Mars attacks! - 1996

:lol: this must be watched with the right set of mind, because of course it’s extremely silly, but in a brilliant way :-p There isn’t one line that you can repeat to make your friends laugh, it’s not that kind of thing. It moves slow, the aliens are little, ridiculous things who communicate with strange uac-uac-uac sounds, there are a lot of characters that seem to have little or nothing to do with the main story, and there is indeed a lot of violence in the way that the Martians kill a lot of people. Which could have been easily guessed after reading the title, it says ‘attacks’ after all, there’s even a ‘!’ !

The aliens image I think it was taken from some trading cards, and they move in a funny way and are not ‘real’ at all, which is good in this one case, they actually made me think of toys. There are funniest bits where we laughed, though. The first encounter, when the humans use their machine to communicate, the words we-come-in-peace are heard from everyone, people smile, someone lets a dove fly, and as they see it the Martians suddenly start shooting everyone :-p In a serious film it would have been a painful nightmare, but this was different, like when you like the bad guy in a book, you can just enjoy the entertainment. It was ridiculous how they easily relied on the translator-machine to communicate with the Martians (google translator will prove you that it’s not that simple, if you want a good translation you’d better rely on humans..); also ridiculous: the Martians played a ‘we-come-in-peace’ recording while slaughtering all humans in sight, as if that was enough to fool them; when the Martians landed in front of the White House, supposedly to apologise, the police held a “no applause” and a “no birds” sign in front of the people gathered there; when the Martians kill everyone at the congress, the first lady spills her tea, the president faints, their daughter says “I guess it wasn’t the dove” without even flinching, grandma laughs at the screen, and the doughnut girl says “maybe the don’t liking the human being” or something like that; For unknown reasons the Martians walk around their ships in their underwear; when the Martians attack the White House and the president is taken away, they take a different route because there is a tour going on; the Martians take the place of Tom Jones’ three vocalists before they start shooting inside the hotel; the Martians walk while shooting their weapons and playing a “don’t run, we are your friends” recording; the president has his hands in his hair in desperation when the France Prime Minister calls him to say he has the Martian ambassador in the room, right before they shoot everyone destroying the tour Eiffel; when the Martians neutralise their big rocket, they let them watch while they absorb its energy and laugh like crazy; at the medal ceremony at the end there’s a Mariachi band, and grandma says “thank you but don’t you dare let this happen again”; when Byron walks towards his home, a bulldozer carries away all the dead Martians bodies.

They destroy London, the Taj Mahal, the Easter Island, redesign mount Rushmore, they watch Godzilla and Hazzard on their tv. 

In a few words the story is: Martians ships arrive, America decides to greet them amicably, for some unknown reason the Martians start shooting everyone, America tries to settle the misunderstanding, the Martians pretend to agree but instead attack again, until a boy and his old grandma find out that a specific song makes the Martian’s brain explode.

There are limits to the violence though, because we never actually see any kid getting killed.

Now, the characters in detail:

-----USA president - Jack Nicholson

A president mostly interested in looking good on camera, in making a good speech, he always chooses the ‘peaceful way’, ignoring the warring general. He’s all I-knew-it-was-all-a-misunderstanding and after the Martians kill all those present at the congress and later make their way into his secured office, he tries to get out of it with words like ‘why do we have to fight, because we are different, we should work together’ and blah blah blah, he’s a politician, he likes giving speeches and hearing his voice, as if humans (and America too) never made war, never judge others because they are different, never distrusted someone because is ‘different’ in any way... no matter the times, this speech will always be something, sarcasm-wise.

He is killed with a mechanical hand that stabs him from the back, Alien-style, and from it comes out the Martian’s flag. 

-----Art-Jack Nicholson

A Las Vegas hotel’s owner, he only thinks about making money, it’s the only thing he cares or thinks about, even planning on how his hotel should greet the Martians as if they would stay and eat and drink like everybody else, and is killed when the place he’s in is destroyed.

-----First lady-Glenn Close

She only thinks about her position, looking good in pictures, looking as important as she thinks she is, and of all the things around her that she considers hers now that she lives there (White House of course).

She gets killed when a big chandelier falls on her during the Martians attack at the White House. 

-----Barbara-Annette Bening

Art’s wife, she talks about Buddhism and saving the Earth, she said she had quitted drinking but, maybe because of the Martian attack, she drinks again later. She doesn’t seem too destroyed by her husband’s death, she simply runs to Byron looking for someone that can pilot her plane to get out of there.

She actually kills one Martian, although it’s too late to save the lawyer she likes.

