05 Jun JOHN CARTER RE-REVIEW

This is my first in a series of ‘Re-Reviews’ where I revisit a movie that I haven’t seen in several years to evaluate if my opinion has changed with time.

Old Opinion: A mediocre misfire that starred a hot chick and Hollywood’s Failed Action Star of the Moment

New Opinion: Much better than I remember, though an understandably failed franchise launcher.

In the waning years of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (after the fourth movie, though I would argue it started declining immediately after the first entry), Disney decided it needed a new tentpole franchise, and accepted a pitch from the writer/director of such hyper successful Pixar movies as Toy Story 2, Wall-E, and Finding Nemo to adapt a series of century-old pulp novels about a human who is transported to Mars and becomes a hero/villain to the warring occupants of the Red Planet.

On paper, this sounds like an easy home run, especially with the backing of Disney. Unfortunately, the superficial projection of an easy hit falls apart under scrutiny. Disney has a financially terrifying history of spending WAYYYYYY too much money on half-baked ideas in their live-action film department. And John Carter was right in the midst of some doozies, such as Tron: Legacy, Prince of Persia, and most of the Pirates movies. While the former were financial disasters of varying degrees, all but Tron were arguably narrative drifters without a strong guiding hand from a producer/director team with clear vision and laser focus. Instead, Disney throws hordes of money at something in the hopes that they strike it rich, like the Pirates franchise.

John Carter was a victim of this real-world cycle of live-action anemia, and my memory of the movie when I decided to revisit it was…not great. I couldn’t remember a damn thing about the characters, their names, their motivations, the story, or anything aside from a few limited bits about the title character. Mostly, I remembered that Disney lost a fortune on a movie that looked incredible but had absolutely nothing memorable about a Civil War-era hero that travels to Mars—something that should definitely be memorable in some way.

Fortunately, I really enjoyed revisiting the movie. The story is decently clever (for a Disney action flick meant to be accessible by kids), and most of the cast are definitely giving everything they have to their admittedly underwritten roles. Lead Taylor Kitsch, who followed Sam Worthington’s footsteps as Hollywood’s anointed Favorite Action Star, appeared in both John Carter and Battleship in the same year, which is why, like Worthington, he faded into obscurity and darkness just as fast as he caught the A-train. But he is hardly to blame for the results of either mega-budget failure, as he certainly gives it everything while adeptly navigating the challenge of bringing heart to a role that was unfairly obscured by other factors.

You see, John Carter commits a couple of mistakes that should have been caught in either scripting and/or editing: the editing of the opening 20 minutes is, at best, disjointed; and the entire film would have been well-served with providing audiences with a dictionary of jargon, from proper nouns of all kinds to Mars-centric cultural descriptors and science-fiction lingo. The aggregate effect of both is a confused, muddled film that viewer’s will almost certainly struggle to get immersed in amidst the chaos. These two problems stand in stark contrast to the opening of, ironically, the excellent first Pirates movie, which keeps dialogue to a minimum while clearly establishing main characters, threats, and atmosphere; all of which are completely muddled in John Carter. This contrast perfectly encapsulates the problem with dumping too much money into a half-baked idea: you lose the viewer within 20 minutes and never establish an audience, much less a fanbase that will sustain four more financially lucrative sequels of declining quality (**cough** Pirates and Transformers**cough**).

In the end, though, John Carter rewards patient viewers with a fun adventure movie, fantastic visuals, and some heart-felt emotional scenes, all put on by actors giving 110% to a movie that was about 65% ready for them. When all the politics and studio failures are pushed aside, John Carter is a worthwhile, entertaining revisit.

Pros:

• Great visual effects
• Fun, if convoluted, action/adventure
• Engaging cast, including Taylor Kitsch and (smoking hot) Lynn Collins

Cons:

• Editing and jargon-heavy dialogue are near-showstoppers
• Reeks of unrealized potential throughout

Rating: 3.5/5

Note: (A full 1.0 of that 3.5 is because I find Lynn Collins utterly entrancing, despite her well-meaning but poorly developed character)

Review by Jim Washburn