John Carter (2012)

A lot of noise is being made about John Carter lately. It looks likely that this will be the biggest flop ever. I for one contributed to the meagre box office it took, though I am not sure what led me to this film. The only thing I can think of is that the trailer looked pretty schlocky and I thought it could be amusing. I'm not really a fan of Disney live action films, unless we're talking Mary Poppins, and like I say, the trailer looked pretty bad.

The film turned out to be a bit of a mess. Visually it is stunning, you can really see where they spent their money because the special effects are flawless, and in that respect I think I appreciated going to see it on the big screen rather than sat at home where it would have been even worse. However, whilst the visuals are stunning, the script frankly stinks. To begin with there were certain things that didn't make sense; like when John Carter eats something that means he can understand the martians (that's not the part I have issues with), in fact the thing I have issues with is that when everything else is perfectly in English, the names of the planets are still the names that are chosen by the people on the planet. I just don't understand why that wasn't translated, and why we had to put up with constant reminders that when they said one thing, what they actually meant was Earth, or Mars, it detracted from the film and served no point.

I can sum up the story like this - Strong White Man with muscles saves planet from evil. You could say the same thing about loads of other films, Conan, 300, Tarzan, and none of those are really very good either. This is arguably the biggest flaw with the film, it is dull, and you simply don't care much about any of the characters. I don't know if they are aiming for children, but all the CGI monsters in the world couldn't keep a child engaged for the length of this film. John Carter is played well by Taylor Kitsch considering the material he is given. Mark Strong plays the type of bad guy you could imagine him playing in any number of dreary films (I like Mark Strong, but I do fear he has the worst type casting), and Dominic West seems to be trying to break into the mainstream, and unfortunately fails.... again, I like him... but.... no.

In short the film is a flop because it stinks. The story is tired and old hat, I don't care about a single character, except for John Carter's nephew who is put through a horrible ordeal that is never really dealt with, and in the end the film has no audience, not enough action, not enough story, just not enough. Visually though it is a treat that will hopefully be the standard soon enough.