Mars Attacks! (1996)

Most people think so. 77% of audiences gave it a thumbs up based on 5,805 votes. Critics scored it lower at 54%, but audiences disagreed.

A fleet of Martian spacecraft surrounds the world's major cities and all of humanity waits to see if the extraterrestrial visitors have, as they claim, "come in peace." U.S. President James Dale receives assurance from science professor Donald Kessler that the Martians' mission is a friendly one. But when a peaceful exchange ends in the total annihilation of the U.S. Congress, military men call for a full-scale nuclear retaliation. Wikipedia ↗

Mars Attacks! is a 1996 American science fiction black comedy directed by Tim Burton, based on the Topps trading card series from 1962. When Martians arrive on Earth claiming to come in peace, world leaders welcome them with open arms — until the aliens begin gleefully massacring humans with ray guns that reduce people to colorful skeletons, destroying landmarks, and generally treating Earth's annihilation as entertainment. The film features an enormous ensemble cast including Jack Nicholson in dual roles as both the President and a Las Vegas real estate developer, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J.

Fox, Danny DeVito, and many others, most of whom are killed in comically gruesome ways. Tim Burton deliberately embraced the cheap, kitschy aesthetic of 1950s science fiction films, creating Martians with bulging brains, skeletal grins, and a signature "ack ack ack" language that was simultaneously ridiculous and menacing. Mars Attacks! was a commercial disappointment, earning $101 million on a $80 million budget, partly due to being overshadowed by Independence Day's patriotic alien invasion four months earlier.

The film has since developed a devoted cult following.