In 1996, Independence Day became the highest grossing movie of the year, cementing Will Smith as a leading man, turned director Roland Emmerich into one of Hollywood’s top names, and solidifying the alien invasion movie as the ideal summer blockbuster spectacle. But another alien invasion film came out in 1996, one with the misfortune of showing up around 6 months after Independence Day. Mars Attacks! would be Tim Burton’s stab at destroying the world onscreen, and is the product of a lifelong love of extravagant sci-fi. Its recent arrival on Amazon Prime allows new viewers the chance to watch his most underrated movie.
Burton’s adoration for the disaster and monster movies of his youth is no secret — he once stated that his dream job would be to wear the Godzilla suit. And in fact, he was passed over for the chance at directing the King of the Monsters in the early ‘90s. But his interest in these genres is all over his filmography, from the Ray Harryhausen-esque special effects that he liked to deploy in films like Beetlejuice (at one point, the Martians in Mars Attacks! were meant to be done in stop motion) to copious references in films like Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. Burton even made a cinematic love letter to Ed Wood, a man who dreamed of flying saucer epics and ended up with the infamous Plan 9 from Outer Space.
When he got the chance to tackle Mars Attacks!, a film based on the wonderful Topps trading card series, Burton turned it into a star-studded disaster film. In the 1970s, the genre had been huge and featured massive, almost bafflingly famous casts. For example, 1974’s The Towering Inferno (whose whole plot was basically about a burning building) featured Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, and OJ Simpson. Independence Day had certainly not been an A-List casting slouch (along with Smith, it nabbed Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, and Randy Quaid).
But Mars Attacks! certainly beats it out for the sheer number of “Oh my god, they’re in this movie, too?!?” moments. Glenn Close, Pierce Brosnan, Michael J. Fox, Martin Short, Annette Bening, Danny DeVito, and Sarah Jessica Parker, along with Jack Nicholson playing two separate roles, are just a drop in the bucket of what Mars Attacks! has to offer. Mars Attacks! is just as zany as it is dramatic, a true case of having your cake and then eating it as voraciously as possible. If Independence Day had tried to bring a straight face to an alien apocalypse, Mars Attacks! did it with a wide grin.