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Saturday, March 10, 2012

MOVIE REVIEW
John Carter 3-D

It's Your Time J.C., For You Are . . . The Chosen One



Taylor Kitsch as the title character in Andrew Stanton's "John Carter". 
Disney/Frank Connor

    

by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com        Follow popcornreel on Twitter FOLLOW                                           
Saturday, March 10
, 2012

*-correction

About 100 years ago Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a vision of superheroes and planets and adventures that influenced countless films and Andrew Stanton brings Mr. Burroughs' novel A Princess Of Mars to life in "John Carter", the sci-fi action-adventure that opened yesterday in theaters across the U.S. and Canada.

John Carter is a U.S. Civil War soldier suddenly catapulted into a fight with Native Americans and then into Mars, where he suddenly discovers that he can fly like Superman and jump to unfathomable heights.  He wanders into a trap of green 12-foot monsters and is imprisoned.  Meanwhile, the Martian city of Helium needs saving as some bad guys have some bad designs on the planet.  Forced into a deal with the devil, Dejah Thoris* (Lynn Collins) has to marry one of these evil men in order for Helium to be a safe haven.  Dejah* won't marry.  John Carter has a job to do but like Cauis Martius Coriolanus of "Coriolanus" he is reluctant to lead.  He just wants to get back to his Civil War self.  Can you really blame him?  Can he save Helium while tied up with multiple Jar Jar Binkses, each wearing a quartet of arms and hands on their bodies?

Mr. Stanton's film is pure epic rock opera spectacle, but makes very little sense and is anything but coherent.  We don't get a feel of the film's bearings before we're shuttled off to somewhere else or someone else.  "John Carter", which doesn't take itself seriously, specializes in distracting itself while flaunting its excessive price tag on the big screen.  In its 3-D presentation it is neither the worst nor the best, but I truly and unexpectedly enjoyed this crazy film because of its willingness to affectionately parody Burroughs' work and the movies his novel gave birth to.  This film constantly parodies and does so in an oddly appealing and entertaining way.

"John Carter" enjoys itself and plays up the fun for big laughs amidst the messy, bloated vehicle that it is.  The film stops to smell the roses, laugh at them and trample on them all at once, and it is that shameless glee and subversiveness, in its exaggerated music cues, grand-scale confusion episodes, and its titles -- particularly near the end, that makes "John Carter" a belabored feast of fun, if not understanding. 

Taylor Kitsch plays the title character, and he's out of place, but he plays out of place very well.  That's the point: John Carter, however sincerely the movie or Mr. Burroughs may intend otherwise, is a hollow hero, and he operates on that level.  The film treats him as such.  Mr. Kitsch obliges, doing something that's not necessarily so easy, especially in a film with a wide messy scope and humungous budget.  He has to dwarf himself as an important figure as the film he awkwardly meanders through seeks to do the opposite.  John Carter knows he doesn't belong where he is but he makes the most of his time there.  Mars isn't a Motel 6 but the lights are left on for John Carter, who represents any generic white male movie savior of different-lings. 

With: Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Willem Dafoe, Thomas Haden Church, Dominic West, Ciaran Hinds, Bryan Cranston, Jon Favreau.

"John Carter" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association Of America for intense sequences of violence and action.  The film's running time is two hours and 12 minutes.

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