John Carter
Director: Andrew Stanton
Cast: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins
12A, 132mins
Set in the late 1800s, John
Carter (Kitsch), a veteran of the American Civil War, stumbles into a cave and
is transported to the middle of another civil war on Mars, this time between
the technologically advanced Redskins, with the tribal Tharks (green,
four-armed ten foot tall aliens) stuck in the middle. The change in gravity
gives Carter super-strength and agility, and he becomes a valuable war asset.
Sadly, that’s about as intelligible as the plot gets. Fighting ensues.
THE HIGHBROW
John Carter is the most expensive
B-movie you’ve already seen. I’m not kidding. The images and story hooks
reminded me of Star Wars, Avatar and Stargate, and the movie feels like an
old-school pulp action flick such as Sinbad or Conan. There is an obvious reason
for this: the original novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, from which the film was
adapted, was written 100 years ago, and had a massive impact on the landscape
of Sci-fi and Fantasy, and its influence can be observed through decades of
books and films, including those mentioned above. For film history buffs, this
is an important film and, overall, is a good film.
However, it suffers from
problems. The otherwise simple plot is rather badly told. Too much information
is thrown at the audience too often, and due to the abundance of strange alien
names and poor plot structure, parts of the narrative are almost unintelligible.
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| Wait, that city walks? Who's attacking who now? What?? |
What about the characters? Collins
is a revelation in the role of the Princess of Mars. She is one of the
strongest female characters I have seen in a long time, because she actually
has a character. She has some flaws: Given the option between marrying the evil
Dominic West or letting him destroy her city she (rather selfishly) runs away!
She lies to Carter, twice, in order to manipulate him! But we still route
for her, because she is stubborn, driven by her strong motivations. Through
making mistakes, recognising and accepting those mistakes, and growing from
them, she experiences a genuine character arc, and is the best thing about this
film.
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| Pictured: a dick "Come at me Bro!" |
Unfortunately, Carter
himself is one of the worst things about the film. Kitsch no pathos or energy
to the role, and Carter is written as a stubborn, selfish idiot, who gets his
companions into serious, life-threatening danger, without a thought, and who
only starts to care about the conflict on Mars when he realizes that he is
attracted to Collins. The fact that, at the end of the movie, he implores
another character (one who is ostensibly a representation of the audience) to
find a cause worth fighting for, is a rather hollow message considering his
cause was, well, a desire to get laid. Carter is inherently unlikable.
It also leads to a darker element
to the picture. Carter, given the opportunity to explore this strange new environment
and culture, spends most of his time like a petulant child, more interested in
getting back to his precious cave of gold. When he does decide to take a side,
he bases his decision purely on which one has the prettier girl. It is also telling
that Carter, a soldier, never thinks to try and find a diplomatic solution to
the conflict on Mars. Nope, fighting is the only solution, and Carter is
nothing more than a weapon to these people.
The movie also has little to say
about the nature of war: for instance, this film could be used to ask to ask whether conflict is a
natural phenomenon amongst societies, regardless of species or culture. It also
misses an opportunity to draw a parallel between the conflict on Mars and those
depicted at the beginning of the film, namely the American Civil War or the
fighting between the US army and the Native Americans, and it is a missed opportunity
to inform the audience about some interesting pieces of history.
THE LOWBROW
This movie looks amazing. I love
the design: the set, costume and monster designs are exquisite
(the animation for the Tharks far exceeds the quality set by the Na’vi in Avatar) and
Andrew Stanton (director of Pixar classics Finding Nemo and Wall-E) builds a
vibrant, fascinating alien world.
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| "Hahaha, we're burning so much money that could go to charity..." |
Parts of the movie are genuinely funny, with humour coming from the characters, but also from some of
the performances. Dominic West and Mark Strong ham it up as the villains, James
Purefoy and Bryan Cranston have fun with their cameos, and Willem Defoe puts in
a brilliant voice performance as leader of the Tharks. As mentioned, Collins is
a great actor, but is also smoking hot, and Kitsch has a very muscular body, so
it’s no bad thing watching these two attractive people interact in skimpy
outfits.
 |
| Oh.. oh my, I, er, have to cross my legs for a minute... |
The action (the main draw of the
film) was good, but could have been improved. While some of the set pieces are
impressive, the fight scenes that seemed to have the most potential, namely
Carter battling an army of Tharks and a one-to-one fight with a Thark leader,
are wasted through, first, intercutting it with depressing images designed to
give Carter a tragic back-story, and second, well, just cutting it very short
and having no confidence in it. I have a feeling Stanton was worried by his inexperience
of filming live-action action scenes, as most of the fight scenes towards the
beginning of the movie were confusing and badly choreographed.
OVERALL
Here’s a rather petty complaint that has been nagging at me. The narrative of this film covers almost twenty years of Carter’s life, but, despite that 250 million dollar budget, they couldn’t spare any money to make him look a little older when it was appropriate?
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| John Carter. Age: anywhere between 20 and 45, apparently |
It just strikes me as lazy and,
perhaps, unconfident. That is what lets this movie down. Had the film just been
about Collins or the fascinating Tharks, I would have loved this. Instead, it
is barely satisfactory.
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