The first must-see film of the year.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Dave Fleischer was responsible for many gems. Ones that were amusing and charming, though over-cuteness did come through in some efforts and the stories were always pretty thin, with appealing characters, outstanding music and visuals that were inventive and with innovative animation techniques. Ko-Ko similarly was an always amiable character to watch and among the better recurring characters in Fleischer's early work. Likewise, his series of Out of the Inkwell cartoons were among the best early efforts of Fleischer and silent cartoons in general. Fleischer may not be at his very finest and there are other cartoons of his that fit the word gem more. 'Trip to Mars' is still great though and for me one of the best Ko-Ko cartoons.Sure, there is not much special or anything much for that matter to the story, which is generally best to be forgotten. Everything else though is done so brilliantly that any issues had with the story don't stay for long. The brilliant opening scene and the wonderfully weird creatures alone make 'Trip to Mars' well worth the viewing.One expects the animation to be primitive and very low quality, judging by that it's the early 20s when animation techniques were not as many, as refined, as ambitious and in their infancy. While Fleischer became more refined and inventive later certainly, the animation is surprisingly pretty good with some nice visual wackiness and wit.'Trip to Mars' is lively in pace and the bizarre and wild nature of the humour is done very imaginatively and never less than fun to watch. The interplay with Max is a delight, the crew were clearly having a ball doing this, and Ko-Ko as always is amiable and amusing.Concluding, very well made, hugely entertaining and a great cartoon. Another one of Ko-Ko's best. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Trip to Mars (1924)*** (out of 4) Great use of live action and animation as we start off seeing Max Fleischer drawing Koko the Clown and then the action takes off to Mars. We see Koko heading through space and landing on Mars where he meets some creatures but things really pick up when Max ends up there too. There's no denying the fact that this is a very imaginative cartoon that manages to be quite fun from start to finish. I think its greatest strength is that it's willing to do just about anything to get a laugh and you can't help but really applaud director Dave Fleischer for going all out. The opening sequence of Max doing the drawing was very impressive and the slowed down motion of him drawing was something truly neat to watch. The animation stuff on Mars obviously looks great but it's also got some very memorable creatures and of course there's Koko doing his usual great stuff. The mix of live action also works extremely well and especially the scenes with Max looking in on the animation.

This is yet one more example of the genius of Max and Dave Fleischer, creators of the silent "Out Of The Inkwell" cartoons, starring "Koko The Clown."The opening minute alone makes this worth viewing. It is so creative I just sat in awe. This was done over 80 years ago and still is fresh in its originality. In a nutshell, Max draws a bunch of faces which finally evolve into Koko, then Koko's normal body emerges from this huge face. He attach's the head to himself but it's so big, he can't go anywhere. Eventually - all of this in about 20 seconds - he deflates his head and he's back to normal!The story is that Max is fascinating with astronomy and has built a small rocket ship in which he wants Koko to take a trip to the moon. The clown doesn't want to go, tries to run away, puts TNT under Max's seat, but winds up in the ship. He goes all the way to Mars and encounters weird beings and a subway! Max's chair blows up and he winds up in outer space, too! It's all extremely bizarre-and-typical for these Koko clowns. Max must have been a ham, himself, because he likes to be part of these cartoons. That's fine, because the mixture of real life and animated action makes these all the more fun.