Completely Unasked For Review: John Carter (of MARS!!)
Well, we saw it. Wanted to know why it was the biggest flop in cinematic history. Still not sure why. It wasn't good, but it should not have cost $250 million dollars to make. The reason for that price tag may be the reason for its failure: it felt like a movie by committee. As KAr3n put it, the movie had so much going for it. Big names, the writer of "The Escapist", and the director of Wall-E. I personally think the director was out of his element. Pixar is allowed to do whatever they want...Disney micromanages the shit out of their films, so whatever he might have made was probably watered down and churned up into...this.
Still, of the four people who went to see it, I was probably the one that most enjoyed it, despite its numerous, obscene flaws.
But let's dive in! Spoilers, obviously!
The Good:
- Beautifully shot. The scenery, the CGI (despite having that 'too fluid' animated feel to the aliens), the worlds they inhabited. Top notch.
- Entertaining. Who doesn't oo and aaah when a dude is leaping into the sky to battle airships bare-handed, or slaughtering entire tribes worth of bad guys single-handedly with swords?
- The Uber-bad guy is the villain from Kick-Ass (Mark Strong), while Edgar Rice Burroughs is played by Kick-Ass himself. Weird, but amusing.
- The world itself. The civilizations, their cultures, and their complex histories were great. I felt like I totally understood them as the movie went on.
- Inhuman breasts. Seriously, I couldn't stop staring at the Princess (of MARS!!) and wondering how expensive those flotation devices were. They were like silicone torpedoes!
- I also quite enjoyed the random way he found himself teleported. Super-powered Bald Dude shows up and sees a human in his cave, tries to kill him, but has a weakness to bullets. Carter picks up his device and BAM! Mars. It all happens so quick you feel as disoriented as John Carter.
I can't make up any more good things. The bad are so numerous.
Bad Things:
- The four beginnings. It's only a minor irritation and I realized later that it was sadly unavoidable. You need to start on Mars so as to explain where this dude (let's call him Shmoe), gets his super weapon. You don't need the part where John Carter is being shadowed on earth. Instead you could just gone right from Mars to what was the third opening with ERBurroughs showing up at the train station. And naturally you need beginning number four when John Carter's tale actually starts. You can't cut the Burroughs part without ruining the ending and solving JCM's problem.
- John Carter. Well, the actor. He was not terrible but...well...he WAS the worst part of Wolverine (he played Gambit), so it may not have been a great choice to cast him. He had that Red Dead Redemption problem of being such an unsympathetic dick that you don't know if you are supposed to root for him. And though his slow John Wayne drawl was forgivable, I was a bit confused by his choice of laryngitis for the character's voice. Especially in his Braveheart speech toward the end. It didn't sound inspiring. It sounded like he'd swallowed too much Martian sand. Get that man a lozenge!
- The Super Powered Bald Dudes (SPBD). They are shapeshifters, which is problem number one. They go to elaborate lengths to make Shmoe leader of his people and to get him to marry the Princess (of MARS!!)...when they could have just done it themselves by impersonating the guy. I know they prefer to alter the course of history indirectly and all that, but it's not that much of a difference. They are also grossly inconsistent. Why do they travel to Earth? Why are they immune to the 9th Ray (magical pulp/sci-fi power) but not bullets or swords?
- Stupid people. There's no other way to describe them, really. When people in the movie do things that are so monumentally stupid that you either give up caring about them or the movie. Let's start with the 9th Ray. The SPBD can use it to disintegrate people with no effort, yet when one sees John Carter in the cave, he uses it to form a dagger and tries to stab him instead. They give the power to Shmoe, who uses it to murder thousands of the Princess's people without a care. Then he finally gets his chance to kill John Carter and he...turns it into a sword and flails about missing him (There must be a trope name for this, as it happens so often in movies it is beyond cliche). The Princess gives Carter back his amulet and tells him she can send him home, but wants him to help her people first. Sound bargaining chip right there, yeah? Except then, she forces him to repeat the words that will send him home. Forces him. And then is surprised when he disappears. "Stay and fight for my planet! Now repeat these words that will take you home. But stay. But say the words!"
John Carter himself loses any respect one might have had for him when he takes the SPBD's super-duper amulet and chucks it into the desert. It's meant to signify that he doesn't need it to return home, that Mars is his home. Instead, it makes him look like a fucking idiot. He knows the amulet has power to help his new wife discover the secret of the 9th Ray, her goal in life. He knows that whomever possesses it could use it for a number of horrible things. Instead of keeping it safe he just hucks it into the unknown. *facepalm*
But easily the worst example of stupidity, the point in the movie where we stopped caring for most of the characters, was when the Princesses father saves her and presents her with...Shmoe. As soon as she sees him, she wants to kill him. And why not. He literally obliterated thousands of her people. He possesses a weapon that can do that again. The only reason her father wants her to marry him is because he will kill all of their people otherwise. But he stops her from killing him. Worse, he explains to her that he is a stand-up guy because he came to them alone, out of concern for her welfare. See? He loves you, baby! That's why we didn't slaughter him the second we laid eyes on him. Sure, it would have avenged our fallen brothers and saved the lives of thousands more...sure, it would also mean you wouldn't have to marry him...but he's just such a nice guy, baby! And then, her response...is to spare him, too. She could kill him, take his 9th Ray weapon, and save her people and her vagina. But no. Inexplicably, she says, "Let's get married!" And we give up.
