‘John Carter’ is really lost in space
The mess that is “John Carter” is signaled early on when our hero finds himself on a strange planet that literally puts a bounce in his step. Why, he could leap tall buildings in a single bound. Instead, John, played with chest-baring kitsch by “Friday Night Lights” Taylor Kitsch, ends up sprawled on his face, eating a lot of dirt.
Sadly, John’s problems are “John Carter’s” problems, it’s just that while our hero eventually figures out how to stop falling down, the movie never does. “John
Carter” is the latest version of a long and rich Hollywood tradition: The big-budget (a reported $250-million-plus) fiasco. It’s enough to make your jaw drop.
That “John Carter” is so hit and miss, and miss, and miss is unfortunate on any number of levels. How it all began
It starts with a great story — of love and politics, time travel and mystical pathways between planets — badly sucked dry.
Based on “A Princess of Mars,” the post-civil War/ pre-tarzan brainchild of arguably one of the most entertaining non-disney imagineers of all times, Edgar Rice Burroughs, the book and the Barsoom (a.k.a. Mars) series that would follow has been picked over for plot points by Hollywood for years.
So what will feel like ideas stolen from other movies in “John Carter” (echoes of “Star Wars,” “Star Trek,” “Avatar,” “Superman,” to name just a few), is really more a case of going back to the source. But just as you can’t put Pandora back in the box, filmmaker Andrew Stanton can’t find a way to make Burroughs’ now-familiar fantasy themes feel fresh.
Stanton, who directed and shares writing credit with Mark Andrews and novelist Michael Chabon, is a Pixar veteran who won an Oscar for 2004’s “Finding Nemo” and another for 2008’s “Wall-e,” both wonderful mixes of fun and fantasy. But in making the move from animation to live action, he never finds his footing. There is much more heart in “Wall-e’s” junkyard robot and in the merest flick of Nemo’s fin than you’ll find in all of Barsoom with its dying-planet woes, warring factions, beautiful warrior princess and brazen fourarmed green alien savages, despite its fantastic look. Earth first
The film starts playfully and promisingly in some dusty Western outpost on planet Earth with John, a former Southern Civil War hero, conscripted by the cavalry to help tame the badlands and the Indian tribes. Or at least they try, making for one of the film’s funnier bits, because John has other things on his mind.
Soon both he and we will be transported to Barsoom (Mars to both John and to us) with the help of a cheesy-looking medallion. Getting back is even weirder, what with the chanting that’s required to activate some notso-special special effects.
There is a glimpse of the Red Planet’s issues before John gets involved, starting with a raging battle with very cool spaceships that look like ancient sailing vessels plucked out of the sea.
It serves to introduce the chief villain, a fierce Zodanga fighter named Sab Than (Dominic West), and the difficulties that ultimately undo the writers: How to fill in a complex back story for newcomers without boring fans.
Sab is just the beginning of Barsoom’s problems. It turns out that he’s under the control of the shape-shifting, agenda-setting immortal Therns, with Matai Shang (Mark Strong) the main man of action here. Meanwhile, Sab is out to crush the residents of Helium, the smart, peaceful set, with the first step to marry their beloved princess, Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins).
Then there are the Tharks, multi-armed green savages riding around in their loincloths, staging barbaric arena-style spectacles and waiting for Helium and Zodanga to destroy each other.
And you thought our planet was in trouble. Prisoner of love
Once John does land, dazed and confused, on a Martian desert, he’s captured by Thark leader Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe). Tars is entertained enough by John’s jumping that he saves him, and soon John’s fate is tied to another Thark, Sola (Samantha Morton), something of a rule-breaker herself. Eventually circumstance will throw John in Dejah’s path, sparks will fly, sort of, plans will be hatched, and so on.
All of the intrigues play out against an exceptionally fine background, from the cave dwellings of the Tharks, whose misunderstanding of John’s name provides the film its best running gag, to the towering spires of Helium. Barsoom’s barren wasteland is a terrific visual staging ground for the many battles to come and where Stanton’s strengths come to the surface. The action itself is intricate but ultimately not that satisfying since, even as guns blaze, there is never a feeling of real jeopardy.
Kitsch, who has brought so many moods and so much swagger to his football bad boy in “Friday Night Lights,” simply fades here. When John should overpower not only his enemies but that very big screen, it never happens. Collins (“X-men Origins: Wolverine”) is much better when she’s armed and dangerous than when she’s smitten.
All of which leaves “John Carter” in serious need of someone, something, to really root for other than this two-hour-plus film to finally end.