Despite Disney seemingly wanting to kill John Carter with their lousy posters and the fact that tracking seems to suggest it will be a flop it looks as if the film itself is going to be brilliant if this review is anything to go by.
It could be that one of the best sci-fi films in recent years will be seen by nobody.
JOHN CARTER REVIEW.
I’ve seen it today in an internal distrib screening. 4/5 stars. Historical. Emotional….The tone is sober and solemn. Less action than I thought…..I mostly liked it. It’s not quite a masterpiece, but it’s very faithful to ERB. I’m a huge fan, but doesn’t prevent me from being frank and sincere. I told the people present at the screening that I’ve been waiting for this for almost 40 years. Still emotional about the viewing experience……The movie is dedicated to Steve Jobs.
THE LOOK
Definitely more TROY than LOTR. I wish the battles would’ve been longer. A.S. doesn’t stage / choreograph the battles like Peter Jackson or Jim Cameron does. He’s better with character work. But a movie like JC must contain Action. Whatever there is, is pretty good. Dejah Thoris is an Action Heroine, which is great. Early scenes with Dejah Thoris and Tardos Mors in Helium remind of David Lynch’s Dune. In the interior scenes, there’s some interesting lighting, although it’s not as dark and oblique as in Lynch’s DUNE. The early Earth scenes (1880′s) have a look which reminded me of RAIDERS and SILVERADO. The whole movie has a strong desert look to it. I agree that a tint of red on Barsoom wouldn’t have hurt.
RESPECT FOR THE SOURCE MATERIAL
Fans of ERB / John Carter will be happy to discover, that Andrew Stanton has really seen a lot of trouble to involve the Barsoomian religion, Goddess Issus, Barsoomian astronomy and the superstition of the Tharks in the movie. Stanton really shows that he respects the source material quite a bit, with many memorable pieces of dialogue lifted straight from A PRINCESS OF MARS . Not to mention the whole mythology of John Carter himself — his huge mansion, mausoleum etc. This guy is basically an entertaining rehash of Indiana Jones, as you will discover early on in the movie. Those, who are looking forward to “the lore” aspect of JOHN CARTER aren’t going to be disappointed!
ACTION SCENES ARE SHORTER THAN I WOULD LIKE
However — all of this happens on expense of Action, unfortunately. And this is the movie’s BIGGEST FLAW, in my honest opinion. I had hoped to see MORE Big, Epic Battles along the lines of LOTR and AVATAR. You’re NOT going to see battles on that scale in JC. The battles are way too short in duration, in my opinion. The violence does occasionally push the envelope of PG-13, but never in a serious way, since Andrew Stanton always cuts quickly away from gruesome details. After all, this IS a Walt Disney movie, in the vein of the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN franchise.
I love all the ships and the guns (radium rifles and cannons), plus the one man fliers. They will remind you A LOT of the Speeder Bikes (STAR WARS) in overall feel and controls, although they can obviously FLY HIGHER than the Speeder Bikes, and they’re therefore much more agile.
THE CAST
I think all the actors are exceptionally well chosen for their parts. Despite possibly objecting to the introduction of Therns this early on, most fans are going to be impressed by the charisma / gravitas of Mark Strong as Holy Hokkador Matai Shang. He’s perfect as the main villain / Machiavellian manipulator.
Really liked James Purefoy as Kantos Kan (but he has way too little to do!), and Dominic West as Sab Than (he’s a dashing, menacing villain, but we know absolutely nothing of his backstory or his infatuation with Dejah Thoris — except that the Zodangans are a predatory race, constantly on the move…).
The whole concept of Zodanga — not spoiling it here! — is very cool. Would love to purchase a good scale model of Zodanga, by Sideshow Collectibles.
JOHN CARTER – DEJAH THORIS CHEMISTRY IS GOOD
Prior to seeing the film, the one fact I found a little cringe-worthy in the first trailers were the scenes / dialogue between JC/Taylor Kitch and DT/Lynn Collins. I’m very happy to say the two leads DO have great chemistry. When they get close to each other, you can actually feel the sizzle… of mutual attraction. I felt that Lynn Collins looks absolutely stunning and gorgeous as Dejah Thoris. Her British RP accent is pretty much on the ball. I liked the fact that Dejah Thoris is depicted as a fully-fledged Action Heroine, in addition to being Helium’s Regent of Science and Letters. Love the curvy, ornate Heliumite swords. She has good fighting choreography, which I’d have loved to see more of! However, we see VERY LITTLE of Zodangan females in action (except onboard Sab Than’s battleship very early on).
