Things just turned out this way: another Tobe Hooper film was released. This time it is Invaders From Mars on 6 June 1986. I enjoy it a lot but it isn’t one of my favorites.
So why am I talking about it today? Because critics have hated it and continue to do so.
Let me take a review from Time Out that is actually better than most. It says:
“The effects are magnificent, but whereas the original worked by building up an increasingly black mood, this version relies almost entirely on the special effects; and such limited brooding tension as it has is gratuitously undermined by a string of sequences played purely for laughs.”
So this version of the film works almost entirely by using special effects? I don’t agree with that at all. But if that were the case, why is it a bad thing? Why is building up a black mood the correct way to go? Should this version of the film do that too? I know what the critic would have said if the film had done that, “This version just repeats what was done better in 1953”!
Then we learn that the limited brooding tension that the film managed was destroyed by its comedic elements. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the filmmakers hadn’t actually been going for the “black mood” of the original.
“Not What I Wanted to See!”
This has got to be the single most annoying film criticism: “This film was not at all what I wanted to see!” Feature films generally take years to make. There’s a really good chance that what is up on the screen is what the filmmakers wanted.
I understand: sometimes you just don’t like a film. You wish it had gone in another direction. But I fail to see how this is a criticism of the film. It’s like complaining that you didn’t like Eaten Alive because you were really more in a comedy mood.
Even if you think a film critic is just an ombudsman, how is that helpful? The Time Out review ends, “Fun, but very silly.” Okay. That would have made a better complete review. It would have warned potential viewers that this film with its obviously cheeky 1950s science fiction film title will not be like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Good, I guess…
Invaders From Mars poster via Wikipedia under Fair use.
