Mars Needs Heroes! John Carter Movie Review

Movie: John Carter

Released: 2012

Rated: PG-13

Genre: Sci-Fi, Action/Adventure

Director: Andrew Stanton

Starring:

• Taylor Kitsch – John Carter
• Lynn Collins – Dejah Thoris
• Thomas Haden Church – Tal Hajus
• Willem Dafoe – Tars Tukus
• James Purefoy – Kantos Kahn
• Mark Strong – Matai Shang

A movie review, yes a movie I was excited to see. It is based on the Barsoom series of stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of the Tarzan series. If you have never actually read the Tarzan series, you should consider it. They are nothing like the many movies you might have seen. Tarzan is in fact only raised by apes after they kill his parents horribly while they are marooned on the coast of Africa.

I have not read the John Carter series by Burroughs, which I will soon remedy, so this point of view comes from the ranks of the uninitiated. Let’s look a bit at the story.

John Carter is an ex-Confederate Civil War Captain who is haunted by the loss of his wife and daughter during the war. He basically loses his humanity and becomes a prospector searching for gold in Arizona.

Pursued by Apache Indians and the US Calvary, Carter stumbles into a cave filled with gold. A robed bald guy appears out of nowhere and both are surprised at the other’s presence. The bald guy dies, Carter grabs the magic medallion, and transports to Mars.

On Mars, Carter runs into the native CGI Martians, the leader of which is Tars Tukus (voiced by Willem Defoe), he makes friends and enemies, and discovers the battles between the humanoid factions on the planet in the cities of Helium and Zodanga. The Zodangans are being guided to take over the planet by the mysterious bald robed guys known as the Therns. The Therns can teleport anywhere, have mastery of the blue and spindly ninth ray of power, and can take on the appearance of anyone.

Carter saves the Princess of Helium (played by Lynn Collins), gets involved in the conflict reluctantly, and the movie culminates in a big battle to save the princess from marrying the leader of Zodanga.

Then a shorter second movie begins where we go back to earth and catch up on the fun there.

I loved the CGI in the movie, some of the best I’ve seen. The effects are excellent. I didn’t buy the scene of Carter jumping around when learning how to walk in Mars’ lower gravity. It looked a little too phony to me. However, the concept that we earthlings would have super strength, resilience, and can leap tall buildings in a single bound on Mars was pretty cool. Imagine it, on Mars we would all be supermen.

The setting of the movie reminded me of a combination of Tatooine and the HBO series Rome. This is further strengthened by the presence of Ciaran Hinds as the leader of Helium (He was Julius Caesar in Rome), and James Purefoy as Kantos Kan (Mark Antony in Rome). There is a steampunk flair to the movie with the insect-like flying machines, this begs the question though as to why they all use swords for the most part if they can use flying machines.

Taylor Kitche is fairly one dimensional in the whole movie as Carter. He is tough, and that is his entire character. He is playing a Virginia born Confederate Captain, without a trace of a southern accent. It is mostly just gravelly. He also fails to get a tan throughout the movie, despite the fact that he is wearing only a manly skirt on a desert planet. He’s pretty good at the action bits though. Lynn Collins as Princess Dejah is excellent, and she is absolutely beautiful and worth the cost of admission on her own. The CGI is great, the aliens expressed more emotion that the title character did. Mark Strong does well as Matai Shang, the leader of the Therns, as he is again playing the bad guy which he is expert at.

It was well worth it if you like action flicks. There is a love story developed between Carter and the Princess, but it takes Carter a long time to come around as he is haunted you see. They make that plain throughout the movie. Some of the concepts were interesting too. It seems that Carter is not actually teleported to Mars, only a copy of his body is created and his consciousness is transferred into it. His body remains on earth, lying flat on the ground in that cave of gold the whole time.

The movie did feel a little long. It was one of those that you think is over, when suddenly there is another 20 minutes of movie to go. I had a difficult time with the Martian dialog too. I mean no disrespect to Burroughs vision, but watching Carter scream “The Tharks will join with Helium, and by the Goddess Issus we will defeat the Koldara!” (or something similar), just made me roll my eyes. We had a few good laughs joking that the people of helium all spoke with munchkin voices.

Overall it was a pretty good action/adventure with incredible special effects, an ok plot, a beautiful damsel in distress, a humorous Disney-esque doggie thing, and steampunk like technology.

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Elliott Miller

Elliott is well versed in all tabletop gaming subjects and brings his expertise mostly to bear on strategy, family, and Euro-style gaming.

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