John Carter
Is John Carter heavily flawed? Oh, gosh, yes. The plot is convoluted nonsense, certain elements of the plot made little sense to me (but then, I have not read the original source novel, A Princess of Mars), and I'm sure there are a lot of people who will find this movie derivative of Star Wars and Avatar. But you know what? The story of John Carter turns 100 this year. Similarities to other famous film properties are probably intentional, and/or the result that the filmmakers of those movies were in some way inspired by the original novel. I'm not saying this movie is great. I'm saying that the sight of pirate-like ships that flew through the air, and the old fashioned "good vs. evil" storyline managed to reach my inner 10-year-old, who eats this kind of stuff up. Whether or not it will reach enough people to make back its massive budget is another topic, and one I won't really be covering. I'm here to talk about my thoughts on the film I saw.
The film's titular hero (played by Taylor Kitsch) is a disillusioned Confederate Civil War captain from Virginia who wants nothing to do with war after experiencing a personal tragedy, which is supposed to give John Carter some background story, but is treated so haphazardly in flashbacks, I have to wonder why director Andrew Stanton (Wall*e) left them in at all. Through reasons too complicated to summarize here, John finds himself transported to Mars with the aid of a mystical medallion he finds in a cave full of gold. On Mars (or "Barsoom" as the local aliens refer to their home planet), John finds that he has enhanced physical abilities. This gets the attention of an alien named Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe), leader of a group of creatures known as the Tharks, who seem more than a little inspired in design by the Na'vi from Avatar.
John quickly learns that the planet is facing a Civil War of its own, with two warring kingdoms battling for control of the entire planet. The Tharks prefer to sit on the sidelines, and watch the other inhabitants kill each other in combat, but John gets involved in the war when he manages to save the life of Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins), the Princess of one of the warring kingdoms, whose father (Ciaran Hinds) is forcing her to marry the evil Sab Than (Dominic West), ruler of the other warring kingdom. Dejah's father hopes that the marriage will bring about a truce between the two kingdoms, but the brave Princess knows that Than cannot be trusted, and chooses to run away from her palace home and fight. After John and Dejah meet, she offers to help him find a way back to Earth if he will aid her people in their battle against Sab Than. Meanwhile, we learn that Sab Than is being led by a race of ancient beings led by the mysterious Matai Shang (Mark Strong), who get amusement out of watching the fall of various empires.
Despite of a running time that stretches past two hours, John Carter never really slows down. This is both a good thing and a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. On one hand, the action is fast paced, we get a lot of crazy sword fights and airship duels that are fun to watch and executed really well, and the plot moves by so fast, we don't really have much time to focus on how little it all makes sense. Of course, this also leads to a lot of questions. We never really learn much about this war going on, or even who these two kingdoms are, what they stand for, or why they're fighting each other. We just know that one's good (their soldiers wear the blue capes), and the other is evil (they wear the red). It's a strange war. They obviously have access to advanced technology like airships and guns, yet they for some reason prefer to battle each other with swords.
But this was part of the fun for me. I loved the ridiculousness of it all. I reveled in the made up names like "Barsoom" and "Matai Shang". I had a big goofy grin on my face when John Carter got involved in massive sword fighting duels with an army of extras. I even enjoyed the big special effects, which don't really offer any sights we haven't seen before, but are done well nonetheless. My guess to my enjoyment is that this movie caught me in the right frame of mind. I was in the mood for a big, silly movie, and this delivers. At least the screenplay (credited to Stanton and two other writers) has the common sense not to take itself seriously. On a related note, the actors know what kind of a movie they're in. Everybody fits their role, from dashing hero, to the strong and independent beauty, and the scheming villains. That's all that really can be expected of them. This is not an "acting" movie to begin with. They know we've come for the aliens and the special effects.
I will say this for John Carter - the movie manages to end on such a note that it leaves plenty of room open for more movies if this one is successful. (After all, this is only based on the first book in a series.) And yet, in a wise move on the part of the filmmakers, it doesn't leave on such a huge cliffhanger that we'll find ourselves disappointed if more movies don't come. They play it smart here. Wrap up the loose ends enough, but leave us wanting more. I think back on many failed movies that were supposed to lead to franchises, but never made it past their first movie. A lot of them used their endings pretty much as one big set up for a sequel that never came. At least here, we get some form of closure, and we can turn to the books or use our imaginations on what kind of future adventures await John Carter should Hollywood not want to risk a second movie.
See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!
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