When thousands of flying saucers from the planet Mars enter the atmosphere over Earth, many look to the skies in absolute wonder. The alien crafts soon say that they will meet with world leaders and proclaim their intentions. All eyes watch as the small, skeletal faced, huge brained, fish bowl helmet wearing visitors make their first appearance. When doves are released as a sign of peace, all hell breaks loose as the aliens vaporize everything in sight. Thinking that it was the doves that caused the Martians to react the way they did, the world's dignitaries give the aliens another chance to introduce themselves to us. The question is was it really the doves or are the aliens just having fun with us?

From the mind of Tim Burton and based on an old bubble gum baseball card and comic book series, comes the utter chaos that is Mars Attacks!

Non stop fun and mayhem make this movie an absolute blast to watch. More than that however is the hundreds of little things that go on in the background. The aliens are always doing something, either with a gun, a human or a farm yard animal. Shot in the same vein as Gremlins, you love to hate the Martians from the way they move to the way they speak, they are just a blast to watch.

The plot of the film has many different stories going on at the same time that either tie together midway through or at the end of the film. The basic story is the worlds military forces trying to stop the aliens, while the main subplot involves a young boy named Richie Norris trying to rescue his grandmother from a nursing home.

Burton captured the beautiful camp of the story with a gusto, right down to the designs of the aliens and their space craft. At times hilarious and on other occasions extremely violent, Mars Attacks is an underappreciated film in my opinion. I myself wasn't crazy about it the first time, but after catching it again on Showtime, I became addicted to the story and over the top villains and heroes, and by about my fifth viewing of this film I almost had the yodeling down.

7 out of 10

(1996) Tim Burton

Jack Nicholson .... President James Dale/Art Land
Glenn Close .... First Lady Marsha Dale
Annette Bening .... Barbara Land
Pierce Brosnan .... Professor Donald Kessler
Danny DeVito .... Rude Gambler
Martin Short .... Press Secretary Jerry Ross
Sarah Jessica Parker .... Nathalie Lake
Michael J. Fox .... Jason Stone
Rod Steiger .... General Decker
Tom Jones .... Himself
Jim Brown .... Byron Williams
Lukas Haas .... Richie Norris
Natalie Portman .... Taffy Dale
Pam Grier .... Louise Williams
Lisa Marie .... Martian Girl