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John Carter of Mars Thread

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FlyingDonut

FlyingDonut

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Posted

Washington Post review from this morning. Ouch.

 

John Carter

This blockbuster self-destructs

By Ann Hornaday

Friday, Mar. 9, 2012

 

"John Carter" is being hyped as the first blockbuster of the year, but it's really the first big flop.

 

Budgeted at a reported $250 million, this dreary slog of a mess (or is that mess of a slog?) seems to exist primarily to remind viewers of older, better movies. Audiences ancient enough to remember Ray Harryhausen will pine for the days of that animator's great 1950s stop-motion epics. Anyone who came of age with "Star Wars" will inwardly sigh and forgive Jar Jar Binks. Heck, compared with "John Carter," even "Cowboys and Aliens" looks good.

 

What's "John Carter" about? That's not a rhetorical question: Seriously, what the heck is going on in this movie? Based on Edgar Rice Burroughs's story "A Princess of Mars," this adaptation gets off to such an incoherent start that it takes almost the entire, interminable two-hour-plus running time to catch up. And the trip isn't worth it: Narratively stilted, visually ugly and imaginatively bankrupt, "John Carter" just sits there, and sits there, and sits there, forcing the audience to sit right along with it.

 

But, okay, if it's a synopsis you want: "John Carter" is nominally about a Civil War veteran who, while searching for gold in the Arizona territory, happens upon a dingus that transports him to Mars, which the natives call Barsoom, where he can jump really high and is taken prisoner by tall, skinny four-armed creatures and meets a beautiful princess named Dejah Thoris.

 

Carter is played by Taylor Kitsch ("Friday Night Lights"), who spends a great deal of time with his shirt off; Dejah is played by the gorgeous actress Lynn Collins, who spends a great deal of time showing off her tattoos and tossing smoldering looks at Carter with her ice-blue eyes.

 

At least that seems to be what's going on in "John Carter," which was adapted for 3-D presentation after it was filmed, resulting in images as murky and difficult to decipher as the story itself.

 

Directed by Andrew Stanton ("WALL-E," "Finding Nemo") in his live-action debut, what's supposed to be a fanciful journey in time and space is unforgivably awful-looking, from the fusty, dusty earth tones of the story that frames most of the action to the sulfurous light that bathes Mars - er, Barsoom - in a monotonous yellow haze. The creatures that Carter befriends - a rebellious tall-and-skinny (known as a Thark) named Sola and a doglike pet with an enormous black tongue - look like they were conceived after consulting the wadded up sketches in George Lucas's wastebasket.

 

If you look carefully, you can detect some real acting going on in "John Carter" - that's Ciaran Hinds, dressed in a ridiculous toga, as the embattled leader of the Barsoomian city of Helium. And that's Mark Strong in the film's most potent role of a shape-shifting baddie named Matai Shang. But even Strong's best efforts can't save "John Carter" from collapsing in on itself like a dead star. With any luck, the sequel this movie so strenuously sets us up for will meet the same fate before it gets to the screen.

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Ditch Fahrenheit

Ditch Fahrenheit

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Washington Post review from this morning. Ouch.

 

John Carter

This blockbuster self-destructs

By Ann Hornaday

Friday, Mar. 9, 2012

 

"John Carter" is being hyped as the first blockbuster of the year, but it's really the first big flop.

 

Budgeted at a reported $250 million, this dreary slog of a mess (or is that mess of a slog?) seems to exist primarily to remind viewers of older, better movies. Audiences ancient enough to remember Ray Harryhausen will pine for the days of that animator's great 1950s stop-motion epics. Anyone who came of age with "Star Wars" will inwardly sigh and forgive Jar Jar Binks. Heck, compared with "John Carter," even "Cowboys and Aliens" looks good.

 

What's "John Carter" about? That's not a rhetorical question: Seriously, what the heck is going on in this movie? Based on Edgar Rice Burroughs's story "A Princess of Mars," this adaptation gets off to such an incoherent start that it takes almost the entire, interminable two-hour-plus running time to catch up. And the trip isn't worth it: Narratively stilted, visually ugly and imaginatively bankrupt, "John Carter" just sits there, and sits there, and sits there, forcing the audience to sit right along with it.

