“John Carter”: a swing and a miss [MOVIE REVIEW]
Taylor Kitsch as John Carter. Photo by Frank Connor courtesy of Disney
“John Carter,” based on a magazine serial at the turn of the last century by Edgar Rice Burroughs (of Tarzan fame), tells the story of an embittered Confederate soldier after the Civil War looking for a fortune in gold in the Arizona territory. Happening upon an intriguing cave, he encounters a mysterious being who appears and vaporizes instantly when he is shot, leaving behind a glowing medallion. Examining the pulsing amulet, Carter is immediately transported to an unknown desert where he discovers he has the power to leap incredible distances. He has landed on Mars, or Barsoom as the natives call it. This is not, however, enough to protect him from the quadruple armed creatures who surround him.
From the land of the multi-armed, he finds himself enmeshed in a war between two peoples – those of the land of Helium (Burrough’s playfulness in evidence as the element had been discovered only 20 years before his serial) and those of Zodanga. Helium is led by Tardos Mors and his daughter Princess Dejah. Siding with the underdog Heliums and in thrall with the Princess, Carter must use his limited resources and the friends he has made to try to save Helium from Sab Than and the Zodangas.
“John Carter” is a true pulp adventure because, as ridiculous as this scenario sounds to anyone but a fanboy, it can be very fun to watch and you will often be carried away, or, in keeping with the film, transported. It is a good story, simple, to the point with lots of action, occasional humor (although some of it may be unintentional), danger and the kind of satisfying result one hopes for in a scenario of good vs. evil.
Nevertheless, in most cases the minuses outweigh the plusses. On the one hand you have several great British actors having the time of their lives, led by Dominic West playing Sab Than, a villain so evil you can see him twirling his mustache (if he had a mustache) and Mark Strong as the mystical Thern who uses his power for evil and control of the planet. Strong clearly had a lot of fun with his role and if everyone had been as natural and commanding as he, this movie would have been a whole lot better. Ciarán Hinds, as Tardos Mors, is at once imperial, frightened and perplexed. Imperial and frightened are good; perplexed, not so much, as it is the kind of questioning one often gets from a Shakespearean actor who finds himself in the treacherous waters of mediocre science fiction with a “what am I doing here” look on his face.
The two leads, however, are among this films biggest deficits. Lynn Collins as the Princess is beautiful and stiff as a board. She’s great a wielding a sword, not so terrific at line reading. Taylor Kitsch, late of “Friday Night Lights”, is in way over his head. The director was, no doubt, going for a young Harrison Ford; he didn’t get it. There are moments when Kitsch captivates the screen but other times his flat affect takes over and you are in the presence of a spotty actor reading bad dialogue.
And therein lies the greatest difficulty, for there are times when Kitsch is believable, insouciant and sincere, not often but sometimes. Good direction might have improved the dramatic interpretations of the two leads (they have been good in other things) and it’s what a director is supposed to do. On top of that, everyone is hamstrung by a truly awful script. The dialogue is silly and expositional, rarely forwarding the action. Any effort at humor is, more often than not, unintentional. This needed a script, not a storyboard.
All blame deservedly goes to the writer/director Andrew Stanton, the Disney golden child of “Toy Story,” “Wall-E” and “Finding Nemo” fame. Stanton is a master at animation where anachronistic and/or silly dialogue is unnoticeable because the characters are cartoons. In animation, he has a full screen to create and color and move; in live action there is nature’s palette and it can be unforgiving. In animation you can have a group of inanimate objects drive forward across a dirty plain under a burning sun and group the shot however you want. In live action, a massive group of quadro-armed aliens astride snaggle-toothed dog-like creatures chasing a semi-clothed shaggy haired man across a desert looks like a lot of ants; it certainly misses the “Lawrence of Arabia” effect he may have been going for.
“John Carter” was filmed in glorious 3D, except it wasn’t very glorious, looking more like a poor retrofit because of the difficulties in merging humans with animatronics. The result looks like humans against a giant green screen filled with creatures in a backdrop. The aliens are well designed and eye popping, but 3D added very little to the process. If you’re going to see it, don’t pay the 3D premium.
This may be a hit, as my seatmate declared, and I don’t think it will be an all-out flop because it doesn’t deserve to be. As negative-leaning as most of this article is, “John Carter” is still fun and offers occasional moments of glory. You can definitely see what Stanton was going for; he just didn’t get there. There is very little similarity in directing animated characters (and their voice talent) and real live human actors; Stanton needs more practice.
As to those aforementioned cell phones? I dashed out as soon as the credits appeared knowing full well what a nightmare was awaiting in the lobby. I wasn’t wrong. Although I got mine right away (15th in line), I surmise that the wait endured by the others, as the guards tried matching those tiny numbers on the tickets, was as long as the film. And, as the woman in front of me noted – “Why did they even take them in the first place? The film’s in 3D!”
Opening everywhere on Friday March 9.
Neely also writes a blog about writers in television and film at http://www.nomeanerplace.com