Review of "Mars Attacks!," DVD version

 Review of

Mars Attacks!, DVD version

Four out of five stars

Parody heaped on parody

 One of the most widely used cliché’s of science fiction is the Little Green Men or LGMs. That and several other phrases are used to describe some of the frequently used and rather bad plot devices in science fiction movies. In the case of this movie, even the exaggerations are exaggerated.

 It starts with an all-star cast led by Jack Nicholson playing two roles. He plays the president of the United States and a glittery Las Vegas huckster. Among others, Glenn Close is the First Lady, Pierce Brosnan is a perpetual pipe smoking intellectual, Jim Brown is an ex-fighter now working as a Las Vegas gladhander, Martin Short is the White House Press Secretary and Danny DeVito is a loudmouth Vegas gambler. Every single role is deliberately overplayed, you get the impression that the actors really enjoyed hamming it up.

 The villains are Martians carrying disintegrator guns and that have green Jell-O for brains. Like the classic tale by H. G. Wells, at first the Martians win all the battles, but eventually the humans discover their fundamental weakness and after that the humans quickly win the war. That weakness is hilarious.

 Even though the stakes are the survival of humans on Earth, there is never a truly serious moment in this movie. It is truly impossible to select the one most absurd parody in the movie, there are so many, and all are so overdone.