John Carter
UA Court Street, March 29, 2012
Movie #16 for 2012
There are silly films, and there are silly films, but every now and then you see a film that is so staggeringly, so epically silly that it kind of takes your breath away. John Carter is such a film.
John Carter (TAYLOR KITSCH, pictured) is a civil war soldier turned gold-miner who - with a whole lot of superfluous but entertaining back story - is magically transported to Mars where a civil war is taking place between the good Martians (including love interest/scientist/princess LYNN COLLINS and her dad CIARAN HINDS) and bad Martians (including DOMINIC WEST). On the sidelines are immortal watcher-type Therns (including MARK STRONG) and a war-loving race of tall, green and mean Tharks (voiced by WILLEM DEFOE, SAMANTHA MORTON and THOMAS HADEN CHURCH), who kind of adopt John Carter when the weaker gravity of Mars means he can leap about and fight real good.
Writer-director ANDREW STANTON clearly adores the source material, but his choices in adapting it are a little puzzling. I like that he doesn’t over-explain everything (he credits us with half a brain among us and we do catch on eventually) but he has made some choices that are completely confounding - he has clearly modernised in places (the princess is a warrior and a scientist, for example) but stuck to the old fashioned in others (the grave danger of the climax is that she might marry the wrong guy. In a bikini, no less).
Stanton has a good eye for action - some of it is quite fun - and the early playful tone between Carter and the princess is just right, but much of the dialogue is snort-worthy (although I believe it would have been faithful to the text) and the premise is just beyond where I am willing to stretch (which, I assure you, is quite a long way).
I’m not calling it the silliest film I’ve ever seen. But I’m not calling it anything else, either.
