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Acting
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Starring: Christian de Sica, Massimo Boldi, Lucia Mascina
Director: Neri Parenti
Running Time: 94 mins
Holiday On Mars (In vacanze su Marte) is an Italian film about a near-future where people take holidays to Mars, and a young man follows his estranged father there to reconnect with him, only to be caught up in an interdimensional series of mishaps.
A properly mad idea that somehow found its way to being made into a whole movie, Holiday On Mars is a fantastically weird comedy, and although it doesn’t necessarily provide wall-to-wall laughter, the film is insane to the point that it’s fun to sit back and let it all happen to you.
The fact of the matter is that if you like light-hearted, fast-paced comedies with zany characters, then you’ll like Holiday On Mars. With fun performances across the board, the film is full of energy, and that more than makes up for its often bewildering screenplay.
Weird comedies can be difficult to get right. Sometimes, it’s a little too much to stomach (see Rubber, Wrong etc), but sometimes, it can really stick the landing and deliver a fresh, exciting watch.
Now, Holiday On Mars isn’t weird because of any highly innovative, genre-breaking ideas, it’s just that half of the movie doesn’t really make any sense. Why is it set on Mars? Why does one of the main characters turn into an old man? It’s all explained within the movie, and yet still doesn’t seem to make any sense.
However, all this happens early on enough that things can’t get any stranger as the film goes on. And that’s the ace up the movie’s sleeve, as if you stick with it through its utterly bewildering opening act, then you’ll almost certainly have a whale of a time just watching the total weirdness unfold before your eyes.
It’s not a masterpiece of comedy, it’s not a groundbreaking affair, and it’s not a film that will have you wetting yourself laughing. However, Holiday On Mars is fun-loving, energetic and strange enough that it’s an often irresistibly enjoyable watch, so that’s why I’m giving it a 7.4 overall.
