John Carter

Year 5, Day 175 - 6/24/13 - Movie #1,467

BEFORE: Another film from 2012, and more of those are on the way.  I think the bulk of the next month's movies are going to come from 2011 and 2012, and I'll try to work in one or two from 2013.  I've got more instances of aliens invading the Earth, but I'm going to flip it around tonight because of the actor linking - I noticed that Taylor Kitsch could carry over from "Battleship".

THE PLOT:  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. 

AFTER:  On many levels, this film is a big mess.  I found the plot nearly undecipherable - any time I have to research the next day about what I watched happen the night before, that's a bad sign.  As near as I can determine, this is what takes place.

A former Civil War soldier travels to Mars via a teleportation device, and finds a planet in the middle of its own civil war.  (oh, the irony!)  But instead of Union vs. the Confederacy, it's a war between two cities, Helium and Zodanga, the latter of which is a mobile city.  The Martians look rather human-like, but there's a third faction as well, the Tharks, who are green, 12 feet tall, and have four arms.  They're not involved in the war, nor are the Therns, who are like high priests or something, but have some high-tech weaponry that they only give to Martians they like.  

At first Carter can't understand the Martian language, so he has no idea what's going on (and neither does most of the audience...) but they soon engineer a translation solution for him.  He's special because as an earthling on lower-gravity Mars he can jump tremendous distances and pack a mean punch.  This is explained by saying he has a different bone density, but you'd think that his jumping abilities would be increased by a lower bone density, and his strength would be increased by a higher bone density, so there seems to be a bit of a NITPICK POINT here - which is it?  Also, having jumping ability or super strength are pretty useless unless someone is also impervious to damage, which he's not - so after jumping for miles he should be horribly injured upon landing, and he's not.

Then we come to Dejah Thoris, who's a queen or princess from Helium, engaged to marry the warlord from Zodanga, and you'd think that would help smooth things over, but she doesn't seem all that into getting married.  She'd rather hang out with John Carter and send him on wild goose chases all over Mars looking for a way to get him back home to Earth.  Carter gets named the Dotar Sojat, which is some kind of honorary title given by the Tharks to the best fighter, but that doesn't help him get home either.  There's a coliseum-like battle that calls to mind the Geonosis scenes from "Star Wars: Episode II", and then once Carter finally gets comfortable on Mars, wouldn't you know he gets sent back to Earth!  So now he has to struggle to find a way back.  

It turns out that people can't really get teleport to Mars (Really? I'm shocked.) but instead the magic amulet makes a clone of your body, and you run and jump around and fight while your body sits motionless on Earth (and somehow survives for weeks without food or water).  So while this film didn't rip off "Independence Day", it did manage to rip off "Avatar".  Even if that was part of the original Edgar Rice Burroughs story, it's still piggy-backing off of a recent super-successful film.

But the biggest problem here is that the film is so bloated with its own mythology that it's nearly impossible to tell who's doing what, let alone who to root for.  I'm also reminded of "Dune", which was so complicated, so convoluted, so filled with alien jargon (like the Kwisatz Haderach) that even the filmmakers couldn't tell you what it's all about.  It's too much to take in - and even though there are (tiny) English subtitles, there should never be more than a few seconds of an alien language on film without the benefit of a translation. 

Trying to keep track of Tharks and Therns, and Helium and Zodanga, Tal Hajus and Tars Tarkus - it's an absolute nightmare.  My brain sort of tuned out after the first half hour, and after that it was just difficult to stay awake until the next fight scene or explosion.

I think they made a horrible mistake in naming this film - it should have been called something exciting, like "Warlord of Mars" or even "John Carter of Mars". But apparently films like "Mission to Mars" and "Mars Needs Moms" hadn't done well at the box office, so the marketing geniuses in Hollywood blamed that on the word Mars.  (Yeah, because THAT was the problem with "Mars Needs Moms"...)  So they ended up with a title that's just some guy's name, which is about as boring as a phone book listing. 

Also starring Lynn Collins, Dominic West (last seen in "Johnny English Reborn"), Mark Strong (last seen in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"), Ciaran Hinds (ditto), James Purefoy (last seen in "Vanity Fair"), Bryan Cranston (last seen in "Contagion"), Daryl Sabara, and the voices of Willem Dafoe (last seen in "American Psycho"), Thomas Haden Church (last seen in "We Bought a Zoo"), Samantha Morton (last seen in "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"), with cameos from Don Stark and the voice of Jon Favreau (last heard in "Zookeeper").

RATING: 3 out of 10 broken tusks