Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! is an unabashed throwback to Atomic Age sci-fi, as well as a comic rejoinder to the same year’s Independence Day.

Too often we are served silliness rather than wit.

You watch this understanding that the ready irony and lampooning of American mores here is exactly what the makers of Independence Day forgot.

…now that the novelty of the CGI invaders has long worn off, the gaudy colours and playful satire of Mars Attacks comes up fresh as paint…deliberately testing how seriously, or how unseriously, we’re prepared to take Tim Burtons’ vision…