Dear John Carter the movie,
I was honestly rooting for you.
I’d heard stories about how expensive and troubled your production was, read reports of how poorly you were tracking, and I realize movies with the word “Mars” in the title have a lousy reputation.
Even so, I’m a big fan of director Andrew Stanton’s Pixar gems Finding Nemo and Wall-E, and was intrigued—excited, even—to learn that you would be Stanton’s first live-action effort, even after your full original title John Carter of Mars was ultimately truncated in a panic by nervous studio executives. I’m sure the powers that be didn’t plan on it, but your theatrical release occurs in the enormous wake of another Pixar alumni’s huge success with his own live-action debut for another studio, M:I-4.
I’ve already blathered about that movie’s awesomeness in a previous column and mention it again now only to validate my own tempered optimism about your cinematic prospects.
After all, a little Pixar dust can go a long way.
Alas, poor John Carter, there’s not enough Pixar dust on Earth or Mars to save you.
In the aftermath of your D.O.A. premiere and your immediate induction into the shameful pantheon of costliest flops of all time, know that the name “John Carter” shall live in infamy. In fact, the very mention of it will likely send shivers down the spines of moviegoers, budget analysts and studio executives for a long time.
And rightly so.
Grotesquely bloated films are often greeted by the masses with a mixture of cynicism, rapaciousness and just plain morbid curiosity. The roll call is staggering: Cleopatra, Howard the Duck, Ishtar, Dune, Van Helsing, Poseidon, Alexander, Hudson Hawk, Pluto Nash, Baron Munchausen, Gigli, The Postman… Okay, I’ll stop. Point is, you’re not alone in the company of the costliest duds of all time.
Nevertheless, I’ll try to go easy on you.
Even by the lax standards of a B-grade popcorn sci-fi romp, John Carter is dull and stupefying, and not even in a cheesy so-bad-it’s-sorta-good way.
If the filmmakers had GONE for intentional campiness, this project might have accidentally scraped by as an engaging riff on Flash Gordon—yes, that wonderfully gaudy 1980 flick beloved and derided in equal measure and which, like John Carter, is similarly based on a rather antiquated early 20th century notion of space travel and intergalactic serial adventure.
I confess, I’ve never read any of the eleven John Carter stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs, but I assume everybody is familiar with another Burroughs literary creation, Tarzan.
The idea for John Carter probably sounded great on paper: the interplanetary exploits of a cocksure Civil War soldier who gets whisked through a portal to Mars, where gravitational variances and his alien body mass allow him to leap and prance over tall rock formations in a single bound. He becomes an unwitting messiah who intervenes among the warring armies fighting to save a dying planet from its own terrible technology.
Or something like that.
Sorry to say, a lot must’ve gotten lost in the translation from page to screen, because I couldn’t tell who was fighting who or why. I couldn’t decide who to root for. Nor did I give a hoot. I was disinterested in both the green spindly four-armed Martians and the clashing hoards of buff sweaty human extras on loan from 300 and Gladiator.
Were the humans battling each other as well as the lizard-like Martians? I’m still not sure. A few minor moments of comic invention brighten up the early proceedings, but they are too few and far between to give enough buoyancy to the film’s hobbling leadenness.
Resigned to this fact rather early on, I simply kept my eyes peeled for the eye candy.
Shockingly, there’s very little of it. The high-tech dragonfly transport ships have a neat rainbow shimmer, but they are the sole burst of vivid color in what is otherwise a surprisingly drab and dreary production. As for the CGI overall, there’s nothing groundbreaking here, and quite a few shoddy effects are evident throughout.
The singular point worth mentioning about you, John Carter, is that you represent the first PG-rated movie from Disney to feature scenes showing dismemberment and decapitation—though their chaste execution is so subliminal these edgy moments probably won’t register with many viewers.
I acknowledge that many notoriously “troubled” films are frequently inherited by a new studio regime and lack the emotional support of their former financiers and marketers, so don’t feel too dejected. I suppose unloved bastard children like you get completed by the bosses begrudgingly for the sake of salvaging their sizeable investment with a chance to at least break even—or, possibly, generate enough brand recognition, critical goodwill and ancillary profit to justify a sequel.
This was, I’m sure, Disney’s grand scheme all along. The biggest surprise about you, John Carter, is that you weren’t flung out in January—traditionally a wasteland of Hollywood refuse, a time when a lot of bilge gets thrown to the wall and everybody watches to see what sticks. Released a mere two months earlier, I trust folks would be inherently more forgiving of your shortcomings—and your absurd price tag.
I’m well aware that bashing a costly fiasco is practically a blood sport, but participation is a mandatory rite of passage for any critic worth their word. Know that I take no particular glee in kicking sand in your face, nor do I celebrate your failure. Nobody wins when a fat turkey does a belly flop so hard it causes the studio—perhaps even the entire industry—to rethink its mega-blockbuster sales model.
Big expensive projects like John Carter keep a lot of artists employed and when they actually score at the box office and win a heap of Oscars like Titanic, it’s all smooth sailing and the bean-counters are happy. It doesn’t even matter if the movie sucks as badly as three of the four Pirates of the Caribbean flicks so long as there’s SOME sort of audience draw such as a dreamy poster-boy idol or a cute spirited naïf to be the faces of an ongoing film franchise and an extensive line of merchandising.
This guy Taylor Kitsch is affable in a dorky down-home sort of way, but he has little authority and zero charisma, despite his impressive physique and the fact that he’s clad in a skimpy brown toga for much of the (way-too-long) running time. He’s simply lost in space.
As for his co-star Lynn Collins as the obligatory princess-slash-love-interest, rarely have I seen such a feckless performance in what should rightfully be a spotlight role for any aspiring actress. How she managed to be so charmless is one thing, but how she passed muster over at Casting and during Board meetings when so much was invested in the film’s production is a mystery for the ages.
But chin up, John Carter. Movies like you tend to earn a dubious cult status in the afterlife of home video and digital streaming, so there’s a glimmer of hope for your legacy after all. Even so, I wouldn’t bother planning a date for a sequel just yet.
On a final note, and of interest to Disney’s marketing department, deciding which one of the four theatrical exhibitions of John Carter to see was a project in and of itself.
I must disclose that I shied away from the Super-IMAX 2-D projection for sheer sticker shock, I reject those tiny Junior-IMAX 3-D theaters on principle, and digital Real-D 3-D projection is too dim and hurts my brain. I opted to see John Carter in the regular, flat, no-frills 2-D projection version in a trusty ol’ 35-millimeter theater. While I’m confident I made a wise choice, I hope the 3-D and IMAX presentations at least offer some temporal thrills as compensation to dumbfounded viewers who fork over the ludicrous surcharge.
Rest in peace, John Carter.
Our encounter was unexpectedly short lived. I remain grateful that single-screen theaters like the one I saw you in still exist in this age of the sprawling gigaplex—and I’m relieved that my ticket of admission cost less than ten bucks.
Sincerely,
Serious Geek
