sci-fi glass helmets, and communicate mainly by going “Ack! Ack! Ack!” Earth is delighted, unfortunately, they’re complete psychopaths and ray-gun everyone to death.
God, this is a weird film.
The cast is ridiculous. Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Michael J. Fox, Sarah Jessica Parker, Martin Short, Rod Steiger and even Tom Jones all turn up (Jack Nicholson playing two different characters because apparently one Jack Nicholson wasn’t enough).
Slim Whitman saves the world by yodelling, and Sarah Jessica Parker and Pierce Brosnan fall in love as disembodied heads. And that’s what I like about Mars Attacks! is that it never takes itself seriously. Burton is obviously having a lovely time taking the piss out of those old 1950s alien invasion films, American politics, the military, scientists and just about everybody else.
The Martians are horrible little sods, but they’re also extremely funny. There is something particularly brilliant about them pretending to come in peace and then merrily vaporising everybody in sight.
Visually, it is pure Tim Burton. Bright colours, flying saucers, skeletons, enormous Martian brains, Lisa Marie being enigmatic, and that slightly tacky retro science-fiction look that is completely deliberate. It shouldn’t really work, but somehow it does, and despite its age, it’s still – well, weirdly amazing, and of course we can’t forget Burton’s main collaborator in Danny Elfman’s music.
Thirty years later, the film actually feels better to me than it did when it originally came out. It was quite an odd film in 1996, especially after the much more serious Independence Day, but now its silliness is exactly what makes it so enjoyable, and with all the new ‘Are aliens coming’ films (Disclosure Day) I think these aliens are a lot more fun (sorry, Steven).
The new 4K version (available for the first time in 4K with HDR) really suits it too. The colours are fabulous, and all those reds, greens, explosions, spaceships and Martian heads really pop. The new Dolby Atmos soundtrack gives all the lasers, explosions and general alien carnage a bit more welly as well. It’s quite glorious to watch.
I have to mention the steelbook because mine has the slipcover and it is beautiful. This is one of those releases where the packaging actually feels appropriate to the film rather than somebody simply sticking the poster onto a metal box and charging another twenty quid for it. The collectors edition includes even more goodies!
Brilliant
ACK! ACK! ACK!
Review by Tina from a steelbook edition kindly supplied by Warner Bros via Fetch Publicity.
