Casino Review Roger Ebert
Earth is soon under attack from a vast fleet of martian invaders, and the President (Jack Nicholson) takes advice from a few of the many big stars in the film: Martin Short as his staff spin doctor, Rod Steiger as his nuke-'em military adviser, Pierce Brosnan as a scientific adviser, Glenn Close as the first lady and Paul Winfield as a Colin Powell look-alike who runs the Joint Chiefs.
Roger Ebert Movie Review
Watching Nicholson deliver his televised fireside chat with the nation about the impending saucer attack, I wondered, why is this supposed to be funny? Burton has made a common mistake: He assumes it is funny simply to *be doing* a parody, when in fact the material has to be funny in its own right. It isn't funny *that* Jack Nicholson is the president--it's only funny if the writing makes the role comic. Peter Sellers was funny in “Dr. Strangelove” (one of this movie's many inspirations) because the story was funny. “Mars Attacks!” is not so much a comedy as a replica of tacky old saucer movies--not so much a parody as the real thing.
Reviews Casino Royale Roger Ebert May 01, 1967. Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the. First he made “Ed Wood,” a tribute to the man fondly recalled as the worst movie director of all time. Now Tim Burton seems to have made a tribute to Wood's work. “Mars Attacks!” has the look and feel of a schlocky 1950s science-fiction movie, and if it's not as bad as a Wood film, that's not a plus: A movie like this should be a lot better, or a lot worse. “Mars Attacks!” plays.
The action also takes place in Las Vegas, where Nicholson, in an unsuccessful and unnecessary dual role, plays a casino owner with a boozy wife (Annette Bening). Also in Vegas, we meet Jim Brown as a former heavyweight champion, now dressed like a gladiator and employed as a casino greeter. He has many telephone conversations with his estranged wife, played by Pam Grier as a character so realistic and plausible that apparently Burton forgot to tell her she was in a comedy. Also in Vegas: Danny DeVito, playing a gambler in a role of complete inconsequence. And Tom Jones, playing himself and thus impossible to parody.
The third locale is a trailer park in rural Kansas, where gun nut Joe Don Baker presides over a brood including his mother (Sylvia Sidney) and his son (Lukas Haas). Many of these people are eventually fried by the martians, whose ray guns look suspiciously like the high-volume water guns you can buy in upscale toy shops. Their victims look briefly like X-ray pictures of themselves, which is funny one (1) time, but is used as a visual gag many (many) times.
Roger Ebert Film Reviews
The movie was obviously expensive, and Burton lingers too long on the dollars onscreen. The massing of the martian fleet continues long after we've gotten the point, for example, and the animated martians would be funnier if we saw a lot less of them. Later, when mankind discovers a secret weapon against the martians, it's amusing to see one of the eggheaded creatures pop his skull and coat the inside of his space helmet with green slime. But it happens again and again.