More like “John Carter of Meh.”
It appears that blockbuster movie season is starting a little bit earlier than the traditional Memorial Day weekend, or so the promoters of John Carter would have us believe. Indeed, the trailers before the movie were all for upcoming summer blockbusters—dear mother of Spock, why are we getting yet another Men In Black movie? And, like many movies that will come up this summer, John Carter (of Mars) is a sci-fi movie that tries very hard to be many things…and doesn’t do any of them that well.
Sci-fi as a genre tends to have movies that fall into two categories: Star Wars/Star Trek/Aliens and those movies that want to be them. Of course, movies like District 9, Moon and the recent Chronicle (go see it, by the way!) can be excellent twists on established tropes and should probably be considered as a third category, but those movies are rarely big budget blockbusters. At any rate, John Carter was marketed as “this generation’s Star Wars”, a claim that isn’t at all justified by the film itself.
For those who don’t know, John Carter is based on a series of novels written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The story in the books and the movie is roughly this: John Carter is an ex-Union soldier who winds up in a cave and, thanks to a MacGuffin, is transported to Mars. A fish out of water, he finds himself embroiled in a conflict between three groups native to Mars (or Barsoom). Helium (home to hottie princess Deja Thoris) is in conflict with…oh, sweet intergalactic Jesus, I don’t care. And neither will you. The movie version of the books manages to take the alien world of Mars/Baroom and turn it into an utterly incomprehensible and boring mishmash of thinly drawn characters and CGI novelties.
The infuriating thing about this movie is that there are moments in which it almost achieves the epic feel that it’s so desperately attempting to achieve. Director Andrew Stanton (Wall-E, Finding Nemo) gives the viewer a lot of pretty images, but doesn’t put them together in a way that is coherent. He also doesn’t know whether he wants to start with a Lord of the Rings-esque prologue or a more intimate narrative to Carter’s nephew, Edgar (the latter being far more interesting than the former). Trying to do both as well as having awkward jumps from Carter’s story to Deja Thoris’ story resulted in me getting irritated instead of invested.
Speaking of pretty images, Taylor Kitsch as John Carter…well, I would have cast him as Tarzan, not a Civil War veteran lost on Mars. Not that I’m complaining, since either way, we get to see him shirtless and in a loincloth. There are moments where Kitsch’s Carter displays a roguish charm reminiscent of Han Solo. I wish that Stanton, Michael Chabon, and Mark Andrews had emphasized that quality more than Carter as a tortured reluctant hero. Lynn Collins’ turn as Deja Thoris, scantily-clad princess of Mars was passable. She had a few moments in which she got to shine, but the role of Thoris could probably have been played by any woman with blue eyes, dark hair and a decent figure. Kitsch and Collins have very little chemistry; the so-called “love” between Carter and Thoris appears to have materialized of the thin Martian atmosphere.
In short, this is a movie that will be a decent rental, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend spending good money on this (and certainly not in 3D).
