John Carter: DVD Movie Review

John Carter: DVD Movie Review

Was the movie really that bad? Was it worth a watch?
I thought so and here is why.

Review Opinion
By writerguy1976 - Aug 06, 2012 01:08 PM EST
Filed Under: Fan Fic

John Carter: DVD Movie Review-

On March 9, 2012 Disney released the big budget action movie John Carter. It was met with colossal failure in the theaters and is considered one of the biggest box office bombs in recent memory. Audiences didn't know what to expect, and it was hammered by critics. It even led to the resignation of the Disney Entertainment Executive due to the huge losses the movie sustained. With all the negative publicity, and not understanding what the movie was myself, I avoided it like the plague. However, as the months have gone by there has been a steady stream of people saying that it wasn't as bad as we were led to believe. Now with the release of the DVD I finally decided to invest two hours of my life into it and give it a watch. The amazing thing is that though having zero expectations for it, I was pleasantly surprised with the movie. We are not talking Oscars here, but it should have done better in the theater than it did. Here is the low-down on the film.

The Good:


The lead roles in the film were played by Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins. Kitsch plays John Carter, a former Confederate Cavalryman who ends up getting himself transported to the planet Mars and meets the Professor/Princess Dejah Thoris (Collins). The story finds Carter in the middle of a Martian civil war, where unseen players seem to be pulling the strings behind the scenes. Of course he meets the damsel in distress, which is of course the scantily clad Collins, and a Martian romance blooms while in the middle of a fast paced action adventure. You meet green skinned aliens, gray gorilla beasts and martian dogs, the later being one of the best points of the movie. For the most part the action scenes were pretty good along with the CGI. Costumes were well done, and I actually really thought the technology used in the movie with airships riding light currents was a pretty neat idea. The pacing of the story was very fast and was by no means perfect, but the sudden twist at the end of the movie (which I will not spoil here if anyone cares) was really well done. Both Kitsch and Collins were worthy of the lead roles, and the bomb that this movie was should not be blamed on them. I thought the landscapes were well done. Using the American Southwest as the red planet worked very well as far as I was concerned. In all there was much more good about the movie than bad.

The Bad:

The movie is by nature a pretty hardcore Sci-fi Fantasy Adventure with some pretty far fetched ideas. In the day and age where movie goers want a certain level of believability, that may have been the downfall of this film. John Carter basically becomes a super-hero type of character on Mars. His ability to super-jump is one of the core concepts of the movie, but by itself may have turned a lot of people off. It is absolutely unbelievable that simply being in another planet's gravity would make any ordinary human capable of what he was during the movie. If your imagination as a movie goer can accept this fact than you will enjoy the movie. If it does not than you may not want to bother watching it. Think of a modern Flash Gordon with better special effects. It is a modern Space Adventure without much reality behind it. The movie is far-fetched but isn't that what enjoying movies is all about?

The Ugly:

This movie did have some warts, there is no doubt about that. One of the biggest was that for the first third of the movie I really didn't care a whole lot about who John Carter was or why I should care about him. That is not to say Kitsch acted poorly, rather they made the character difficult to appreciate it. He comes across as a rebellious jerk in some parts and that alienated me from the character for awhile in the film. I also didn't exactly understand why the two warring factions on Mars looked human except for their red skin. In fact they kept calling them red skinned but I just thought they had used too much bronzer at the local tanning salon. It also seemed like the four-armed barbarian lizard men of Mars actually had better weapons than the human looking Martians had. It was a fact that kind of bothered me as I couldn't really figure out how the race that was superior as a species being bigger and faster with better weapons and four arms would be the race that was oppressed. It kind of didn't make much sense. I also though there were a couple of parts where the writers and producers got lazy. The foremost of which was the pit where they had to fight the gray gorilla beasts. It was a complete rip-off from the Attack of the Clones Genoshian battle arena. It literally felt like they had taken the actual CGI from that movie and just put different aliens in the stands, that was by far and away the worst part of the entire film. The other scene was where they were going down the river on a raft to get to the gates of the Martian goddess. The location that it was filmed at felt like I had seen it before in so many movies and was disappointing. I thought they may have been able to find a little bit more of an exotic location to shoot at.


