Taylor Kitsch plays John Carter, a plain spoken man of equal parts ass-kicking and reluctance. With a tragic past, both familial and Confederate, Carter is reluctant to get involved with others or let them involve themselves with him. But enough about that. How is he like Indiana Jones? Well, he kills people. Lots of them. And aliens too. He kills red martians, blue martians, white martians, Tharks, apes, and pretty much anything else that walks or crawls. He punches, slashes and shoots a pretty wide river of blue blood over the course of his adventures. He doesn't relish the violence, but it's a Thark eat Thark world out there.
This film has loads of good, clean, pulpy fun which means bloody combat, hacking off limbs and no speechifying. Ever since Star Trek VI when Klingon blood changed from red to pink so that vast quantities of it could be shown on screen without securing an R-rating, Hollywood has known that any color blood may be spilled liberally as long as it doesn't match the hue of our own blood. To wit, this movie has plenty of bright blue blood gushing from hacked off limbs and yes even a (blink-and-you'll-miss-it) decapitation.
There is loads of stuff in this movie. The martian cultures are distinct and the art design and production work on them is mind boggling. Languages, texts, monuments, clothing, statues, buildings, rituals, customs, guns, swords, egg hatcheries, and temples were designed and built for the Tharks, as well as the cities of Helium and Zodanga. Attention to detail prevails throughout the film. If they paid somebody to develop a unique alphabet for an alien language, you better believe you'll see stuff written everywhere in those kooky little letters.
Willem Dafoe is the latest actor to step up and prove that he can act through a motion-capture role and still deliver a strong performance. He plays Tars Tarkas, leader of the fearsome Tharks. Some of the other Tharks are less recognizable. I didn't realize until I saw the credits that Thomas Haden Church and Samantha Morton were also Tharked up. A nomadic race of warriors sounds pretty standard, but one of the first things we see the Tharks doing is shooting new hatchlings that they think re too weak to survive, so you can't say this movie waters down the ugly side of a civilization composed entirely of warriors.
There are many moments of genuine humor in the story; real organic funny elements as opposed to sarcastic one liners shoe horned in. When Carter first learns to walk on Barsoom, he has trouble not hurling himself into the air with each step. When he first arrives, our hero is still John Carter from Virginia, and introduces himself as such, thanks to some culture clash and languages barriers, the Tharks believe his name to be Virginia. So he's kinda like Vito Corleone in this one ultra-specific way.
Lynn Collins plays the daughter of the ruler of Helium, Dejah Thoris. The princess is a more active role than the typical Disney princess. She's a sword-fighting scientist, more or less in control of her own fate, fighting for her people. She is pursued by Dominic West, the leader of a giant mechanized walking city who aims to take over the remainder of the dying planet. He gets an unfair advantage when magic bald white clad men, lead by proficient glowerer Mark Strong, gift him with an electric blue death ray. Cirian Hinds plays the Princess's father so I think maybe he was supposed to be a King of some kind; overall he has very little to do but looks dignified.
The characters might seem thinly sketched but you definitely could not accuse the mythology of being underdeveloped; its almost certainly the opposite. overdeveloped mythologies tend to endear themselves to wonks, nerds, and cultists as much as they repulse average moviegoers. Again this feels like Dune. I didn't even really get into the magic bald monks with technology sufficiently advance that they pose as angels or demons to play both sides of a civil war against each other. It really does feel like there is a lot of shit going down on Barsoom and not just a series of set-pieces for our beefcake hero to traverse.
~ With a mostly desert planet and enough mythology to choke the average theatergoer, this movie reminded me a lot of Dune right from the opening scene. There is even a scene with a/the princess reciting exposition directly into the camera in a gorgeous closeup that is a dead ringer for the opening of Dune. Except in this movie the princess starts laughing and trails off, revealing that she is merely practicing the speech to deliver later, no doubt to a collection of white haired British character actors.
~ Robert Rodriguez tried to get this movie made for several years but eventually gave up; his influence on the production is still felt with Spy Kids Daryl Sabara playing Edgar Rice Burroughs in the frame story.
~ Jon Favreau almost directed this film but instead went elsewhere within the Disney empire and made Iron Man; the credits indicate he has a cameo as a Thark but good luck picking him out.
~ The credits also indicate that one David Schwimmer has a cameo as a Thark.
~ The ending credits display what is most assuredly the true title of the story, John Carter of Mars. Probably because of the historically floptastic Mars Needs Moms from last year, studio bigwigs believe that people won't go see movie with 'Mars' in the title.
~ Cable TV Super Stars Assemble! Bryan Cranston from Breaking Bad has a brief role as Cavalry Colonel and of course Dominic West from The Wire as the villainous Sab Than. His native British accent is especially appropriate for his dapper, air-ship riding, death-ray wielding conqueror.
~ This film was massively expensive to make and market, and it's box office under performance casts serious doubts on its role as a franchise starter.
~ Carter gains a lovable animal sidekick during his travels. It looks like a cross between a dog, a lizard, and a bull. It can run so fast that it leaves a dust trail. He is a perfect example of how to use an adorable sidekick animal character just enough to make the audience fall in love with him but not enough that they get sick of him.
~ The original story is available for free here.
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