-----Donald - Pierce Brosnan

The professor that kept saying that the Martians are an advanced people and therefore a peaceful one (sarcasm flows like mad in every one of his words, since history tells us that advanced people make advanced weapons...), he was the one that said it was all a communication-misunderstanding that caused the attack, and he ends up in one of their spaceship, used by the Martians for experimenting, we see him again, pieces of his body suspended here and there, while his head is severed but left active (still dripping blood though). When the Martians die and the ship falls, I guess he’ll ‘die’ too...

-----Nathalie - Sarah Jessica Parker

A sort of absent-minded tv-show host, always with her little dog by her side, in a relationship with Jason, who is killed in front of her before she’s taken into a Martian ship. She’s the first to be experimented upon, when they put her head onto the dog’s body and the dog’s head on her body. She meets Donald first while interviewing for her show, and again when he’s only a head and she’s wagging her tail at him... her fate is the same as Donald.

-----Jason - Michael J. Fox

A ‘serious’ journalist, in a relationship with Natalie, he is jealous of her success, and also of Donald because she was indeed flirting with him on tv. At the first press conference announcing the Martians arrival, his only interest was if he could interview them... When the Martians attack, he crawls towards her but when they are close and she manages to catch his hand, that’s the only thing left of him. This has always been the scene that affected me the most, because I see all the rest of the ‘violence’ as a cartoon-type of violence, and not of the realistic ones. 

-----Billy - Jack Black

He is worshipped by his parents as the perfect son, like them he likes weapons and is happy to join the soldiers present while welcoming the Martians. He is killed during the first attack, while his parents are killed later by a Martian robot destroying their trailer.

-----Richie - Lukas Haas

Billy’s brother, considered a disappointment by his parents because unlike the rest of the family he doesn’t care for guns and works in a doughnut place. His insistence on disobeying his parents to go and get his grandma is what saves his life, and also Earth, because he arrives when they are about to kill her so she takes the earplugs out letting the music into the room and the Martians die, so Richie learns that that song can kill them.

-----President’s daughter - Natalie Portman

She starts off as a bored teenager, annoyed by her mother’s attitude towards a place that ‘isn’t hers’, and she’s the one to point out, during the second attack, that the dove had nothing to do with it :lol: When her parents are taken away, she’s left behind. After everyone else dies, at the end there’s only her left so she’s the one to give a medal to Richie and his grandma, also crushing on Richie. 

-----Byron - Jim Brown

He works in Art’s hotel, dressed like... what, an egyptian? Anyway, tourists take pictures with him, but his family is in Washington so when Barbara tells him she has a plane, he wants to go home, but he stays behind to fight a large group of Martians to give them the chance to escape. He fights well, but while the plane flies away, they see him on the floor, surrounded. Nevertheless, at the end we see him reaching on foot what remains of his family’s home :-) Very glad about this, I loved Byron’s character !

-----Martin Short played the press agent of the US president. He arranges all his press conferences and has a thing for picking up prostitutes making himself important with his big car and his job at the White House. He’s the one who lets in the Martian girl. 

-----Rod Steiger plays the warring general, the one that keeps saying from the start that the military must be involved, that they must attack, but his wish is granted only very late and anyway it has no effect, because they drink/absorb their rocket like an energy drink. Also laughing to their faces :lol:

-----Tom Jones plays.. Tom Jones, singing inside Art’s hotel, he joins Byron and Barbara because he can pilot her plane and take them out of there.

-----Lisa Marie plays the Martian ‘girl’. A Martian disguised as a Earth girl to get inside the White House, but then he gets distracted by the dog barking, wastes time shooting the dog and the bird thus failing to kill the president and his wife, and gets killed by the security man. I found it rather funny the way she moved, so unnatural, so unrealistic, but nobody noticed. Tall, slender, tight dress, big tits, blond hair, heavy make-up and a chewing-gum in her mouth to make her more American. 

-----Byron’s wife - Pam Grier

I liked her a lot, although actually she doesn’t have a big role. She takes care of her two sons, waiting for Byron to come home.

-----Danny De Vito played a gambler in Art’s hotel. He’s not a very important character. He talks a lot, gets annoyed by Byron taking leadership of the group and leaves, then he tries to bribe a Martian with his rolex promising his help as a lawyer, but of course gets killed.

-----Byron’s sons, they like to play videogames. They are at the White House for a tour when the Martians attack and they do a better job than the guards, picking up two weapons from fallen Martians and starting shooting like in the videogames. They actively help in saving the president’s life !

p.s. there’s the guy with white hair reading the newspaper that always makes me think of Nicholas Cage, I don’t know why...