John Carter

A studio's greatest double-edged sword is marketing. The right ad campaign can make a bad movie a hit and the wrong campaign can make a great movie a flop. For example, the ads and trailers for John Carter suddenly dropped the original "of Mars" from the title and gave little-to-no plot information. All I ever saw was a guy dressed up like Prince of Persia fighting aliens. Sure the movie looked cool, but I didn't know anything about it because of terrible marketing. When I finally saw the thing, I saw that it is in fact pretty good. Destitute Civil War veteran and general badass John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) is obsessed with finding a legendary "cave of gold." When he finally does, Carter also kills a mysterious robed attacker and takes his equally mysterious amulet. The amulet transports our hero to the surface of Mars, where he is taken in by Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and his local green martians. As it turns out, the two main cities of human-like martians are in civil war, with the evil Sab Than (Dominic West) somehow possessing god-like luck. After saving a hot princess (Lynn Collins), Carter decides to face his destiny. John Carter's character is itself quite simple. The growly professional ass-kicker who doesn't want to get involved because of his dark past seen in everything. However the world of mars Carter fights in in the film is unique and fun. It's too bad the film doesn't explore it. After having a great time with the creative story, great action, and fun characters, I felt like I wanted more. John Carter is a classic space opera that's a bunch of fun for all ages, I just wish the universe had more detail In James Cameron's Avatar, you see every digital fold of the characters' skin as they move around and interact with Pandora. In John Carter, when the eight-foot-tall CGI Tarkas picks up Taylor Kitsch, the skin on Tarkas' thumb folds and the Kitsch's cheeks depress. When martian warriors slice each other apart and blast enemy ships to pieces, the effects and direction are incredibly exciting and beautiful to look at. Besides the princess, who is very wooden, the acting is pretty good, and the script, while silly, never gets Clash of the Titans level dumb. This review may seem a little tame compared to my other silly action movie reviews, but bear with me. John Carter is not a dumb movie. It isn't at all a great movie with it's random editing and pacing issues, but it's a great ride. There really isn't much else to say besides what I've already mentioned. The effects, story, acting, and action are all well done, exhilarating, and it never tries to be more than a blockbuster. Like Green Lantern last year, John Carter is only here to dazzle, and it succeeds.