JOHN CARTER Spaced Out

JOHN CARTER

Spaced Out

Directed by Andrew Stanton
Starring Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe, Thomas Haden Church

John Carter Of Mars: The film that could never be made. Projects have started and stopped since as early as 1931, with contemporary directors like Robert Rodriguez and John Favreau most recently failing to bring Edgar Rice Burroughs’ famous character and world to life. And so exactly 100 years since the first printing of A Princess Of Mars, Disney finally gives audiences a look at the world of Barsoom, or Mars as we call it. Has all that laboured time produced sweet fruit? Sadly it has not, with a sour experience that will largely underwhelm and puzzle audiences.

First some back-story on what makes this movie potentially special. John Carter was first printed as a serial in a pulp magazine under the title Under The Moons Of Mars in 1912. It was Edgar Burroughs’ first printed work, an author you may know as the creator of Tarzan, a series that has produced and inspired many classic films, but the same never happened for John Carter’s adventures on Mars. Not including some terrible straight-to-video versions, a big budget take on the pulp classic has been a long, and I mean long, time coming.

So fans of pulp action and sci-fi held their collective breaths as Disney announced they were finally going to use the franchise, and famed Pixar talent Andrew Stanton was to take the helm. An award winning animator at heart, John Carter is Stanton’s live-action debut and unfortunately it shows.

Let’s get back to the film itself. Taylor Kitsch plays John Carter, an American Civil War vet trying to mine a fortune in the harsh lands of early America. While being chased by the law and Apaches he comes across a cave of gold in the canyons, but upon entering and killing a strange figure he is immediately teleported to Barsoom. Upon arrival Carter realises that Barsoom has a lower gravity than Earth, giving him unnatural strength which enables his legs to propel him hundreds of metres through the air.

The first creatures John Carter encounters are the main inhabitants of Barsoom: a towering, green race that is barbarian in nature and technology. Carter eventually earns their respect with his jumping ability and heightened strength. Also occupying the planet are humanoid beings, themselves in a civil war that is destroying what little remains of the planet. Carter manages to rescue the Princess of Helium, Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins) from the Red Martians and promptly falls in love with her. Her own people have surrendered to the enemy, and so it is up to her, John Carter and his barbarian race of green Martians to band together and fight for a free Barsoom. It’s a classic story, and one that very much inspired Star Wars and, well, pretty much every adventure science fiction franchise.

But the problems with this film are many, with large, gaping holes in the plot, unlikable characters and a scattered flow that doesn’t know whether it’s a kids’ movie, an adult flick or something in-between. In the end you are left with a mutated flick that is trying to cater to everyone but ends up appealing to no one.

_TOM VARIAN