Tinsel
There are three types of movies:
1) Bad movies that make you angry you spent $11.50 and leave you with a grudge against the makers.
2) Movies that are worth the price of admission and give you a good time.
3) Films that inspire you to dress up as your favorite character – complete with pointy ears – and attend conventions in which you ask the aging cast members which scene is their favorite and if they ever noticed an inconsistency in the warp drive technology as seen in the third to last scene in the second act.
I am happy to report that “John Carter” is not the first kind.
Put away your Civil War uniform meets leather loincloths costumes, however, because it’s also not the third kind.
It’s a nice, fun movie with enough excitement and characterizations to carry you through the more than two hours in a good mood, but nothing more.
John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) is a late 19th century gold miner who hasn’t given up on his cave although everyone else has. An encounter with some creditors which leads to an encounter with some Indians pushes Carter deeper into the cave, where he encounters a shadowy person with a tricky talisman. Quicker than you can say “plot development,” the talisman shoots him across space away from those pesky Indians and to Mars.
Life isn’t much better on Mars for John Carter than it was on Earth. There’s no water, for one thing, and the tall, green, tusked natives seem bent on either killing him or making him a slave. Plus, they mistake his name to be “Virginia,” which is no name for a soldier to die under. The good thing, however, is that John Carter’s Earthly muscles are super powerful on Mars. Something about gravitational forces or moonpull or something.
The human inhabitants of Mars are embroiled in a war. A king has conquered the planet, save one free city, and devoured it with his huge, mechanical, roving city (which is very cool). The brave princess Dejah (Lynn Collins) is the only one with any spunk left in her and, coincidently, the intended bride and peace offering to the evil warlord.
Sounds like a job for a superman from another planet. Paging John Carter!
The story seems antiquated, even cliché, until one realizes it’s based on the novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs which debuted in 1912. John Carter is not derivative of figures like Superman, but is one of the earliest origins of the superhero character. It’s early sci-fi. Superman is derivative of John Carter, not the other way around. Ditto Star Wars.
This ethos comes through in the movie’s plot and characters. Even updated, the story feels like 1912 and not 2012. Rated PG-13, there is no sexuality (although the princess does dress skimpily) or bad language. The movie is refreshing in its lack of cynicism. Drawn in big, bold characterizations, the bad guys are bad and the good guys good.
It feels a little flat in our time, with no agonizing or horrid backstory to the hero. Still, it works.
The action also works, with some pretty exciting action sequences. A dog-like creature and the tribal people provide comic relief. In fact, they feel Star Warsian or Avatarian. That may seem like a bad thing, but it’s really meant as a compliment.
It’s a fun entertaining movie, one that won’t leave you regretting your ticket price.
In the film, when John Carter travels to Mars, his earthly body lays asleep on Earth while the powers create a new copy on Mars. When he returns to his body, it’s old and covered in dust and hair.
The same could be said for the source material. It lay slumbering while its children grew up, inspired more stories, and went through layers of change. Awoken now a hundred years later, it feels a little creaky, but is still perfectly serviceable.
Maybe we could find a really old John Carter costume, just for kicks.
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