DEPICTION OF THARKIAN CULTURE
I was impressed by the depiction of the Tharkian culture. Having seen the first encounter between Tars Tarkas and John Carter last year in London in a special JC presentation, I was slightly worried that the Tharks would be too cute. Fortunately, they aren’t, I’m very happy to report. The Thark culture is being portrayed as brutal and unforgiving (especially to weakness, as we know from the books). Reminds of the Klingons in STAR TREK. In this regard, Tal Hajus, Sarkoja and Sola (she’s one of my faves; done just right!) have some great scenes in this regard. In contrast, the Warhoons are never given any depth whatsoever, alas — they’re depicted as the ugly monsters they are, mere puppets in Matai Shang’s grand scheme.
Tars Tarkas is very impressive. Willem Dafoe was a great choice for the role. Tars isn’t overly sympathetic at first; he’s challenged by Tal Hajus (Thomas Haden Church) at every turn, so Tars has to keep a close eye on Sola (Samantha Morton), whom especially Sarkoja (Polly Walker) wishes to humiliate. The design of the Tharks has grown on me. At first, I was opposed to their overly LITHE design. But hey, when you’re living 24/7 in the desert, a lithe physionomy of the Tharks makes PERFECT SENSE. Just think about the Masai tribes in Africa. I also applaud the fact that the Tharkian language has been integrated into the movie. There isn’t too much of it (created by the same linguistics professor who created the Na’vi lingo in AVATAR), but whatever there is, works very well.
Director Andrew Stanton has got plans for the sequel, Gods of Mars, and he spoke to AICN about it. I just hope he gets a chance to make it.
Yeah, well I mean if we go that way it’s going to be a huge movie again and you can’t get started early enough. Nobody has ever made a promise to me, but nobody has ever also led me on, it’s been a very honest discussion from day one with Disney of like “Look, this may work. This may not work and if it works then we will go for another one. If it doesn’t we won’t,” but I always need as much prep time as I can to get stuff right and I’m talking about the story. You can never be working on the story long enough. You need as much time as you can get, so if this ends up going on the shelf as a script I still consider it pretty damn good practice and we will be ready if we ever do go to it again.
Stanton said that there has been substantial progress made on Gods of Mars already.
Well it’s all mapped out and we’ve got a very extensive outline. I tend to write outlines that are like 30 pages long sometimes with dialog scenes in them and all of the details of all of the beats in the scenes and we’ve gotten that and now we are, in this coming month, we are going to start working into a first draft me and Michael.
Stanton also revealed what he would like to see in a possible John Carter sequel.
I can’t wait to see the goddess Issus herself and the plant men. I can’t wait… We kind of held back on really going full bore with air ships, because I knew what we were going to do in film two and I didn’t want it to feel redundant from film one, so I had to find that balance of “How much is just enough” to enjoy what you were seeing, but want a little bit more, “because we are going to give you more in the second one” and then more of… What I geek out on is just the character relationships and I feel like Carter and Dejah’s (Lynn Collins) marriage is just getting started at the end of this movie and I really get to delve into a married couple’s first year of being together on this adventure in the second one and also delve deeper into what’s really going on with the Therns. It just feels like a great second season of a TV show that’s about to come up for me and I get to really delve deeper into all of the characters and the relationships. So that’s really juicy stuff for me.
The sequel will also be “darker” and would lead into a third installment, says Stanton.
Well I think it’s going to get a lot darker before it gets a lot brighter. (Laughs) It really does have a chart that works like Empire [Strikes Back to Return [of the Jedi, but it’s fitting and my whole goal was that by the end of this whole thing he would earn the title “Warlord of Mars” and that’s where we are headed with it. So the color will just… We go underground and then we go back topside by the time we are in the third one.
John Carter is in cinemas from 9th March 2012.
Source: John Carter Files via CBM
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