Bridging The Generation Gap

As I've mentioned before one of the great things about being a parent is having the opportunity to share the things you grew up loving with your kids. For instance, to date I have brought to the attention of my two daughters the wonders of both the Tennage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon from the 1980's and the Batman Animated Series from the late 1990's (which by the way is the greatest cartoon in the history of everything).

I have also been slowly introducing them to the films that have defined my life (in an age appropriate manner of course). Bearing in mind the kind of movies I enjoy this is of course a slow burner of a process as at the ages of 9 and 7 they sure as hell aren't going to be watching The Evil Dead trilogy for a few years. What we have watched together recently however are alot of Tim Burton films and thus far they have been enamoured by the fantasy and whismy that are Mr Burtons trademarks.

They loved Edward Scissorhands (though got upset at the ending) and laughed in all the right places at Beetlejuice, so for the next step of our shared journey it only seemed right that we went with MArs Attacks.

Released in 1996 Mars Attacks is Burtons homage to science fiction B movies from the 1950's and is based on the trading card series of the same name. It has a great ensemble cast which includes Glenn Close, Pierce Brosnan, MIchael J Fox, Natalie Portman and Jack Nicholson who plays two roles and is clearly relishing both.

The film begins with a herd of cows being set on fire by a flying saucer and from there we get to see a huge fleet of the ships leaving the surface of Mars and heading for Earth. As they get closer we of course pick up on their presence and there is of course concern as to their intentions may be. Rod Steiger plays a war hungry general who wants to blow the approaching armada away whilst Brosnan is a scientist who convinces the president (Nicholson) that we should attempt to make contact as it is highly likely that the martians are coming in peace.

Jumping forward contact is made and one ship lands on Earth to be met by a human contingent who are hoping that this is the start of something special. It all appears to be going well until the martians whip out their laser guns and start disintergrating people before kidnapping a tv presenter (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her dog. From there we get a full on alien invasion as well as an onship experiment that switches Parkers head with that of her dog.

The martians basically kick our asses and it appears that all hope is lost until a young man named Ritchie (played by Lukas Haas who is one of those actors that has made many bit part appearences in movies you know but has never really broken into the big time) and his nan (Sylvia Sidney in the penultimate performance of a career that started in 1929) discover that the song Indian Love Call by Slim Whitman causes the martians heads to explode (it's not as ridiculous as it sounds I swear).

As we sat watching the film Megan (the 7 year old) really got her bee in her bonnet regarding Steigers general and punched the air with delight when he finally met his maker. Her sister Jessica got all the jokes and the pair of them really enjoyed the film though I don't think it will replace The Garbage Pail Kids Movie as Megans alltime favourite film.

Watching Mars Attacks back I have to admit that I loved it now everybit today as I did when I first saw it back when I was a mere 20 years old and having another film that I can go back and watch again with the next generation of the Grant family is about as high a praise as I can heap on the best alien invasion film of 1996 (yes I consider this a better film than Independence Day).

Score wise it has to be a very strong 9 out of 10.