Overall:

In all I enjoyed it. It was not the best movie I have ever seen, nor was it the abysmal catastrophe I was led to believe when it was in the theaters. The movie had it's moments and was a fun watch. A perfect movie to catch on Netflix or as a rental. It is a shame it got lambasted so badly by critics when it came out and had such a bad marketing campaign as it wasn't that terrible of a movie. If Disney could do it over again I don't think the movie would do so bad. In the meantime hit the video store or the internet on a slow night and burn a couple of hours watching it.

Score: 5.5/10
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Catt30
Catt30 - 8/6/2012, 6:24 PM
Writerguy1976, I agree with most of what you've said here. I found this movie quite enjoyable, & I'd give it 3.5 stars out of 5. I've been a fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars series for over 40 years, so I've carried a mental picture of John Carter's adventures for a long time. For the most part, this movie met or exceeded my expectations. I thought the characters were well realized & well acted, & that the green Martians (Tharks) were superb. The costumes were wonderfully done & the landscape was visually stunning. My main objection was to the all-powerful, mystical Therns, who were simply charlatans in ERB's original work. I can see your point about Carter's exaggerated superhuman leaps, which were far bigger than I expected to see, but eventually, I stopped worrying about them & just enjoyed the movie. I appreciate your thoughtful review, thank you!
JanAustin
JanAustin - 8/6/2012, 6:34 PM
Thank you for a very fair review of John Carter. I think John Carter will "shine" on people once they have seen this film. John Carter was an exceptional film. It was a wonderful story that made you want to go back and see it time and time again. The characters were heartwarming and fantastic. The cast - incomparable (if you loved the HBO Rome series, you will love this cast!). The story was beautifully written and directed by Andrew Stanton. There are thousands and thousands of fans from all over the world who love John Carter and are fighting for a Sequel. The DVD was Number 1 in sales it's first week in the U.S. I hear new fans say everyday that had they seen more advertising of this film by Disney, or had known what John Carter was all about, or had not listened to reviewers of this film, they would have seen it in the theater. Had Disney marketed this film even close to standards, had Disney politics not played a part in the mishandling of this film, John Carter would have been a box-office success. So take a chance, buy the DVD and watch this film for yourself. Then join the thousands and thousands of fans who want Disney to take them Back To Barsoom!
writerguy1976
writerguy1976 - 8/6/2012, 7:45 PM
@Catt30, yes I agree the Therns seemed to be too powerful, or to big of role in the movie. I think the problem they had when writing the script was how to get John Carter to Mars and once the Thern device was used was how to show their abuse of power and knowledge. Kind of almost forced the Therns into the story maybe even more than they wanted.

@JanAustin, I completely agree that Disney dropped the ball on this one. This will be one of those movies that may develop a strong underground type following. Also great call on the HBO Rome series, I had forgot about that! In fact I want to watch it again now. LOL

Thanks for reading and commenting, I always appreciate the feedback! :)
dill2061
dill2061 - 8/6/2012, 9:52 PM
I actually enjoyed how Matai Shang and the rest of the Therns are portrayed, I dont know if i'd call them 'too powerful' especially if they're to be the messengers of the gods of Mars. I agree with CATT30, the FX and other artwork of the movie was absolutely stunning.

Id give it a 4 out of 5 stars personally. I've read most of the books (which id recommend if you haven't; most if not all are free since they're in the public domain) and I had one the best times I've ever had watching it on the big screen.

