Watching John Carter, I got the impression of an anthropomorphized movie reel taking an un-proctored exam with a bunch of other, better sci-fi films. And John Carter positioned itself smack dab in the middle of the group so that it could crib off everybody’s paper. “Hmm, yeah I like that from Return of the Jedi.” “Uh huh, definitely Avatar for that answer.” “Cowboys & Aliens, sure.” “Let’s see what Prince of Persia got for #6″ “And what did Flash Gordon write for the essay question?” “Yeah good, some quality Attack of the Clones and The Matrix in here, too.” And then it turned in the test pleased as punch as if there was an original idea in the entire thing.
Michael Chabon helped write this? Really?
It’s fair to say I didn’t think much of John Carter. Presented in IMAX 3D, with lovely mediocrities Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins headlining, John Carter is a well-presented, but ultimately empty and confusing arrangement. It’s kind of like putting a bow tie on a turd. I didn’t care what was going on at any given time, which is a good thing, because I might have been lost if tried. Lessee, there’s an ex-Confederate soldier hanging out in Arizona. The army tries to enlist his services and in doing so, he finds a portal to Mars, where he gets involved in even sillier battles than he’d been having on earth.
Oh, and this is convenient-for-sci-fi purposes Mars. It houses several races of humanoids who don’t get along very well. The weak gravity allows John Carter to behave like a human Super-Mario, with super jumping and super strength, but no consideration is ever made about the living conditions (i.e. lack of oxygen and water). Forget it, he’s rolling. Like in Avatar, the race he befriends on Mars are relatively primitive and tall, but the differences are scaled back when plot convenient. And after the initial Cowboys & Aliens focus, we get a laundry list of previous sci-fi tales (most named above) from which John Carter gleefully thieves. This won’t bother you, of course, if you haven’t been introduced to them before. Me? I was bothered.
But even if you hadn’t seen Prince of Persia thrice already and noted that Taylor Kitsch is no Jake Gyllenhaal and Lynn Collins is no Gemma Arterton, and Prince of Persia was no Star Wars episode IV to begin with, you still would be put off, like I was by the fact that neither of these actors is especially compelling. Kitsch plays Carter as if he blindly took a dart to an emotion spectrum at the start of each scene. Collins seems to have the pouty-but-proud Princess–engaged-to-a-heel down, but, you know, we’ve seen it. A bunch. When Carter pulls a Matrix jump to save Princess Dejah on a whim – the first time they meet– I wondered why he did it. And then, the two meeting initially, they start acting against one another like they know something the audience doesn’t. Did I just miss a scene? I left the theatre wondering why I should care about either of them. Dumb action, dumb characters, snooze-worthy intrigue … maybe two stars was a bit generous. I guess I liked the bow tie.
John Carter gets my nod for worst title of the month. That name could describe anything from Blade Runner to Pride & Prejudice. Do you want to attract a crowd of people not familiar with graphic novels? Then your sci-fi film set on Mars has to have some hint of aliens or space travel or galactic hemorrhoids or Spike Lee or something.
Rated PG-13, 132 Minutes
D: Andrew Stanton
W: Andrew Stanton, Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon
Genre: Quilt-patch sci-fi
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Video game enthusiasts
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Fans of story development
