Cartered Off

I didn't have much interest in seeing John Carter even leading up to its release in theaters earlier this year. Then the reviews came, which were rather savage, and the door closed entirely.

Except someone stuck their foot in. I heard from several people who all saw it, and their opinions were fairly uniform: "it's not that bad." Nobody wanted to put it in the running for best film of the year, but everyone seemed to agree that it had been unfairly trashed by the critics, and that it was good for a few decent thrills.

Having now watched John Carter for myself, it seems there must have been two different films: the one the critics saw, and the ones my friends saw. I side with the critics. Was this the worst mindless blockbuster ever made? No. But it was every bit the bomb it was proclaimed to be.

Early in the run of South Park, there was an episode where an alien race named the Marklars visited the Earth. They were a fun parody of every crappy sci-fi movie that's pointlessly overloaded with stupid jargon. Instead of "it's time for dinner, so let's all sit at the table together and eat turkey," they'd say "it is the Hour of Marklar, so we must gather at the Marklar to partake of roast Marklar."

John Carter is exactly like that. Stuffed with hilariously cheesy terms like Barsoom, Thern, Jaddak, Thark, Helium, and Zodanga, this movie could have been a laugh out loud comedy if it didn't take itself so damn seriously. And I think the proof of this is that the moments that play best in the movie are all the moments with a comedic edge to them -- John Carter trying to learn to walk in the lighter gravity of Mars; the failed attempts of the aliens to understand him before the communication barrier is surmounted; the super-fast dog-like creature he befriends.

But these are just a handful of accents in a plot revolving around a lame villain with non-specifically evil goals, manipulated by lamer villains pulling his strings. And no one can get through a sentence without spewing one or two nonsense words, just to remind you this is supposed to be Serious Science Fiction.

Most of the performances are boring and flat; the few that aren't are overly campy instead. Even the visuals are scattershot. The landscapes of Mars are rendered with incredible realism and the aliens are mostly convincing, but the cities and technology all seem fake -- overly crisp and lacking appropriate weight.

So while I would agree that the movie is not a total loss, I certainly don't see what made people think the critics were being unfairly harsh. I grade it a D.