MOVIE REVIEW: ‘John Carter’

John Carter (2012)

John Carter

Walt Disney Pictures

Directed by Andrew Stanton
Based on A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Mark Andrews, Michael Chabon
Starring: Taylor Kitsch (John Carter), Lynn Collins (Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium), Samantha Morton (Sola), Willem Dafoe (Tars Tarkas), Thomas Haden Church (Tal Hajus), Mark Strong (Matai Shang), Ciarán Hinds (Tardos Mors), Dominic West (Sab Than), James Purefoy (Kantos Kan), Bryan Cranston (Colonel Powell), Polly Walker (Sarkoja), Daryl Sabara (Edgar Rice Burroughs)

 

1912. A century before you would read these words. Fifty-seven years before humanity was to tread upon the surface of our moon. More than twenty-five years before Superman might leap a tall building in a single bound. Months before the first serialized adventures of Tarzan, heir of Greystoke, lord of the jungle, his creator’s most popular contribution to the annals of history.

Before all of that, a pulp writer from Chicago took us to another planet.

1912. Readers bounded across the bleached terrain of Mars with a Virginia cavalryman in the pages of The All-Story. The tale was “Under the Moons of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The Virginian, an artifact of the Confederacy, a prospector turned rich. John Carter, eternally 30 years of age. Pursued by Apache riders, he finds sanctuary in a cave and drifts off to sleep. He rises not just from slumber, but from his own flesh, observes his prone body as if a strange voyeur. A specter. He steps out from the cave, looks up into the heavens and spies the distant red gleam of Mars. In the next moment, he stands upon its surface. Call it astral project. Call it a telegraphing of the spirit. The John Carter who strides under those two moons, Phobos and Deimos, is identical to the one who slumbers in that Arizona cave. He is prone to death on either planet. His consciousness will glide between. But in the end, his soul belongs to Mars. Or as it is known to its people, Barsoom.

John Carter and nearly a dozen other Martian novels penned by Edgar Rice Burroughs serve as a foundation for so much of American fantasy and adventure. In many ways, Carter’s augmented strength and agility were a springboard for creators like Siegel and Shuster to catapult their own creations skyward and into our collective mythos. That it took 100 years to usher the character onto the silver screen might be explained by the limitations of the fledgling medium in those early days. As progenitors, John Carter, Dejah Thoris and Tars Tarkus might’ve arrived just in time to inspire countless storytellers, but too soon to garner the kind of acclaim they deserved. Overshadowed by Tarzan, who got oodles of film adaptations. Not that John Carter and company were left to moulder. No shortage of sequels, reprints, and comics. But Barsoom is just as alien a term to the zeitgeist now as it was in 1911. That’s somewhat frustrating. It’s also a century.

Time, man. Time and its hustle.

It should also be noted that there’s been no shortage of filmmakers and studios and money men trying. The team to finally break the tape in this decades-long space race? Disney. Andrew Stanton. Our boy Michael Chabon. Champagne in the winners’ circle? That remains to be seen. In terms of the money, not a whole lot of joy going around.

2012. Or, well, 1868. Taylor Kitsch is a grizzled seeker in the foothills of Arizona’s Pinaleño Mountains. His side lost in that country-splitter of a war and he’s glad to shrug off his saber. He spins tales and sifts creek beds for gold. He’s seen symbols in the hills and believes he’s on to a vast cache of life-changing riches. When he stops into town to replenish his sundries, he’s taken into the custody of Colonel Powell, the local face of white law in a region reluctantly shared with the Apache. Kitsch chews the scenery like rawhide in these opening scenes, greasy with an unkempt prospector’s beard, alternating between an Eastwood growl and a John Wayne bellow. It’s over the top, but with each attempted escape from the Colonel’s clutches, his roguish abandon becomes more and more charming. By the time he and the Colonel’s men encounter a band of Apache and find themselves in a mysterious cave with a pale, otherworldly, stranger, the the tone of the film fully manifests. The terrific Michael Giacchino score builds. This is a throwback to an all-too rare brand of fantasy adventure. Especially in this cynical decade. This sprawling, joyous film harkens to the innocence of the original Star Wars trilogy.

