John Carter (2012) Directed by Andrew Stanton. Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins and Willem Dafoe. IMDB says: “Transplanted to Mars, a Civil War vet discovers a lush planet inhabited by 12-foot tall barbarians. Finding himself a prisoner of these creatures, he escapes, only to encounter a princess who is in desperate need of a savior.”
I went into John Carter with no substantial expectations. What I came out with was an enjoyable movie experience. I found John Carter to be a nice preview of the Summer Blockbuster season with a great mix action, humor, great 3D effects.
To lead with my last point, John Carter did a really great job with its 3D. The landscape of Basoon (Mars) really came to life as the audience enjoys wide camera angles that show off the depth perception that 3D provides. The use of depth perception was done really well in tighter shot scenes to give the audience a feel of distance between characters and their environment; these shots were also punctuated with the more conventional “pop” effect that 3D provides, but not ad nauseam.
An aspect that detracted from my viewing experience of John Carter was the vocabulary, I felt that I needed a Mars-lish to English dictionary to keep up with the names of the towns and the primary characters. About halfway through the movie I kinda gave up; soon Tars Takas became ‘Good alien leader’ and Sola became ‘bitchy alien’. Another annoyance that took away from the film was John Carter himself. Taylor Kitsch definitely looked the part of a leading man but had the personality of an egg salad sandwich. Couple that with his decision to use a Christian Bale-esque gravel in his voice and you have an annoying deterrence. The rest of the cast portrayed their roles quite well, it’s a shame that their leading man held them back from getting a higher score.
Other things that worked for John Carter included the humor – every time ‘Good alien leader’ called John “Virginia” I giggled. The dog-like creature that follows John around was also a source for laughs and was totally endearing. Also, the action scenes were epic and beautiful with plenty of variance; battles took place in the air and on the ground, in the desert and in the cities with each one being extremely captivating.
In conclusion, John Carter is an enjoyable action movie you can take the whole family to see. If Disney plays it’s cards right, this could easily be there next “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, and with 5 books in the John Carter series, they’ll have plenty of material to work with.