- Unintentional laughter. Two of the people I were with had some volume problems with their displeasure. One of them laughed so loud, Kar3n elbowed him. Of course she was laughing, too. The scene? John Carter flashes back to finding his daughter's body in his burned down house. His daughter clean, untouched dress and body. At ground zero of a blackened, charred, house. Oh, Disney! This is followed by his genocidal slaughter of a whole tribe of green aliens, with shots intercut of him burying his family and crying. I know what it was trying to do, build an emotional connection between his despair and his unleashing of rage. But it instead came off as laughable, as he so brutally, one-sidedly, slaughter the shit out of these people.
- Confusion. Specifically, when he returns to Earth. It's already been explained that his body on Mars was basically a carbon-copy of his real body on Earth. So, when he returns and he is wearing the same clothes and beard as when he left, it makes sense. What doesn't make sense is how he is alive. The guy he was with has died and become a skeleton, even though he;s been gone a week, tops. In the book, he is gone for about 10 years, so that makes sense. Except, again, why is his body not decomposed, too? They could have solved this whole issue by not going with the 'carbon-copy' idea and just saying he teleported. Don't have to stay THAT true to the books...it's not like you have the rest of the time.
- By the numbers! A lot of the movie seemed to just be moving from one plot-point to the next without letting anything sink in. The best example is the arena scene. He rushes to the green martian's city to get their help (despite having fled for their lives from them and knowing they will be killed on sight), before the Princess (of MARS!!) gets married that night. But they need to be captured and fight in the arena first. Oh, and let's make sure he kills the martian's leader so he can become their new one. But don't spend too much time on it all. Like, say, ten seconds. Good! Let's move on to the next scene.
_______________
So, as I said, it was still a fun movie. It was well-filmed, even if the script and production, and marketing were bad. And a few of the actors (Shmoe in particular). But most of the cast were totally committed and did great with the material they had. I had a good time, which is what's important. No one's childhood was raped (it's a really old source material, after all), and the only losers were the filmmakers, really. It had really cool ideas, even if they weren't fully realized. A walking city?? Ships that fly on light? That's pretty rad!
In conclusion, I wouldn't see it again, but I'm glad I did see it. You should give it a try too. I guess. :)
Still, of the four people who went to see it, I was probably the one that most enjoyed it, despite its numerous, obscene flaws.
But let's dive in! Spoilers, obviously!
The Good:
- Beautifully shot. The scenery, the CGI (despite having that 'too fluid' animated feel to the aliens), the worlds they inhabited. Top notch.
- Entertaining. Who doesn't oo and aaah when a dude is leaping into the sky to battle airships bare-handed, or slaughtering entire tribes worth of bad guys single-handedly with swords?
- The Uber-bad guy is the villain from Kick-Ass (Mark Strong), while Edgar Rice Burroughs is played by Kick-Ass himself. Weird, but amusing.
- The world itself. The civilizations, their cultures, and their complex histories were great. I felt like I totally understood them as the movie went on.
- Inhuman breasts. Seriously, I couldn't stop staring at the Princess (of MARS!!) and wondering how expensive those flotation devices were. They were like silicone torpedoes!
- I also quite enjoyed the random way he found himself teleported. Super-powered Bald Dude shows up and sees a human in his cave, tries to kill him, but has a weakness to bullets. Carter picks up his device and BAM! Mars. It all happens so quick you feel as disoriented as John Carter.
I can't make up any more good things. The bad are so numerous.
Bad Things:
- The four beginnings. It's only a minor irritation and I realized later that it was sadly unavoidable. You need to start on Mars so as to explain where this dude (let's call him Shmoe), gets his super weapon. You don't need the part where John Carter is being shadowed on earth. Instead you could just gone right from Mars to what was the third opening with ERBurroughs showing up at the train station. And naturally you need beginning number four when John Carter's tale actually starts. You can't cut the Burroughs part without ruining the ending and solving JCM's problem.
- John Carter. Well, the actor. He was not terrible but...well...he WAS the worst part of Wolverine (he played Gambit), so it may not have been a great choice to cast him. He had that Red Dead Redemption problem of being such an unsympathetic dick that you don't know if you are supposed to root for him. And though his slow John Wayne drawl was forgivable, I was a bit confused by his choice of laryngitis for the character's voice. Especially in his Braveheart speech toward the end. It didn't sound inspiring. It sounded like he'd swallowed too much Martian sand. Get that man a lozenge!