It’s this spirit, so true to the tale’s pulp roots, that makes the production so endearing. It’s a polarizing film in that the objective merits of its plot are not so consistent with its riotous level of charm. It’s not that you need a history with the literary franchise to appreciate the experience, but not every viewer will be able to dismiss the convolutions of the Martian mythology. or rather, the way that mythology is sometimes clumsily presented. That makes rating the film a bit of a gamble. For this reviewer, the joys and invention outshone the murkier stretched of the script. I’d be disingenuous though if I didn’t address the flaws in an otherwise thrilling romp.

There are several objective criticisms to be levied at the screenwriters’ approach to bringing Barsoom to the big screen, perhaps especially in the depiction of the Therns and their convoluted endgame. Overall, the movie is too long, or at least curiously paced, often stumbling into unnecessary tangents about the insidious machinations of Matai Shang (an otherwise delightful performance by the typically delightful Mark Strong) and his hairless cronies. The Therns serve as a connection between Earth and Barsoom, but they’re a wrinkle that the original serial never needed for that purpose. Modern audiences might crave a tangible solution to Carter’s mystical traversal between worlds, but this dark faction of shape-changing overseers complicate a world that’s already quite compelling. The Tharks get some decent screen time, but the feuding sects of the red (human) Martians get short shrift. Though Sab Than and the predator city of Zodanga get a terrific introduction in the film’s opening, the warrior prince swiftly becomes a one-dimensional puppet, a real mustache-twirler of a secondary villain. A pretty thankless role for Dominic West and not much of a presence for the audience to jeer. The Thern make for a tantalizing presence, but the more they impose themselves upon the tribal conflict and the film itself, the less welcome they become. The political strife between the Dejah’s people and those of Than and Tars Tarkus is more than enough for a backdrop. The initial threat of a failing planet-wide environmental system is lost in all the clutter.

As many wrenches as the screenwriters threw into the mix, they also devised some elegant solutions to translating the hundred-year-old pulp to the cinema.

The writers smartly sidestep the concept of planet-wide telepathy, a decision Chabon discussed in a fascinating interview with WIRED. Burroughs bridged the language gap with mental communication, but even he realized in time that opening up an entire planet’s populace to mind-reading doesn’t quite work in tales of intrigue. Here, the Thark pariah Sola activates Carter’s understanding of the Martian language with a kind of telepathic burst. It’s weird, but once it’s done, it’s done. And in the time leading up to Carter’s initiation into Barsoomian society, there’s a lot of fun to be had with the language barrier. Tarkas misunderstands the man’s greeting and comes to introduce him as Virginia to Carter’s great chagrin.

Indeed, Carter’s the butt of the joke through much of the movie and spends nearly all of it in a loincloth. He’s a refreshing protagonist in a sword and sandal movie. The muscles are there, but there’s little of the bluster. Carter’s a small fish in a very big, very dusty pond. He’s also not the typical action here, quick to violence and itching for a fight. This guy’s an explorer constantly trying to escape those who would have him fight for their cause. When he finally does unleash his full wrath and prowess as a slayer in a stand against a horde of Warhoon, the moment isn’t triumphant, it’s traumatic. The typical Hollywood brawl is juxtaposed with scenes from Carter’s past, the day he returned home to find his family slaughtered, their home burnt to the ground. The fight escalates as the Carter of the past stabs into the earth with a shovel, digging their graves. It’s a haunting sequence, one of the film’s best, and it encapsulates everything that makes John Carter a unique hero. This man doesn’t fight for the joy of it. He fights only to protect those he cares about. Those he loves.

And this movie presents us with a leading lady well worth fighting for.

Though the filmmakers were forced to diverge from the novels’ depiction of a nude battle maiden, the film’s Dejah Thoris remains as alluring and lethal. Lynn Collins’ Dejah, the eponymous Princess of Mars, is downright stunning. She’s already classically beautiful, though here that’s enhanced with piercing blue irises (assuming those are contacts or the saturation is boosted in post) and ornate red war paint, let alone an array of spectacular costumes. From the start, she’s depicted as a passionate ruler as well as a dedicated scientist. Carter often refers to her as “Professor.” She’s also a fully capable, even formidable warrior. Later, Dejah winds up something of a damsel in distress, the filmmakers’ attempt to position her climactic wedding scene as a noble sacrifice not entirely convincing as a moment of heroism. It works in theory, but as a visual, it’s that all-too familiar chapel rescue. It’s a disappointing shift, but once the battle heats up again, Dejah is back as the ferocious fighter we’d grown to love.

