{"id":2414,"date":"2012-03-09T05:59:04","date_gmt":"2012-03-09T12:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=2414"},"modified":"2012-03-09T05:59:04","modified_gmt":"2012-03-09T12:59:04","slug":"review-john-carter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=2414","title":{"rendered":"Review: JOHN CARTER"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\u201cJohn Carter\u201d might be the most feckless $250 million 3D Sci-Fi epic ever made. \u201cFeckless,\u201d a word recently launched into our political lexicon, might be too harsh, but while \u201cCarter\u201d isn\u2019t the worst film of its kind to roar into theaters on a wide scale, it is about blandest epic in recent memory.<\/p>\n

Based on the famous source material by \u201cTarzan of the Apes\u201d creator and prolific pulp novelist Edgar Rice Burroughs, Pixar alum Andrew Stanton and a host of talented writers craft a film borrows from everywhere. The story is inspired by Burroughs Carter novel \u201cA Princess of Mars.\u201d The movie follows Virginia Confederate Captain John Carter whose war wounds have him left vacant and wandering the Old West. Carter\u2019s prospecting for gold leads him to a cave inhabited by a race capable of interplanetary travel. By accident, Carter is transported to Mars where he has great power, principally the ability to jump really high. In time, he\u2019s captured by the Martian race known as the Tharks and made to fight as their champion. In another part of Mars, a war is raging for control of the desert planet. Without much information, Carter leaps, literally, to the aid of one side that just happens to put him lip to lip with a fetching Princess (Lynn Collins). Has Carter made the right decision? Will his jumping abilities turn the tide in the great war and change the course of Martian history? And can a man from Earth, whose blood is red and bones of greater density, mate with a local blue blood?<\/p>\n

Confusing and, at times, positively frustrating, \u201cJohn Carter\u201d (also titled \u201cJohn Carter of Mars\u201d) is a film that screams too much post-production tinkering. During the screening, I actually turned to Film Fix co-host Jeff Marker and asked him if we had missed a reel. This is because the story races forward and things inextricably happen. Travel from over great distances on the red planet seems to happen in minutes and a key fight scene left me scratching my head. In one scene, Carter leaps onto a hoard of approaching soldiers and attacks them mercilessly flailing his arms wildly without regard to anything around him killing, it appears, the entire hoard. And there\u2019s not a scratch on him. Thereafter, he\u2019s captured and chained to a rock! What? This guy just beat an entire army and a few guys hold him down and chain him up to a rock? It makes absolutely no sense.<\/p>\n

The politics at play are frustrating as well. Carter is characterized as a man of passion not of wit. When he chooses sides, his opposition is Sab Than (Dominic West), who is a brute being aided by the powerful and mysterious Matai Shang (Mark Strong). Matai Shang and his shape shifting crew float in and out of the story causing havoc. And although the locals call them by one name, they go by another. So, okay, they are the nameless ones that pull the strings and make things happen. When Carter upsets their plan, Matai Shang captures him and, in one of the film\u2019s best sequences, tells Carter about their plan and what\u2019s going to happen. It is the oldest trick in the book, the villain gloats and tells the hero what he needs to know to thwart the evil plan. But why this scene works is that it is possibly the most literate and decipherable bit of story telling in the movie. It is also very familiar, which helps to explain the biggest problem with \u201cJohn Carter:\u201d we\u2019ve seen it all before. Nothing is surprising or really that exciting. Unlike \u201cAvatar,\u201d there is no sense of awe or grandeur. The result is tiring.<\/p>\n

Even the top shelf effects can\u2019t overcome the largely toothless story. Given all the special effects laden 3D and IMAX offerings on the market these days, we\u2019ve reached a time when even the best effects can\u2019t trump a soggy and un-thrilling narrative. We have to care about the characters for the magic to happen, and I never fully engaged enough with anyone in \u201cJohn Carter\u201d be concerned about the outcome. The final fight sequences seemed rushed and because of the multiple levels of political intrigue, I was left confused and unsatisfied.<\/p>\n

But \u201cfeckless?\u201d Okay, that\u2019s too harsh. But for $250 million and with the guy who directed \u201cWALL-E\u201d at the helm, we\u2019d expect something more impactful. As is, \u201cJohn Carter\u201d is just another action pic to lay along side the likes of the \u201cClash of Titans\u201d remake. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jonathan tries to makes of the latest $250 million epic…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2414"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2419,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2414\/revisions\/2419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}