 

But, okay, if it's a synopsis you want: "John Carter" is nominally about a Civil War veteran who, while searching for gold in the Arizona territory, happens upon a dingus that transports him to Mars, which the natives call Barsoom, where he can jump really high and is taken prisoner by tall, skinny four-armed creatures and meets a beautiful princess named Dejah Thoris.

 

Carter is played by Taylor Kitsch ("Friday Night Lights"), who spends a great deal of time with his shirt off; Dejah is played by the gorgeous actress Lynn Collins, who spends a great deal of time showing off her tattoos and tossing smoldering looks at Carter with her ice-blue eyes.

 

At least that seems to be what's going on in "John Carter," which was adapted for 3-D presentation after it was filmed, resulting in images as murky and difficult to decipher as the story itself.

 

Directed by Andrew Stanton ("WALL-E," "Finding Nemo") in his live-action debut, what's supposed to be a fanciful journey in time and space is unforgivably awful-looking, from the fusty, dusty earth tones of the story that frames most of the action to the sulfurous light that bathes Mars - er, Barsoom - in a monotonous yellow haze. The creatures that Carter befriends - a rebellious tall-and-skinny (known as a Thark) named Sola and a doglike pet with an enormous black tongue - look like they were conceived after consulting the wadded up sketches in George Lucas's wastebasket.

 

If you look carefully, you can detect some real acting going on in "John Carter" - that's Ciaran Hinds, dressed in a ridiculous toga, as the embattled leader of the Barsoomian city of Helium. And that's Mark Strong in the film's most potent role of a shape-shifting baddie named Matai Shang. But even Strong's best efforts can't save "John Carter" from collapsing in on itself like a dead star. With any luck, the sequel this movie so strenuously sets us up for will meet the same fate before it gets to the screen.

 

I haven't seen it, so I can't really comment.

 

But I'm reading lots of positive reviews on this film as well, so at this point it's mixed.

 

On the other hand, there's lots of reviewers commenting on the 3D flaws and recommending to not see it in 3D.

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bronzilla

bronzilla

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Roger Ebert: :pullhair:

 

 

 

 

 

I don't see any way to begin a review of "John Carter" without referring to "Through Time and Space With Ferdinand Feghoot." That was a series of little stories that appeared in the magazine Fantasy and Science Fiction from 1956 to 1973 and had a great influence on my development as a critic. In one of the Feghoot adventures, the hero finds himself on Mars and engaged in bloody swordplay. He is sliced in the leg. Then in the other leg. Then an arm is hacked off. "To hell with this," Feghoot exclaims, unholstering his ray gun and vaporizing his enemies.

 

I may have one or two details wrong, but you understand the point: When superior technology is at hand, it seems absurd for heroes to limit themselves to swords. When airships the size of a city block can float above a battle, why handicap yourself with cavalry charges involving lumbering alien rhinos? When it is possible to teleport yourself from Earth to Mars, why are you considered extraordinary because you can jump really high?

Such questions are never asked in the world of "John Carter," and as a result, the movie is more Western than science fiction. Even if we completely suspend our disbelief and accept the entire story at face value, isn't it underwhelming to spend so much time looking at hand-to-hand combat when there are so many neat toys and gadgets to play with?

But I must not review a movie that wasn't made. What we have here is a rousing boy's adventure story, adapted from stories that Edgar Rice Burroughs cranked out for early pulp magazines. They lacked the visceral appeal of his Tarzan stories, which inspired an estimated 89 movies; amazingly, this is the first John Carter movie, but it is intended to foster a franchise and will probably succeed.

 

Burroughs' hero is a Civil War veteran who finds himself in the Monument Valley, where he has an encounter that transports him to the red planet Mars. This is not the Mars that NASA's Rovers are poking into, but the Mars envisioned at the time Burroughs was writing, which the astronomer Percival Lowell claimed was criss-crossed by a system of canals. Luckily for Carter, it has an atmosphere that he can breathe and surface temperatures allowing him do without a shirt. In a delightful early scene, he finds that his Earth muscles allow him great leaps and bounds in the lower Martian gravity.

