The fabled writer, Edgar Rice Burroghs, has been well known for making such fantastic works of literature. However, he sadly lost his life from a heart attack at the age of 74 in 1950. His most famous works were the Tarzan books and the Barsoom series.
Today, Disney has had the rights to the series, and, like Tarzan, has made it into a movie. But this time, it's live-action.
But first, let me give you a synopsis on the plot of the book. The book, "A Princess of Mars" was the story of John Carter, a captain of the Civil War, who finds himself by some mysterious reason on the planet Mars, or Barsoom as it's called by it's people. He is then taken prisoner by the Tharks, or green Martians, and has to prove himself worthy of being an ally to them. Afterwards, he starts to become more aquainted with the tribe leader Tars Tarkas, his daughter Sola, and a princess of Mars, Dejah Thoris, as he helps them fight for the safety and freedom of the planet. What the book gave, was a feeling of science fiction, acceptance of race, and a strong romance between John and Dejah. It was a compelling book, and as I'm working towards the second, I'm hoping it still holds up.
The movie, however, is a complete disappointment, since it was completely pathetic.
This film was SUCH a waste of my time. It had parts that tried to make it like the book, but I found only about 15% of this film to be faithful to the book. "John Carter" was a REAL disappointment. The action scenes in this film may look impressive, but it does get very boring as time goes on. John Carter's only useful ability on Mars in the film, is jumping really high. In the beginning of the film, which takes about 20 minutes until he's at Mars, shows that he's barely able to keep his balance, since the gravity is less than on Earth. It shows him struggling with the gravity, but then later on in the film, he shows that he can move about fine. In the book, they never established that he had that much struggle with Mars' gravitational pull, so why does he when he first appears on Mars, then later on get used to it?
By the way, what I said about the first 20 minutes of the film, was it really necessary to show how he got on Mars? It wasn't described on how he got on Mars in the first book, so why now? And plus, it shows John Carter as a pretty stubborn person, since in the beginning he's arrested, and tries to escape the authorities TWICE and fails! You think this guy would have learned the first time. Not to mention, the last 10 minutes of the film are also not in the book and are completely pointless. The book also had addressed how Mars was going to have it's atmosphere be unstable, and that it would be to hot and difficult to breath. That wasn't in the movie! Plus, it took time in the book for John to learn the language, than from a Martian drink that was shown in the movie. He actually was taught how the language worked, and how Sola taught it to him.
It also had a wasted cast to it. Taylor Kitsch was really boring as John Carter. I had expected a lot from him as this character, but he just didn't get my attention that well. Ciaren Hinds as the Jeddak of Helium, and father of Dejah, was just useless. He really didn't bring much to the film. Dominic West as Sab Thane was mediocre at best. Not only that, but in the film, he is given some sort of weapon that gives him powers that is given to him by the goddess' messengers, even when it wasn't even in the book. But Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris, the princess of Helium, was just ATROCIOUS. She was the WORST actress in this movie, and it really did pain me to see her on screen. All she did in this film was exactly what Megan Fox did in the first two "Transformer" movies and "Jonah Hex". Just pose, and look pretty for the camera, with no character whatsoever. But, unlike Megan Fox in those movies, Collins is playing an important character to the story! The only character that I actually found faithful to the book and tolerable, were Willem Dafoe as Tars Tarkas, and Thomas Haden Church as Tal Hajus. Their characters were actually faithful to the book, since it was astablished that they both disliked each other about John Carter's life and death. Another thing that was good, was Samantha Morton as Sola, Tars' daughter. Her relationship with Tars was actually believable in the film, and was more interesting to me, than the relationship that Dejah and John had.
The film was directed by Andrew Stanton, who had directed "A Bug's Life", "Finding Nemo", and "Wall-E". This was his first attempt at making a live-action 3D film, and it failed miserably. The action scenes, like I said, are boring, compared to "Mission Impossible 4," which came out almost 3 months ago. The reason Brad Bird did a good with "MI4GP," was because he was already good with action scenes, even if it was animation. With "John Carter" I felt like I was watching a Star Wars prequel meets the Prince of Persia movie. At least those two films are worth my time, more than this film was.
Going back to the 3D, let me just say that it looked like garbage. I kept taking my glasses off about almost the entire movie, and it didn't make that much of a difference to me. Though, at least it wasn't as bad as the 3D in "Phantom Menace", but it's still bad. It made the 3D in "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" look like "Drive Angry".
The sad part about this film the most, was that I wanted to like this movie. I loved the book, and I was hoping the movie would be good enough for the film for me to enjoy. You could say I would have enjoyed this film if I didn't read the book, but let's just take out the things that I addressed about the story and characters, and look at it on it's own. It's still crap. The acting's terrible (except from Dafoe, Church, and Morton), the action scenes are boring, it's got a flawed story, and pointless 3D. I honestly thought I was watching a Michael Bay film, that's just a two hour beer commercial without a punchline. It's astablished that they've talked about doing a sequel, which will be based on "The Gods of Mars", but at this point, I really don't want a sequel.
Overall, "John Carter" was just a HUGE disappointment, and I'm hoping it's forgotten by the end of the year. It's so far the worst movie I've seen so far this year, and it'll probably be in my top 10 worst by year's end.
Rating: 1/5
2/10
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