John Carter: movie review (+trailer)
I don鈥檛 usually bring up a film鈥檚 budget in a review, but the reported $250 million price tag for 鈥�John Carter鈥� gives one pause. I suppose one could argue that masterpieces have no price. Then again, 鈥淛ohn Carter鈥� is no masterpiece.
Based on sci-fi books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, primarily his 鈥淧rincess From Mars,鈥� the film is about a former Confederate soldier, Taylor Kitsch鈥檚 John Carter, who ends up on Mars and ends up embroiled in a galactic war that looks like a cross between 鈥�The Empire Strikes Back鈥� and 鈥淭he Fall of the Roman Empire.鈥� There are nine-foot-tall, tusked, four-armed creatures that bear a disconcerting resemblance to Jar Jar Binks. There are also a slew of human or humanoid meanies, some of them shape-shifting, and, for the love interest, the warrior princess Dejah (Lynn Collins), whose blue eyes make Paul Newman鈥檚 seem lackluster. It all plays tolerably well (in 2D, which is how I saw it, or, presumably, in 3D IMAX), but it keeps harkening back to much better movies, especially 鈥�Planet of the Apes鈥� and, well, 鈥淭he Empire Strikes Back.鈥�
Its director is Pixar whiz Andrew Stanton, who directed 鈥�Finding Nemo鈥� and 鈥�Wall-E,鈥� and the script lists the wonderful novelist Michael Chabon as one of its contributors. So why is everything so thuddingly fun-free? Maybe that budget scared people off. Grade: C+ (Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action.)
