When I first heard that they were gonna adapt John Carter of Mars to the big screen, my immediate reaction was "Ugghh!".
This was, after all, a character from a magazine published in 1912 -- a time when people really didn't know much about mars at all. For all they knew, mars could really have been populated by green little men.No wonder the story fascinated people back then.
But how could such a story be successful as a movie in the 21st century, when even schoolchildren know that mars is a barren wasteland devoid of any life?
When marketing for the movie began and the title was truncated to simply, "John Carter", I felt the movie studio behind it realized that keeping the "Of Mars" part of the title would doom the movie.
I've since read that the director wanted to omit "Of Mars" because Carter really only becomes "Of Mars" very late in to the movie (you'll understand how so when you see the show). But I still have my suspicions about the real reason they truncated the title.
When the first trailer was released, I found it underwhelming, to say the least. The opening scenes made it look more of a western flick rather than a sci-fi one. Westerns and sci-fi don't mix well. Remember "Cowboys and Aliens"?
Somehow the green aliens didn't look too real to me. The stadium sequence reminded me of Gladiator and another clip, when the hero and heroine discover a secret location, was reminiscent of Avatar. It all looked so very derivative.
Outdated story with a poorly-assembled trailer. The outlook did not look good. The very mixed ratings it got didn't inspire confidence either. But two of my favorite movie critics kinda liked it. Well, at least they didn't dislike it.
Roger Ebert, who gave it 2.5 stars, calls it "a rousing boy's adventure story". Meanwhile, Dana Stevens describes it as a "a niche movie for lovers of literary science fiction" and says "it’s clear that Stanton’s intention was to create a rich, internally coherent fantasy universe, the way Peter Jackson did in the Lord of The Rings films or George Lucas did in the first Star Wars trilogy".
Both descriptions aptly capture the essence of the movie, which turned out to be a lot better than I had expected. There were several things its director, Andrew Stanton did right:
a) He did not dwell on the opening frame-up of the movie, which was set right after the civil war, and the hero, John Carter (played by Taylor Kitsch), was quickly transported to mars before the audience got bored with its back-story.
b) He managed to create some sympathetic and adorable alien side-characters in the form of Sola and Woola respectively. The former is a green-alien who is sort of an outcast, that does something to help Carter understand Martian language. Woola is a kind of alien dog that becomes very attached to Carter and remains both loyal and helpful to him throughout the movie. It's not easy creating likeable alien side-characters. Remember Jar Jar Binks?
c) There is also a belieavable chemistry between the two leading characters, Carter and Dejah Thoris, a Martian princess. Carter is likeable and identifiable while Thoris is convincingly earnest. More than one critic has praised the actress who plays her, Lynn Collins, for her take on the character. Actually both Collins and Kitsch played their roles very well. I read one review that criticized Kitsch for being so glum and serious all the time but his character had just lost his wife and child, who were killed during the war. Of course he's not going to be in the best of moods. Collins, meanwhile, actually makes her role, as a princess trying to save her race, believeable. And they have chemistry. You don't want her to end up marrying a bad guy. You want her to end up with Carter. And you root for that to happen, even though it's fairly obvious it would.
d) The special effects turned out to be a lot better than the trailer suggests. The green Martians, for example, actually looked as realistic as Gollum did in Lord of the Rings.
Overall, a really fun movie, with no real plot holes or absurdities. It doesn't have a strong hidden or deep message. It's pure fun, escapism. So, would I recommend this movie? Absolutely. It's rare these days to walk out of a cinema feeling happy that you've just seen a very entertaining show. I felt it was reminiscent of the very first Star Wars, which was fantastic. Even the Martian desert landscape was similar to Tattooine though it should be said that George Lucas probably got his inspiration for that from the John Carter stories.