 

This attracts the attention of the inhabitants of Mars, represented by two apparently human cities at war with each other, and a native race called the Tharks, who look like a vague humanoid blend of weird green aliens from old covers of Thrilling Wonder Stories. They have four arms, and it was a great disappointment to me that we never saw a Thark putting on a shirt. John Carter feels an immediate affinity for the Tharks and also gets recruited into the war of the cities — choosing the side with a fiery beauty named Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins, who is the movie's best character).

 

John Carter is played by Taylor Kitsch, who co-starred with Collins in "Wolverine." Yes, I agree Kitsch is a curious name for a star in action movies. Still, that is his real name, and one can wonder how many fans of "Wolverine," for example, are familiar with the word or its meaning. As an actor, he is perfectly serviceable as a sword-wielding, rhino-riding savior of planets.

 

The film was directed by Andrew Stanton, whose credits include "A Bug's Life" (1998), "Finding Nemo" (2003) and "WALL-E" (2008). All three have tight, well-structured plots, and that's what "John Carter" could use more of. The action sequences are generally well-executed, but they're too much of a muchness. CGI makes them seem too facile and not tactile enough. Although I liked the scene where Carter was getting his Mars legs with his first low-gravity steps, the sight of him springing into the air like a jumping jack could inspire bad laughs.

 

Does "John Carter" get the job done for the weekend action audience? Yes, I suppose it does. The massive city on legs that stomps across the landscape is well-done. The Tharks are ingenious, although I'm not sure why they need tusks. Lynn Collins makes a terrific heroine. And I enjoyed the story outside the story, about how Burroughs wrote a journal about what he saw and appears briefly as character. He may even turn up in sequels. After all, he wrote some.

 

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bane

bane

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I saw John Carter this afternoon in London, stayed over from a gig last night and had nothing better to do.

 

I will say I have no knowledge of John Carter or the stories Burroughs wrote.

 

I really don't understand the negativity towards this movie, from fan boys I can expect it, from critics, well I never did agree with those twits in the first place.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and would definately see it again. I felt it blended elements of Star Wars, Gladiator and Planet of the Apes to good effect. People who have said the storyline is a mess, I can understand to a certain point but I followed everything that went on. The acting is good and so is the -script, I had no problem with the CGI Tharks and thought they were done well, there were elements of comedy (the dog character was a favourite).

 

I don't want to say too much more without spoiling things but I read a review that said this -script was worse then anything George Lucas could put out and things about Jar Jar Binks... to be honest, George Lucas should watch this and know what he should have done with the last 3 Star Wars movies! I'll take this over those three turkeys anyday.

 

This film isn't going to win any oscars but if, like me, you like action, sci-fi, sexy girls with not much on, then this film is for you. Its a pop corn flick done well IMO, of course I can nitpick about some things that didnt sit right but its just that, nit pick.

 

As for the Washington Post review, well, that woman wouldn't know a fun movie if it bit on the backside! And for the record, I enjoyed Cowboys & Aliens, :grin: Go see this movie.

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bronzilla

bronzilla

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I saw John Carter this afternoon in London, stayed over from a gig last night and had nothing better to do.

 

I will say I have no knowledge of John Carter or the stories Burroughs wrote.

 

I really don't understand the negativity towards this movie, from fan boys I can expect it, from critics, well I never did agree with those twits in the first place.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and would definately see it again. I felt it blended elements of Star Wars, Gladiator and Planet of the Apes to good effect. People who have said the storyline is a mess, I can understand to a certain point but I followed everything that went on. The acting is good and so is the -script, I had no problem with the CGI Tharks and thought they were done well, there were elements of comedy (the dog character was a favourite).

 

I don't want to say too much more without spoiling things but I read a review that said this -script was worse then anything George Lucas could put out and things about Jar Jar Binks... to be honest, George Lucas should watch this and know what he should have done with the last 3 Star Wars movies! I'll take this over those three turkeys anyday.

 

This film isn't going to win any oscars but if, like me, you like action, sci-fi, sexy girls with not much on, then this film is for you. Its a pop corn flick done well IMO, of course I can nitpick about some things that didnt sit right but its just that, nit pick.

 

As for the Washington Post review, well, that woman wouldn't know a fun movie if it bit on the backside! And for the record, I enjoyed Cowboys & Aliens, :grin: Go see this movie.

 

Glad you liked it!! Now go read the ERB books!! :headbang:

 

Thanks for the review!!

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