Never in my life have I wanted a film to end so desperately as I did with John Carter. What looked like a very interesting film in it’s trailer turned out to be one of the most disappointing films I’ve seen for quite some time.
The film is based on a Princess of Mars, which was written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I confess that I have never read the book so I do not know how close it is to the source material, but it has been the bases of inspiration for such people as George Lucas and Michael Crichton, amongst others.
The plot revolves around John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) a former American civil war Confederate Army captain, at one early stage in the film he is transported to Mars (or Barsoom as the natives call it) by a mysterious medallion. From there he is involved in a plot to save a princess and a battle of civilizations.
On landing on Mars Carter realises that he has the ability to Jump very high because of the difference in gravity between Earth and Mars, in other words he is a super human being. When he first realises this ability, I actually began to have high hopes for the film because it is perfectly captured but in the end the idea gets overblown and over done.
Which is the biggest problem with the film, everything is overblown, of course films can get away with this (a quick example are the first two ‘Mummy’ films), but the trouble with John Carter is that none of it is done in a remotely interesting or fun way, from the action scenes to the poor dialogue, and the rather annoying character of the main love interest Princess Darja Thoris (Lynn Collins). Who for all intents and purpose she is nothing but eye candy from the first scene to her last.
For a film with a 250 million dollar budget the special effects were drab and never awe inspiring, perhaps they had been spent on the green 12 foot species Thark, who whilst impressive looking display all the characteristics and stereotypes of what Hollywood considers barbarian races.
The film is also far too long, about about half and hour I would say, the length of the film isn’t helped by the incoherent and rather confusing narrative of the film as it jumps from one plot device to the next. By the time the film ran into the last part of it’s running time I could sense the impatience in the audience, as well as my own feelings that everyone just wanted the film to come to it’s conclusion as soon as possible.
In the end John Carter felt like an over long, over budgetted episode of a Sci-Fi TV show. But without any of the thrills and heart. So unless you’re a die hard film fan or science fiction fan, avoid at all costs and rent it on a boring Sunday night when it comes out on DVD.
2/5
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