Movie Review: Mars Attacks!
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Though the Martians are doubtlessly the villains here, you do get a sneaky anti-establishment message -- that the extraterrestrial holocaust will have a positive side effect of exterminating all the authority figures in society -- politicians, businessmen, teachers, older brothers, mom and dad -- and sparing only the cool kids and the few adults who listen to them (oh, and Tom Jones). "They blew up Congress!" says Richie's grandma after one Martian attack, and she's positively overjoyed. Maybe the real enemy, for Tim Burton, is more earthbound, the type of guardian mentality that would slap a ban on a pack of fantasy trading cards, In that case MARS ATTACKS! gets giddy revenge.
But it was expensive revenge. This movie came out soon after the blockbuster Independence Day another PG-13 alien-conquest spectacle with some equally-farfetched plot twists and lame dialogue, yet passed off, for the most part, as serious science-fiction. Independence Day, in which grownup scientists and hero military pilots destroy the invaders (and even the dog escapes the death rays alive), was the more popular movie by far at the box office than Tim Burton's uncompromised weirdness.
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