Look, I love an epic picture as much as the next person. Am I a sci fi geek? Nope. But can I enjoy a great action adventure flick? Sure. Maybe I turned my nose up a bit at Avatar, and of course the Star Wars prequels were not great for me. But I’m not a snob here. This is the same lady who can enjoy the Crank movies for what they are--fun and batshit crazy.
But for John Carter, whose pedigree is so grand with the likes of Andrew Stanton, one of the best Pixar director/contributor ever, and the author of the original Tarzan stories, Edgar Rice Burroughs, none of this adds up to much except a whole lotta bloat. I even love Taylor Kitsch’s Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights. So, where did it all go wrong? I dunno. Somewhere...
John Carter starts off kinda confusing. So pay attention there. Eventually we’re taken to a flashback to just after the Civil War, where John Carter, an ex-Confederate Soldier, is looking for gold in the Arizona desert. Through some sort of scuffle involving Bryan Cranston, some Native Americans, and a weirdly dressed dude in a cave, John Carter is magically transported to Mars, or as the natives call it, Barsoom.
On Barsoom, John Carter (I don’t know why I’m ingrained to say his full name, just go with it) realizes he can jump really far. That’s about it. Oh, and he realizes that he inadvertently gets in the middle of some Barsoomian Civil War between the Heliumites and the Zodangans, whose leader (Dominic West) is destroying all he sees unless the Heliumite princess, Dejah Thoris (Lynne Collins), marries him. Amongst all the warring, weird Na’vi-like creatures, the Tharks try to stay out of all the human fighting and partake in their own weird rituals that end up involving John Carter.
I know Burroughs wrote the John Carter books in 1912, long before George Lucas and John Cameron created their sci fi opuses, but the movie Stanton has created can’t help but feel like a total rip-off of better movies. And while the action sequences are generally pretty well shot, all the CGI is just too MUCH. It feels way too fake that you kinda distance yourself from the film because you can’t feel THAT invested about it. Except, fine, I even liked Woola, the weird, alien, cat-dog thing. Because I’m a sucker...
The acting is fine and all if maybe perhaps a smidgen wooden by Kitsch, especially when he inexplicably falls in love with the princess, but John Carter just can’t measure up to more than some action scenes and overly fake CGI, unless you enjoy really slutty wedding gowns... And, in the end, much like my reaction to John Carter’s new jumping ability, you can’t help but say, “Is THAT all there is?”
-- Darcie Duttweiler
But for John Carter, whose pedigree is so grand with the likes of Andrew Stanton, one of the best Pixar director/contributor ever, and the author of the original Tarzan stories, Edgar Rice Burroughs, none of this adds up to much except a whole lotta bloat. I even love Taylor Kitsch’s Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights. So, where did it all go wrong? I dunno. Somewhere...
John Carter starts off kinda confusing. So pay attention there. Eventually we’re taken to a flashback to just after the Civil War, where John Carter, an ex-Confederate Soldier, is looking for gold in the Arizona desert. Through some sort of scuffle involving Bryan Cranston, some Native Americans, and a weirdly dressed dude in a cave, John Carter is magically transported to Mars, or as the natives call it, Barsoom.
On Barsoom, John Carter (I don’t know why I’m ingrained to say his full name, just go with it) realizes he can jump really far. That’s about it. Oh, and he realizes that he inadvertently gets in the middle of some Barsoomian Civil War between the Heliumites and the Zodangans, whose leader (Dominic West) is destroying all he sees unless the Heliumite princess, Dejah Thoris (Lynne Collins), marries him. Amongst all the warring, weird Na’vi-like creatures, the Tharks try to stay out of all the human fighting and partake in their own weird rituals that end up involving John Carter.
I know Burroughs wrote the John Carter books in 1912, long before George Lucas and John Cameron created their sci fi opuses, but the movie Stanton has created can’t help but feel like a total rip-off of better movies. And while the action sequences are generally pretty well shot, all the CGI is just too MUCH. It feels way too fake that you kinda distance yourself from the film because you can’t feel THAT invested about it. Except, fine, I even liked Woola, the weird, alien, cat-dog thing. Because I’m a sucker...
The acting is fine and all if maybe perhaps a smidgen wooden by Kitsch, especially when he inexplicably falls in love with the princess, but John Carter just can’t measure up to more than some action scenes and overly fake CGI, unless you enjoy really slutty wedding gowns... And, in the end, much like my reaction to John Carter’s new jumping ability, you can’t help but say, “Is THAT all there is?”
-- Darcie Duttweiler
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