Movie Review - John Carter (2012)

My first exposure to the world of Edgar Rice Burroughs' world of Barsoom came through the works of the electronica band Dejah Thoris.  I lost the track I downloaded from them years ago, but I wanted to know why a picture of a half-naked red woman covered in nothing but gold jewelry was the next picture on Google image search.  I began to look into more about this scantily-clad woman, and I experienced the book A Princess of Mars--and I have never been the same since.  The book tends to gloss over John Carter's Confederate leanings (this would have irked me in my younger years) and makes him so unbelievably awesome and wraps you up in the story about a lost Virginian, his red-skinned princess, and the planet that needed him more than anything else.  It was only natural of me to imagine what a John Carter: Warlord of Mars movie would look like, so I went looking online.
It turns out the Barsoom series' earliest books had lapsed in copyright years ago, and the movie that inspired so many science fiction writers and filmmakers could come to life!  Sadly, the first attempt I found was from the 1980's, with full-out character sketches and marker compositions.  The art reflected the technology that was to be used in those days, and I was dissapointed then happy because Hollywood could just come with CGI and make everything better.  The Asylum, a low-budget film company, tried to make a Barsoomian movie and we got Princess of Mars, starring Antonio Sabato Jr. as John Carter and Traci Lords as Dejah Thoris.  It had only one shining spot, and that was the airship (note the singular form).  Other than that, everything was a poor reinterpretation.

Then Disney changed all that.

Disney came out and knocked it out of the park with John Carter (they left off "of Mars" until near the end credits), which blew me away.  It was a ride to watch and I was well-impressed with the amount of time spent on everything.  I watched and truly enjoyed myself, remembering as much of A Princess of Mars as I could as I watched to make sure nothing was missed.  Granted, I read the book online for one chapter a day until I was done, so I might have missed a few things in between all that was going on.  All the same, I was truly happy for the first time in a long time while watching the movie.  To this end I thank Disney, the people responsible for the production of the film, and anyone else involved.

CHOICE CUTS:

• I always imagined Dejah Thoris to be more Latina-looking, but actress Lynn Collins was more than capable.  She channeled the princess of Helium near-perfectly.
• I enjoyed the performance of Taylor Kitsch, and he didn't screw it up like he did Gambit in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
• Oddly enough, this was not the first movie Mr. Kitsch and Ms. Collins were in; they were also in the aforementioned Wolverine movie.  Nuts, eh?
• When I imagined the first airship battles, I imagined they would have been stylized boats resembling aquatic sailing vessels with wings or nacelles.  I also imagined there would be a battle where one ship would have to bank starboard and a camera shot would allow the viewer to look over the starboard railing to see the ground as a wall and not as a horizon.  Instead, I got dragonfly ships and sick-ass rail guns.  Color me impressed and entertained.
• Dominic West as Sab Than: I always imagined Sab Than to be a skinny dude who wore a pointy hat, but Mr. West does a great job.
• James Purefoy as Kantos Kan: That's my boy right there!  Loved the way he was just the right kinds of loose.
• Ciaran Hinds as the jeddak Tardos Mors: I always imagined him to be a skinny old man, not a portly old dude.  He was a good actor for the part, and I enjoyed it.

Thank you for bringing my dreams to life.  Oh, and one more thing to the people who have not read the book: READ THE BOOK A PRINCESS OF MARS NOW!

RATING: 10/10