John Carter
DIRECTOR: Andrew Stanton
CAST: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Ciaran Hinds, Mark Strong, Dominic West, Willem Dafoe, Thomas Hayden Church, Samantha Morten
CLASSIFICATION: 13M V
RUNNING TIME: 132 minutes
RATING: ***
In 1881, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ uncle dies and leaves him a fortune and a story. This is the story. Or at least, this is how the film starts.
Anyway, the storyline follows the disillusioned John Carter – a Civil War captain – who ends up on Mars, fighting alien creatures and coming to grips with an alien princess who knows how to fight.
Mars, or rather Barsoom, is dying – and there is a whole subplot involving an advanced alien race which apparently goes around the universe hastening the demise of planets.
Mark Strong pops up as one of the advanced aliens, egging on Dominic West’s Sab Than in his quest for planetary domination. As Sab Than puts it: “What’s the point of having this thing if I don’t get to use it,” so he goes around destroying cities and all that stands between him and total supremacy is a confused human from Jasoom, or as we know it, Earth.
As these films go, John Carter is fleshed out with a back story that informs his current behaviour, so that’s one up for fantasy fight flicks. He is matched by Deja Thoris (Collins), the blueprint for Pr cities and texts, scary creatures, glittering technology and, in this martial culture, the fight is on for survival. It all works here though, because this really is the Ur-story – the first story that introduced a space traveller and sparked the imagination of some of the best sci-fi/fantasy directors of our time, like George Lucas and James Cameron (it was also the first book to use an entire created language to further the idea of another civilisation).
It is not that you are meant to believe that this is real, but this is an action-adventure fantasy of the highest order in terms of film-making.
Utah stands in as a gorgeously filmed, alien landscape with its sand-hewn canyons creating an exotic backdrop for airy architecture, airship battles and messy fights.
Barsoom is dry and leached of sharp colours, the humanoid Martians sport some great tattoos and skimpy clothing and Kitch jumps around, looking all manly in a very modish loincloth.
The film didn’t really need the 3D, it will look just as dazzling in 2D, probably better. The fight sequence in which John Carter demolishes a whole bunch of Green Martians – the Tharks – is simply chaotic, while the simpler sequences, like when he is adjusting to the different gravity and learning to leap vast distances, are much better.
An oddity of cinematography is that, unlike in Hugo which created amazing depth of field with its 3D, this film still blurs the background when a foregrounded character is in focus. This makes it look like shoddy camera work, when it is really just an under-exploitation of the exigencies of 3D filming.
The film is extremely CGI heavy and at least the comic relief of a computer-generated pet is better here than the reviled Jar Jar Binks. The over-eager puppy slug is cute and should’ve been named Zippy.
The film is striving for epic, but it goes a bit over the mark and could have withstood a bit more editing, but still, director Andrew Stanton has conviction and style and that counts for a lot.
If you liked… Avatar or the Arnie Conan… you will like this.