By the final act, John Carter dissolves into a confused spectacle, and the bookending scenes featuring Carter’s beloved nephew, the meek Edgar Rice Burroughs, get a bit ridiculous. But at this point, audiences have likely made up their minds about the production and either dismiss Carter’s crazy cat and mouse game with the shrouded Than or fully embrace it as the next wily turn for a lovable hero. It’s a silly, outlandish idea, but it’s the kind of silly a viewer can roll with. More than roll with. Me, I loved Carter’s gambit (no pun intended) and felt it fit with the playful tone of the story. A mausoleum locked from the inside? It’s perfect.

Given the naysayers–given the doomsayers–it’s likely this is the last we’ll see of John Carter and his colorful friends on the big screen. At least in this incarnation. It’s deeply saddening to see critics dismiss the film as an Avatar knockoff, given both the history and the joy of this production. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s the kind of experience that transcends through sheer charm and purity of intention. There’s great worth and entertainment to be wrought from the dark and the low down, but it’s genuinely uplifting to encounter a throwback like this with so little guile. It’s a fun film. It’s an eye-widening film. And it’s a flying leap in the right direction for adventure movies.

Who knew we simply needed to look back 100 years to where all of this–all of this–started.

 

3.5 Stars

(Out of 5)

The fan made trailer that is much better at conveying what the film is about:

Comments

  1. Somewhat related to this, I recall being told that Lovecraft created a connection between John Carter and Lovecraft’s character, Randolph Carter.

    • Nope, Moore did that in the League books but he came up with it himself.

    • @Heroville I want to say I heard it on the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, but it’s possible that they caught it from Moore. Stilll, the way that both Carters travel through dreams is interesting.

  2. I saw this yesterday and enjoyed it. Then I found out it cost 250 million dollars. That seems wildly excessive to me, and it puts a slight stain on the experience for me.
    in a time when the 12 million dollar Chronicle blew me away, this 250 million dollar movie was just a fun alright movie. The special effects were great but 250 Million?

    • Special effects are expensive. Especially great special effects.

    • Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

      There’s a city with legs!

    • I understand that its slightly irrational, and its probably only because there’s such a great low budget movie to compare it to. I do think that I will enjoy John Carter when it comes to DVD and for years to come. I’m not saying that I didn’t enjoy the movie or that I don’t understand WHY it was 250 Million when I think about it.

      I just realize when I see such a differential that ten or even twenty movies could be made for the budget of this one movie. I realize this when I see pretty much any superhero movie. I still enjoy them. I still love them. I just sometimes think about the movies that could have been if the budget was split up a bit. As I said I still really liked the movie.

      I used a lot of I’s in this comment. Bad writing I know.

    • Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

      That’s perfectly fair to an extent. And I often agree. But it inevitably becomes an apples and oranges thing. There’s a lot of spectacular visuals in CHRONICLE, but there’s still a gulf between it and this kind of movie. To the point that it’s unfair to compare them either way. Different ambitions.

    • I understand that the movies are two different things. And the more I think about John Carter the more glad I am that it exists and the more I enjoy it. The comparison I am making is not so much between the movies themselves and how much enjoyment I got out of those movies as I was sitting in the theater.

      My statement about being able to make ten to twenty movies is also flawed and I know it. Most of those movies would be things I would never want to see. I recognize that I am not completely rational when it comes to examining movie budgets.

    • One of those ands should be an as.