- The Super Powered Bald Dudes (SPBD). They are shapeshifters, which is problem number one. They go to elaborate lengths to make Shmoe leader of his people and to get him to marry the Princess (of MARS!!)...when they could have just done it themselves by impersonating the guy. I know they prefer to alter the course of history indirectly and all that, but it's not that much of a difference. They are also grossly inconsistent. Why do they travel to Earth? Why are they immune to the 9th Ray (magical pulp/sci-fi power) but not bullets or swords?
- Stupid people. There's no other way to describe them, really. When people in the movie do things that are so monumentally stupid that you either give up caring about them or the movie. Let's start with the 9th Ray. The SPBD can use it to disintegrate people with no effort, yet when one sees John Carter in the cave, he uses it to form a dagger and tries to stab him instead. They give the power to Shmoe, who uses it to murder thousands of the Princess's people without a care. Then he finally gets his chance to kill John Carter and he...turns it into a sword and flails about missing him (There must be a trope name for this, as it happens so often in movies it is beyond cliche). The Princess gives Carter back his amulet and tells him she can send him home, but wants him to help her people first. Sound bargaining chip right there, yeah? Except then, she forces him to repeat the words that will send him home. Forces him. And then is surprised when he disappears. "Stay and fight for my planet! Now repeat these words that will take you home. But stay. But say the words!"
John Carter himself loses any respect one might have had for him when he takes the SPBD's super-duper amulet and chucks it into the desert. It's meant to signify that he doesn't need it to return home, that Mars is his home. Instead, it makes him look like a fucking idiot. He knows the amulet has power to help his new wife discover the secret of the 9th Ray, her goal in life. He knows that whomever possesses it could use it for a number of horrible things. Instead of keeping it safe he just hucks it into the unknown. *facepalm*
But easily the worst example of stupidity, the point in the movie where we stopped caring for most of the characters, was when the Princesses father saves her and presents her with...Shmoe. As soon as she sees him, she wants to kill him. And why not. He literally obliterated thousands of her people. He possesses a weapon that can do that again. The only reason her father wants her to marry him is because he will kill all of their people otherwise. But he stops her from killing him. Worse, he explains to her that he is a stand-up guy because he came to them alone, out of concern for her welfare. See? He loves you, baby! That's why we didn't slaughter him the second we laid eyes on him. Sure, it would have avenged our fallen brothers and saved the lives of thousands more...sure, it would also mean you wouldn't have to marry him...but he's just such a nice guy, baby! And then, her response...is to spare him, too. She could kill him, take his 9th Ray weapon, and save her people and her vagina. But no. Inexplicably, she says, "Let's get married!" And we give up.
- Unintentional laughter. Two of the people I were with had some volume problems with their displeasure. One of them laughed so loud, Kar3n elbowed him. Of course she was laughing, too. The scene? John Carter flashes back to finding his daughter's body in his burned down house. His daughter clean, untouched dress and body. At ground zero of a blackened, charred, house. Oh, Disney! This is followed by his genocidal slaughter of a whole tribe of green aliens, with shots intercut of him burying his family and crying. I know what it was trying to do, build an emotional connection between his despair and his unleashing of rage. But it instead came off as laughable, as he so brutally, one-sidedly, slaughter the shit out of these people.
- Confusion. Specifically, when he returns to Earth. It's already been explained that his body on Mars was basically a carbon-copy of his real body on Earth. So, when he returns and he is wearing the same clothes and beard as when he left, it makes sense. What doesn't make sense is how he is alive. The guy he was with has died and become a skeleton, even though he;s been gone a week, tops. In the book, he is gone for about 10 years, so that makes sense. Except, again, why is his body not decomposed, too? They could have solved this whole issue by not going with the 'carbon-copy' idea and just saying he teleported. Don't have to stay THAT true to the books...it's not like you have the rest of the time.
- By the numbers! A lot of the movie seemed to just be moving from one plot-point to the next without letting anything sink in. The best example is the arena scene. He rushes to the green martian's city to get their help (despite having fled for their lives from them and knowing they will be killed on sight), before the Princess (of MARS!!) gets married that night. But they need to be captured and fight in the arena first. Oh, and let's make sure he kills the martian's leader so he can become their new one. But don't spend too much time on it all. Like, say, ten seconds. Good! Let's move on to the next scene.
_______________
So, as I said, it was still a fun movie. It was well-filmed, even if the script and production, and marketing were bad. And a few of the actors (Shmoe in particular). But most of the cast were totally committed and did great with the material they had. I had a good time, which is what's important. No one's childhood was raped (it's a really old source material, after all), and the only losers were the filmmakers, really. It had really cool ideas, even if they weren't fully realized. A walking city?? Ships that fly on light? That's pretty rad!
In conclusion, I wouldn't see it again, but I'm glad I did see it. You should give it a try too. I guess. :)