First of all, I've never read the books (which first began being published 100 years ago!) that this movie is based on. I apologize in advance if I mess up any of the details.
Being such a huge sci fi fan, I went into John Carter a little excited but didn't get my hopes up. It seems to me Disney is in desperate need of a new, blockbuster franchise. They want the next Avatar. Speaking of that, from what I understand, James Cameron was partly inspired by these books when he created Avatar. I can defenietly see that. When I first saw the trailer for John Carter a few months ago, the first thing thought that popped into my head was "This looks like it's going to be Star Wars meets Avatar." And it was. It also reminded me a bit of Prince of Persia and surprisingly Cowboys & Aliens.
So what's the verdict? I thought the movie was pretty good. Wasn't the best movie ever, but I enjoyed it.
I'm not even going to bother to talk about the plot too much. If you've seen Star Wars and/or Avatar then it's pretty much the same. But basically you've got the main character named John Carter (Taylor Kitsch). He's a former Cival War soldier who somehow gets transported to Mars, which is known to the natives as Barsoom. Along the way he discovers that because of Barsoom's gravity, he has superhuman strength and can jump long distances. This attracts the attention of some of the natives known as Tharks (12 feet tall green alien people). There are also other races on the planet including humanoids (which look like regular humans with red Henna tattoos on their bodies) from an area called Helium. John ends up meeting the Princess of Helium, Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins). For various reasons, Dejah is about to be forced into a political marriage. She's obviously not happy about it and runs away. She ends up meeting John Carter and.... well, you can pretty much guess what's going to happen.
The movie had a budget of $250 million. With that kind of money and if you want any chance of making profit, you better have the name James Cameron or Peter Jackson. But the director of John Carter is a guy named Andrew Stanton (this is his first "live action" movie I beleive. His previous works include Finding Nemo & Wall-e). Not that he's a bad director, I'm just not sure he was the right person for this. The special effects were really good for the most part (except for a few moments where it was obvious the two main actors were acting infront of a green screen). But the movie didn't have that spark that other good blockbusters have. It's hard to explain.
The acting was decent enough. Taylor Kitsch played the part well, although I'm not sure if he's the kind of actor who can carry a franchise. I enjoyed seeing Lynn Collins play Dejah. Her character was your typical damsil in distress who needs a man to save her, but there were times when she could be bad ass.
And as far as the 3D, it was okay. It looked amazing in a few scenes but overall isn't really worth the extra money. I'm sure it looks just as good in 2D.
I think if you loved Star Wars or Avatar, then you'll like this. Other than that, I'm not sure. It's good, but it had the potential to be great. I have a bad feeling this is going to flop. Hopefully I'm wrong because I would really like to see where they go with this series. I had fun watching this.
My Rating: 7.5/10
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