John Carter (2012)

John Carter (2012)

8/10

Starring
Taylor Kitsch
Lynn Collins
Samantha Morton
Mark Strong
Ciarán Hinds
Thomas Haden Church

Directed by Andrew Stanton

This is a movie too good not to be seen. If you haven’t seen it or haven’t made plans to, you better start making plans right now.

There is but one problem with John Carter — it’s not evenly paced. One moment we’re thrilled by the intense action and fast-paced motion, then suddenly we’re dragged down into slow-paced dialogues. But in all that, I guarantee enough fun and thrill to last you all the 2 hours spent.

With well-jotted-down dialogues (which at times seemed too well jotted and actually was annoying) and intensifying fight scenes, John Carter boasts of what happens when a CGI cartoon-making director crosses over to make a fantasy sci-fi movie. Directed and written by Andrew Stanton, whose previous work includes the Pixar animated films Finding Nemo (2003) and WALL-E (2008).

Andrew Stanton is making his live-action directorial debut here. He worked around the kinks in the story by Edgar Rice Burroughs and provided a straight line so you don’t get lost wondering what’s happening.

The story is as plain as the one in the book but differs in some areas. Captain John Carter is a retired soldier digging for gold before being captured by the army and asked to return to service.

Carter escapes and hides in a cave. While there, he comes across a man who tries to stab him. Carter shoots him dead. The man drops a medallion, which John picks up. The dying man starts chanting something, which Carter interrupts, and just like that, he’s transported to Barsoom.

There, he notices he can jump really far and has enormous strength. All that doesn’t matter when he’s captured by some aliens named Tarkas. He’s placed under the care of one of the women and is fed something that lets him speak and understand Martian. Soon, John finds himself caught in the middle of a war between rival aliens on Barsoom, all trying to take control and kill each other. He’s left wishing he could just get back to Earth and continue his dig for gold.

Watch out for the part where John leads an army to go rescue the princess — you’ll laugh your head off. This movie was supposed to kick off a franchise, but due to its poor box office run, Disney might be shelving this one for many years to come.

Is the movie better than the book? That’s left for you to decide. John Carter is making his centennial reign in this 2012 Disney masterpiece, based on the first of the 11 books by Edgar Rice Burroughs titled Princess of Mars (1912).

The blend between the CGI and the environment is a trick Disney has mastered, and it’s well deployed here. The characters weren’t short of breathtaking either.

John Carter was played by Taylor Kitsch, best known for his role as Tim Riggins in the NBC television series Friday Night Lights, who arguably performed better than anyone else on screen. The Princess was played by Lynn Collins, and Willem Dafoe voiced Tars Tarkas.