John Carter (2012)

[InformationGeek]

The second film to see in theaters this year, though I am disappointed that it wasn't The Secret World of Arrietty.   Regardless...

The film centers on John Carter, a civil war vet, that comes to Mars admist a civil war.  There, due to gravity, he finds himself stronger and able to leap great heights with a single bound (Superman story).  He may hold the key to ending this war and stopping the bad empire from wiping out the rest of the planet's civilization.  Meanwhile, in the background, a bald headed figure, played by Mark Strong, seems to be pulling the strings for the bad empire.

Let's start from the top.  John Carter is based off a series of book by Edgar Rice Burroughs, with this movie being based off A Princess of Mars.  This series was made all the way back in 1912 and to 1942.  The series helped inspire lots of classic sci-fi films we know today and we can clearly see the inspiration for a lot of that stuff within this movie, like Star Wars for example.

The good parts of this movie was the fact that the action was incredible and was a joy to watch.  The effects were pretty solid, the story was fun, and the acting & voice acting was decent.

Sadly, this movie suffers from a lot of problems.  We get good backstory for John Carter and all, but it barely comes into play with this film.  The film slows down at times to allow you take in the world the characters are in and have some dialogue scenes, which can ruin some of the pacing.  The 3D was utterly pointless and didn't add much to the experience (In a film like this, you think 3D would be great too).  A lot of the villains had anti-climaxes with them, like they were beaten too quickly or they were killed off by some other person.  There were a couple of hammy points that reminded me of Reb Brown's acting for some reason.  Also, the film ends on a bit of a cliffhanger and the fact that the film isn't doing too well probably means this won't lead to anything.  So, the ending may not satisfy.

However, the biggest and saddest problem is that the film came out at this point in time.  We have had tons of great sci-fi and epic films for a long time now, so we have seen almost everything this film has.  Desert planets, unique alien species & cultures, alien gladiator battles, post-apocalyptic settings, futursitic vehicles, etc.  This book series this film is based off of may have come up a lot of this stuff first, but by now, we've seen it all.  If we had films based off this series back in the 70's, around Star Wars, they would have been awesome and probably well recieved.  It would have been hard to pull off a lot of the effects or giant aliens, but still.

I still like the classic sci-fi feel of the movie, but that won't help it with general audiences.  John Carter is an enjoyable movie that suffers from a few issues and that it came out at this day and age.  I recommend seeing it, but it would probably work best as a rental, even though it looked good on the big screen.  I give it a 3.5 out of 5.

[Andrew]

I love the books that this is based on, and am interested in the film because of that.  However, they are such works that I think you'd need a good quality 1950s to 1960s era director using modern day effects technology to create a film that would properly convey the story from the books.

Going to wait for it on DVD, but I'll admit that I'll be impatiently waiting.  Just hope that it washes "Princess of Mars" (2009) out of my mind.

[InformationGeek]

Going to wait for it on DVD, but I'll admit that I'll be impatiently waiting.  Just hope that it washes "Princess of Mars" (2009) out of my mind.

Oh yeah, Asylum tried making a film based of the books... nothing else to say about that.  It speaks very well for itself.

[Jim H]

I enjoyed it, but thought it was a little overlong and did feel like it missed some opportunities.  It was neat seeing the old school designs, for the most part as I'd imagined them while reading the books.  You can kind of tell it was written in the era when automobiles were a new-fangled concept just getting started.  I mean that in a good way.

I saw it in 2D, and was glad for it.

It's a 7/10 in my book.

[Newt]

I love the books that this is based on, and am interested in the film because of that.  However, they are such works that I think you'd need a good quality 1950s to 1960s era director using modern day effects technology to create a film that would properly convey the story from the books.

Precisely.  I adored the books.  Great fun.  As films they would benefit from being handled in the spirit in which they were written.

[Kaseykockroach]

I found the film actually highly similar to Stanton's Pixar movies. There is no decipherable personality or vision behind the picture, akin to Finding Nemo and WALL-E; just slick movie-making. Where it fails is not having the Pixar brand and marketing campaign that made as empty and dumb a film as WALL-E seem as poignant as Kubrick.
That said, the reviews are a little overly harsh. I thought it was as entertaining a "sci-fi" movie as any and as unpretentious. It was a better film by far than Avatar. Of course, when your budget is as high as John Carter's, perhaps you should aspire a little higher - but isn't that true of any $250+ million picture?

