John Carter
Review by
Anthony Morris
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John Carter
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The problem
with adapting a classic is
that there’s a good chance Hollywood has already strip-mined
it.
The John Carter
stories (by Edgar Rice Burroughs, inventor of Tarzan)
started in 1912 and dealt with a fantasy version of the red planet
(called Barsoom) filled with aliens and strange cities and
swashbuckling adventure.
So if this
Disney film at times feels a
little like you’ve seen it all before, blame every other movie that
borrowed heavily from either the books or Burroughs’ style of
adventure.
It’s the 1880s,
and Carter (Taylor Kitsch) is a veteran
of the American Civil War who’s headed west to find his fortune
after the war left him with nothing both physically and
emotionally.
Meanwhile on
Mars a war rages, and the mysterious shape-changing
Therm Matai Shang (Mark Strong) has just given the thuggish Sab Than
(Dominic West) a weapon that could win him the war - and the
unwilling hand of princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins).
So when
Carter finds himself transported to Mars (where the weaker gravity
enables him to make mighty leaps), he of course… finds himself a
captive of green four-armed Tharks led by Tars Tarkas (a heavily
CGI’d Willem Dafoe).
There’s a lot
of story in this two hour plus
film and a lot of made-up words too – at least one dramatic speech
is almost laughable thanks to the concentration of fictional terms -
but as you’d expect from an adaptation from a Pixar director (in
this case Andrew Stanton, who directed Wall.E and Finding
Nemo) this manages to keep the multiple plotlines (there are
at
least two distinct storylines set up and left on cliffhangers before
Carter even gets to Barsoom) and threats relatively coherent while
making sure Carter himself has a solid arc to keep him distinct
against the sweeping backdrop.
There are flat
spots and the lack of a
strong villain lowers the tone a little but overall this works both
as an adventure tale and as a visually gorgeous exploration of an
exciting alien world.
While it’s not
as flat-out exhilarating as
the best of the genre – or even as insanely campy as Flash
Gordon was – this is sweeping action of a kind we
all-too-rarely see.
3.5 out
of 5
John Carter
Australian release: 8th March,
2012
Official
Site: John Carter
Cast: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn
Collins, Samantha Morton
Director: Andrew Stanton
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