    • I agree with Paul that comparing Chronicle and John Carter is just not valid. The special effects in Chronicle are great but in comparison to what is done in John Carter they are (except for the flying scenes) honestly pretty minor. Other than the flying scenes there are very few, if any, full CGI backgrounds and no fully CGI characters. To make CGI characters appear and move realistically it is very expensive. But effects aside the movies are completely different. Chronicle has almost no special effects make-up and all the costumes are contemporary clothing. John Carter is full of effects make-up and all the clothing has to reflect the unique cultures that are created in this film. In addition, the cast of John Carter is enormous compared to Chronicle. Chronicle is essentially three people, five if you include Casey and the father, none of whom are famous. John Carter has at least a dozen central characters including Mark Strong, Willem Dafoe, Thomas Haden Chruch, Bryan Cranston, and others. The cost in cast alone between the two is probably tens of millions of dollars. Other than they are both Sci Fi, and on completely opposite ends of the Sci Fi spectrum, I don’t see how these two films have anything in common.

    • @USPUNK as I said I understand why it cost what it did and I’m not comparing the movies special effects. I’m comparing the amount of enjoyment I got out of them in the theater.

    • I’m not comparing the special effects either, I’m comparing the films as a whole. But lets do it your way, let’s compare enjoyment based on budget. If John Carter cost the same as Chronicle, 12 million dollars, do you really think you would have gotten the same enjoyment out of it? A 12 million dollar John Carter would have been a dude in a bright red sandbox playing with action figures. Would that have been as fun? Of course not. That’s why it makes absolutely no sense to compare them. So maybe you can be an adult and realize they are totally different and to compare them is pointless.

    • “Special effects are expensive. Especially great special effects.”

      Wasnt CGI supposed to make everything cost effective?

      Blade Runner cost $15 million with no CGI…
      The original Star Wars around $10 million with no CGI
      Star Trek: TNG claimed they were spending nearly $1 mill an episode, no CGI
      Back to the Future 2, $40 million
      The Matrix was $63 million
      Transformers 1 cost $150 million to make.

      Yes, I know that Blade Runner and Star Wars #s are 20+ year old, but even accounting for inflation, it would seem to be still less or maybe equal.

      So are we saying that if a movie like John Carter were to rely on traditional FX.. .miniatures, matte paintings, etc… the cost would be double or triple?

    • You can put words in my mouth if you want but that doesnt add any validity to your point. I never once mentioned traditional special effects, not one time. Not sure where you got that. Also not sure who/when it was said cgi would make things cheaper, can you reference that in some way please? My point was about comparing Chrinoicle and John Carter. There is no way, with either cgi or traditional sfx, to make John Carter a great looking film for only $12 million. Also Star Wars and Blade Runner aren’t 20+ years old theyre 30+ years old. Can you find a film made in this century to support your point? Take a film like Hellboy for example. It relied heavily on traditional sfx over cgi and it still cost $66 million.

  3. I thought the trailers for this looked horrible. I was still planning on seeing this, but now I am even more excited. Great review, Paul!

  4. I saw the film today and thought it was great. This has to be the best new sci-fi I have seen in awhile. (Comic book movies excluded of course). John Carter, from me was more enjoyable than Avatar and right up there with one of my favorite sci-fi movies of the last few years, District 9. Looking forward to seeing it again in the next week or so and this time I may take take my kids with me as well.

  5. Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

    1800 words and I neglect to mention Woola. I love Woola. He is for dog people what Toothless (How to Train Your Dragon) is for cat people. Love that damn dog.

  6. Just got back from seeing this movie tonight, was very pleasantly suprised. Always been a John Carter fan. I could say alot about different things to like about this movie, however the martain dog (Woola) was by far the movie maker to me. Every time you would be dazzled by the scenery effects, you would see this line of dust were the dog has run by, cracked up every time. Also loved when the Tharks thought John Carters name was Virginia, living in Virginia it was cool to see them all chant “Virginia, Virginia!” Great Movie worth the money to go see.

  7. Great review, Paul. I especially appreciate how you put the movie into historical context, a thing which most reviewers have sadly been all too happy to gloss over.

  8. I have to see it again. I was trying too hard to compare it to the book through the first half but once I really got into it, I was able to enjoy it. Thought it was great, wanna see it again.

  9. i read the book “princess of mars” today just so i would be ready to watch the movie tomorrow. now i’m super psyched! the book is tons of fun! maybe not what you’d call “fine literature”, but it’s a great way to spend the afternoon. my expectations are that the movie won’t be “fine cinema”, but it should be a fun ride.