[InformationGeek]

I found the film actually highly similar to Stanton's Pixar movies. There is no decipherable personality or vision behind the picture, akin to Finding Nemo and WALL-E; just slick movie-making. Where it fails is not having the Pixar brand and marketing campaign that made as empty and dumb a film as WALL-E seem as poignant as Kubrick.

Okay, you are Armond White.  You can't hide it.  We are on to you.

[akiratubo]

I saw it today.  It was pretty good but you've seen it all before.

I say wait for the $1.50 theater.  3D adds nothing to the movie.

[BoyScoutKevin]

I saw it.

That was New York City of 1881.
That was the Arizona Territory of 1868.
That was the Mars of fiction.
That was surprisingly well acted for a film of that type. Maybe because most of the names in the cast were more or less recognizable.
That was the best action film I have seen, or, at least, one of the best. And I knew it in the first five minutes of the film with the collision between the two airships.
And that, except for the reviews here on this website, I don't read most film reviews. The critics and I aren't going to agree, so why waste my time getting my dandruff up.

I did see five new trailers before the film began, and my opinions of the five.

"Prometheus" No.
"The Avengers" Not interested.
"Battleship" If I had any idea of seeing this, the trailer killed that idea.
"MIB3" Probably the best looking of the films so far, but it is a sequel, and I make it a point not to watch sequels, as I want to encourage filmmakers into doing something other than another unoriginal sequel.
And then there was "Brave." One of the few films I have seen where the more you look at it. The better it becomes. For one reason, unlike the filmakers of today, but like the filmmakers of yesterday, the people at Pixar realize the importance of having a strong secondary cast. And "Brave probably has the strongest secondary cast next to the "Toy Story" series. And of the five, the only one I plan on seeing.

[Hammock Rider]

It wasn't the Grand Adventure that I'd hoped it would be, but it was alright. Seemed to me that they were just kind of rushing from one cool FX piece to another.

[The Burgomaster]

News reports are this movie is heading towards being one of the biggest financial disasters in the history of cinema.  Apparently, the last movie that even came close was CUTTHROAT ISLAND. 

[dean]

I saw it last night and enjoyed it overall, but it is kind of bland overall.  There just doesn't seem like there's anything really holding it all together; we jump from one scene where the princess is all 'I don't want to marry him' with the king saying 'there will be a wedding' then there's some stuff with John Carter, then all of a sudden its the princess and she's escaping and being chased!!! The action was fun but the slight jump in time threw me and annoyed me, since there were really no good character motivations and everyone of them seemed a bit too forced when they were there...

Overall the effects and general fun action bumped this up to a 3/5.  Good fun and worth seeing in the big screen if you love your effects movies and want to take it in its glory, but overall its not an urgent watch...

[Jim H]

News reports are this movie is heading towards being one of the biggest financial disasters in the history of cinema.  Apparently, the last movie that even came close was CUTTHROAT ISLAND. 

Yeah, definitely one of the bigger ones.  In terms of ratio to budget, Cutthroat Island will probably be worse though...  Total take on John Carter is around $180 million, think it'll clear $300 million total without too much issue.  Add on at least $50 million from DVD/Blu sales, and so forth.  Minus the theatres cut, production costs of DVD, etc, total cleared take of at least $250 million.  Budget plus marketing/distribution probably in the $350 million range, my guess.  So a $100 million loss. 

Yeah, that's pretty terrible alright.  Cutthroat Island made like $10 million with a $115 million cost (with marketing/distro costs).  It's worse in raw numbers, worse in ratio, and MUCH worse with inflation.  Adjusted for inflation, Hudson Hawk is also a bigger loss.

But yeah in raw numbers it'll still probably be one of the worst losses ever.  Any other bigger losses?  Can't think of one at the moment.

[InformationGeek]

But yeah in raw numbers it'll still probably be one of the worst losses ever.  Any other bigger losses?  Can't think of one at the moment.

I believe Mars Needs Moms is a pretty big box office bomb, alongside Delago (Though that movie's budget was nowhere as big as these two).

[Pacman000]

Mars Needs Moms
John Carter


If Disney does this too much, they'll need to resurrect Roy Disney.  That man could talk people to giving them more money no matter how much they lost.