Review - John Carter

Grade: C-

Yin: Uneven tone, sluggish pacing, and weak performances fail to elevate material beyond expertly crafted crap.

Yang: Visually stunning, mostly faithful adaptation that is generally hollow.

In-between: Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins) in the original Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs was naked except for some fancy jewelry. This is a Disney production. Do the math.

So He-Man, Master of the Confederate States of America, goes to Mars, hooks up with this naked red Martian princess, fights big green four-armed Martians, giant white King Kongs, and.....zzzzzzzzzzzz......

There’s no way I should be able to describe a narrative with such fantastic elementsand feel so demoralized in doing so. Should there? But, that is exactly how I felt after leaving a screening for Disney’s latest stab at recapturing the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise formula, John Carter.

Carter is based on one of Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs earliest pulp confections, the Barsoom series. The Barsoom series centers on Virginian John Carter, a former captain in Jefferson Davis’ Confederate army who, in his post-Civil War disillusionment, drifts to Arizona and discovers a wealth of strangely-marked gold in hidden cave. The cave itself happens to be waystation for a interplanetary highway that allows Carter to travel to the planet of Barsoom, also known as Mars. Once on Mars, Carter becomes embroiled in civil war between the humanoid red Martians and finds new purpose as a warlord, savior, and lover of buxom red Martian princess Dejah Thoris. Now, I’m no expert on the Barsoom series, but I do--at least from reading a few of Dynamite publishing’s comic adaptations--the basics and I know that 99% of the martians bop around the Red Planet in their birthday suits--especially Dejah Thoris--and some of the finest bling on this side of the Milky Way.

The fact that John Carter is a Disney production, helmed by Pixar pro Andrew Stanton who is directing his first live action feature, pretty much assures that there’s no nudity and, relatively, minimal gore--this is Disney after all. That is a little bit sad because somewhere there as porn director Aside from missing those major points, Stanton’s adaptation gets most of the basics right, but it absolutely drops the ball with tone, pacing, performances anything other element that may contribute to consistent entertainment value. John Carter is, in effect, the legendary piece of well-made crap that is often saved for Memorial Day weekend.

Carter is visually pretty stunning. Mars itself looks fairly impressive and tangible, and most of the creatures look slightly better than the average green screen creations, often showing more life than the human performers. Sadly, Carter falters on anything unrelated to visual effects. Tonally, Stanton and Disney try to have their cake and the guilt that comes after it. Parts of Carter are clearly designed to be lighthearted and pulpy while the majority of the ‘epic’ is sullen and heavy-handed, especially in its anti-war moments. This imbalance would be fine if Disney wasn’t positing this as some kind of serious epic, despite the fact that this is a movie about a guy dressed like He-Man saving Mars from evil monks. Worse than the uneven tone is the limp pacing. I understand taking time to establish character and atmosphere, but both are so thin that neither deserves the amount of time Stanton affords each development. This leads to serious drag in each act, enough to drag out the snores pretty early. With so much time devoted to setting up character and atmosphere, there is precious little time to develop the background of what is clearly a dense narrative, one that is desperately in need of establishing multiple motivations clearly. As a result, the feel of the world is better established than the specifics, which would help to clarify the multi-layered conflicts at the heart of the narrative.

The performances don’t help to strengthen the proceedings. Taylor Kitsch, who was never the most standout performer on Friday Night Lights--at least not compared to the rest of the cast--shows almost negative charisma as Carter. He can pose and pout for the camera, but emoting like a human being is almost out of the question. As the face of the flick’s audience surrogate, Kitsch needed to desperately turn up whatever reservoirs of personality he could access, and he just falls completely flat. Leading lady Lynn Collins doesn’t fare much better as a far more clothed Dejah Thoris, who, while assertive, is so cold that it is hard to see why Carter falls for her other than the fact that she seems to be the only reasonable attractive woman around. Dominic West is on hand as a self-serving warlord who follows the lead of evil monk, Maitai Shang, played by Mark Strong. Both are so classically evil and lack any notable shading or nuance to make them remotely accessible. Sadly, Strong and West, often superior performers, do little to enliven these characters. Even voice work by Willem Dafoe, Thomas Haden Church, and Samantha Morton, all as green martians, show little more life than glorified voiceovers that may have been equally tepid in a typical CGI animated release.

Between the generally soggy performances, the uneven tone, sluggish pacing and the general listlessness, John Carter to proves to be another stunning failed role of the dice for Disney in the epic franchise game. The latest ads are touting this as “from the studio that brought you Pirates of the Caribbean”, as if they’ve some how recaptured the magic that eluded them with Prince of Persia, Tron, and the latest Pirates movie. Disney fails to realize that what made the first Pirates, and its sequels to a lesser degree, successful was the quality of the story and the charming characters, not the spectacle.