  10. Is this a spoiler free review? The movie looks great.

    Also, take out John Carter and throw in Hulk and it’s almost a trailer for a World War Hulk movie. Which would be awesome. Maybe it’s just me. ha.

  11. I thought this movie was awesome. For all the nay sayers that think this movie was bad, try and watch Princess of Mars. It’s on Netflix and is an hour and a half of my life that I’ll never get back. All I’ll say about it is Traci Lords as a princess that looks like she’s old enough to be Antonio Sabbato Jr’s mother and Sabbato Jr as a John Carter with a tramp stamp. That was godawful.

  12. Lots of great points in this review. I really do appreciate the ambition and the imagination and the obvious love that went into this film. Unfortunately, despite my efforts, I really couldn’t follow the story — the relationship between the two different species of Martians was never clear to me, and I had trouble following various beats from point A to point B. And honestly, the human leads just didn’t work for me. I love the idea of a sword fighting genius scientist Martian princess, but way too many of Dejah and John’s scenes just ground the story pacing to a halt. Plus, as you said, after an awesome and promising introduction the story turned into damseling + ‘John Carter gotta bust up a wedding.’ And Taylor Kitsch was just a nonentity to me. I see what you’re saying about him not being the hero we expect, but he mostly came off as a cipher to me. I do wish Dominic West’s character had more dimension, because he was clearly having a blast. And while I am contractually obligated to say this about any character played by James Purefoy, I truly would have watched a whole movie about Kantos Kan. The all-too-brief scene of his ‘take-me-hostage’ gambit was the kind of swashbuckling hijinks I’d been hoping for from the whole movie.

    I found the Thern characters way more interesting than the humanoids, but visually I had some trouble telling them apart and — as mentioned above — I couldn’t figure out how they fit into the rest of the Martian society. But the animation and voice acting in their parts, along with the imaginative design and motion of the airships was the part of the movie where the love really shown through for me. I wish more of that had translated to the human actors.

    • Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

      I do agree it’s unfortunate that the relationships between each Martian culture are pretty vague. We do see the Thark’s placing wagers on the red Martians’ sky battles and there’s a brief mention of Tarkas wanting to use Carter for expansion and conquest. But beyond that, the Tharks are merely color. Would have preferred more background on the different Thark groups and their interaction with the humans. What’s there is tantalizing, but it all kind of falls to the wayside as Mark Strong and the Thern become more and more prominent as puppet masters.

  13. I think I said Thern when I meant Thark. This may be indicative of another exposition problem. .

  14. I believe the story should go on as in a sequel. It had adventure, romance, friendship and a faithful Martian “dog”, so to speak. The Princess while deceiving at first, fell in love with the hero. Carter had a cause larger than himself, finally, and grew into a noble character. However, some flaws. Carter accepted his Martian surroundings a bit to quickly and the ending was confusing.

  15. I saw this on Friday. Fun, good effects. But man, Taylor Kitsch. Every time he spoke a line I cringed. I just could not stand him. He looked the part, but he just sounded uninterested in what ever he was doing. He was like an unrehearsed SNL guest reading off the prompter.

  16. Nicely done review. Very detailed and honest. I loved the movie from start to finish. I really hope that word of mouth spreads on this because it seems to me that most people are enjoying it as much as me. If the Star Wars prequels can succeed, so should this. This deserves a trilogy treatment. Where are you Star Wars fans!?!? Go see this! Without this story, George Lucas probably wouldn’t be swimming in your money on Skywalker Ranch!

  17. This review has made me much, much more likely to go see the film. Thank you.

  18. Question for Paul and/or Conor; or anyone else that has a theory.

    What do you think it says that the movie was basically #1 in all foreign markets it opened in this weekend, and one of the highest in Russian history, but made less in the US and has been dismissed by the press as a disappointment.

    I blame the marketing in part, and the media for so trashing it before it had even come out. They were declaring that it would bomb. So it comes out, makes 30 mil us and 70 foreign and they say it was a big disappointment for Disney.
    How the heck is it disappointing if everyone had already said it would lose??? Makes me mad!!