Good review. Its refreshing to see one honest and thought out
Daria
Daria - 8/6/2012, 10:43 PM
Firstly, I love it when I see folks who initially bought into the crud that was spread about "John Carter" opt to take a chance on this magnificent film. Far more times than not, they come back with very favorable things to say, the most common comment being, "I sure wish I had seen that film on the big screen." Truthfully, I never realized that people paid such strict attention to pundits until this past March when they stayed away from the theaters in droves. Maybe that's giving critics too much power on two counts, though, since many people didn't even know that the film was in theaters, so poor was the marketing campaign. What's important is that this film was NOT a "bomb" by any means and made its money back fairly quickly. It remained in theaters for almost four months, building a steady audience in theaters many weeks after Disney stopped tracking its box office take worldwide. Once the film hit DVD/Blu-ray, it was as unstoppable as Woola, shooting to No.1 in a matter of hours and selling out everywhere. As to the questions mentioned in the review, I've found that there isn't much about "JC" that can't be cleared up by a second viewing. You'll be giving it a "5" after the second time around!
ranben
ranben - 8/7/2012, 12:23 AM
I agree with much of this review. John Carter deserved to do much better at the box office. But it is doing much better in home sales than expected. This is because, like the reviewer, many people are discovering just how entertaining the movie is. There are a few things stated in the review that I do take exception to. First off, the Tharks are not suppressed. They are standing by while the red men destroy each other. That is why Princess Dejah implores them to join the fight against the red men of Zodanga because once Zodanga has destroyed her people they will turn on the Tharks. As to the familiarity of the arena battle with the white apes, George Lucus borrowed the idea from the source material of John Carter, A Princess of Mars buy Edgar Rice Burroughs. One other thing that bothered me in this review was the idea that maybe the movie didn't do well because "in this day and age movie goers want a certain level of believability." Really? He must mean like a boy who gets bitten by a spider and becomes Spiderman. Or a guy who gets exposed to some kind of radiation and becomes a giant green monster. Or a guy who comes from planet much larger than Earth and can leap tall buildings in a single bound. (BTW the idea of Superman came from John Carter. Check it out) Having said this I am glad that the reviewer finally decided to ignore the negative reviews and see John Carter. If you have not seen this movie do yourself a favor and check it out. Thousands are seeing if every day for the first time and most of them are loving it. If you like it check out the sequel campaign on Facebook.
RonHeydon
RonHeydon - 8/7/2012, 12:46 AM
Thanks for the fair review ( it's not always been what this great movie has received from critics ). Financially, the movie has done very well around the world, on DVD and Blu-Ray sales and only disappointed at the US box office, which was probably down to the appalling marketing by and the internal issues at Disney. As more and more people get exposed to this movie, the gretaer will be the surge of demand for the sequels that Andrew Stanton and the great cast and crew richly deserve to make.
magma123
magma123 - 8/7/2012, 6:32 AM
9/10
writerguy1976
writerguy1976 - 8/7/2012, 6:47 AM
Thanks all for the feeback. I try to be pretty fair in my reviews and I really do appreciate the acknowledgement. Just on a couple of things mentioned:

@Daria- I actually agree with you about critics, the actual movie critics I don't buy into at all. What I do listen to is the feedback of a lot people who see a movie. The initial response from moviegoers was not good and that affected me on this movie. That is an honest statement most of the time I will make up my own mind but in this case I didn't and I wish I would have.

@Ranben - Great info on George Lucas and the Star Wars reference, I never read any of the John Carter stories and did not know that, so thanks for letting me know. As for the believablility aspect I see exactly where you are coming from. However, what I meant by it was can you let your mind believe what you are being told? For some reason a radioactive spider biting a boy and turns him into a super-hero sounds like it would never happen, but it is how it is explained that can make the difference. Same way for Hulk etc.. For some reason, and maybe its my bias being more familiar with the characters, could allow me to believe in those extrodinary circumstances could allow those things to happen. It wasn't that I couldn't believe John Carter was more powerful on Mars it was just the explanation I had a harder time with. Who knows maybe a radioactive Martian spider would have been more believable to me. LOL :) Just saying.
Tainted87
Tainted87 - 8/9/2012, 9:33 PM
With the exception of "Ned", I loved the whole movie. 8/10
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