    • You pretty much nailed it, I think. A combination of terrible marketing and a seemingly concerted effort by the entertainment media to have the film fail lead to the film failing in the US.

    • Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

      Exactly. It’s astonishing how entertainment media just piled on here. Weeks in advance too. It’s honestly a bit cruel. A perfect storm of unwarranted disdain.

    • I have heard nothing but generally positive word-of-mouth, here and on other sites, and in person. Shame on the media for dooming it the first weekend. Maybe REAL people need to make their opinions heard instead some talking-head puppet on a snippet “news” show.

    • Why do we allow ourselves (and I mean the public at large, as I think most people here are smarter than that!) to be lead around like sheep by viral “news” media? All they do is pass on stories with no concern to the validity or impact of those stories. I know people who worked in national news, and they said there were numerous times when facts weren’t even checked before a story was picked up. Here’s an example of a sting operation showing how this happens:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMQCcOSfaYw

      What passes for news and journalism these days is, quite frankly, shit.

  19. Slashing the title was a terrible idea. John Carter alone is just awful and tells you absolutely nothing.

    LXG = Barf.

  20. You guys have convinced me to see this. You have done a better job marketing the movie then Disney. Go ask them for the money you deserve.

  21. Hey guys, I found a VERY interesting article late last night. It puts forth a very detailed story of how the movie was killed by the very first teaser trailer and includes inside sources from Disney that are placing much of the blame for said marketing on none other than the director himself, Andrew Stanton. It is a pretty compelling case that makes a lot of sense. I definitely reccommend checking this out. They are saying that he strong armed Disney into letting him do whatever he wanted and he did not take the advice of their marketing team, so much so that their Mkting head quit her job. He used his previous success from Pixar against them and they have him quoted as saying the studio was scared of him. If this is the case, then he did this to himself. He made a fantastic live action movie, but did not want to trust the powers that be on how to advertise. I honestly think this makes much more sense than Disney completely botching the marketing for a $250M would be franchise. I think its a case of a guy with too big an ego for his own good and no one from the studio with any balls to stand up to him when he didn’t know what was best for the final product sell. Its a shame..

    http://www.vulture.com/2012/03/john-carter-doomed-by-first-trailer.html

  22. I saw this last night with my 15-year-old son. I read the books back when I was close to his age and loved them. We both loved the movie and thought it was the best movie we’ve seen in months, at least since last summer. And I mean that in the action/summer movie sense, not an Oscar best-drama sense. I thought overall the acting was pretty good – nobody stunk up the place or overdid it. The effects we mind-boggling – the most expansive, detailed, large-scale stuff since the Star Wars prequels or Avatar. Really, it takes a lot to impress these days, but this movie did it. My jaw hung open at several points. Lots of action, and some humor when appropriate. I thought they took the best things from the book without taking the cheesy stuff, then added things to make a good story that makes sense. LOVED the twist at the end.

    GO SEE THIS MOVIE AND TELL PEOPLE IF YOU LIKED IT!

  23. I plan on seeing it this weekend. Is anything gained by watching it in 3D?

    • I thought the IMAX 3D was pretty amazing!

    • I think it was post-converted to 3D, not filmed in it from the get-go. The 3D added depth and was pretty subtle, I thought. No 3D gimmickry or anything, so I don’t think you would miss anything by seeing it in 2D except for the dimmer picture.

  24. Finally, got a chance to check out John Carter (in 2D). This movie was all kinds of good.

    It’s clear, based on the comments so far, the problem of the movie’s lack of ‘blockbuster’ success was not the movie, but rather the critics poo-pooing it and the poor advertising effort. i agree with those assessments.

    I’ll echo kennyg’s plea….GO SEE THIS MOVIE AND TELL PEOPLE IF YOU LIKED IT!..

    • I agree, I think it’s interesting to note that on Rotten Tomatoes it has a 51% from the “Critics” but 72% of user reviews were positive. I say, Fuck Critics and go see the movie, make up your own mind. I disagree with about 80% of so-called critics anyways. Most of the gripes were that it cost a bunch of money, and wasn’t what they wanted to see. Real objective stuff. I thought the movie was great, I hope they make enough money to greenlight a sequel.