Well, kinda. Let's get something straight right off the bat. John Carter is not a good movie and I feel like the praise it did receive had more to do with people desperately trying to support something that isn't a sequel or a remake rather than a comment on the actual film. Even if it is less than stellar, or in this case, less than even okay. I just can't see what there is to praise with this one.
The main issue lies with Taylor Kitsch. He is just not very charismatic. In fact, he is almost dull. I kinda get the idea that he doesn't really want to do this type of movie and really just wanted the pay check to support his work on smaller more intimate movies. He doesn't seem very comfortable working in front of a green screen, and this movie seems like it was shot ENTIRELY in front of a green screen. I'd be surprised if there was even a single practical set built.
It's not just Kitsch that is the problem. The entire cast, with the exception of Bryan Cranston and Daryl Sabara who are on screen for about five minutes each, is droll. It's like none of them really wanted to be doing this movie in the first place and that made me start wondering why I was watching this in the first place.
I'm not familiar with the source material in the least so I can't say whether or not it measures up. I can say that I am not sure why they dropped the "of Mars" portion of the title. Maybe that rumor of Mars Needs Moms tainting our fair red neighbor's good name is true?
John Carter isn't all bad. There is a particularly effective scene where Carter is fighting and as the battle rages we flash back to his former life to learn more about him. Granted, what we learn we pretty much guessed from earlier flashbacks, it still was a nice sequence. But one sequence and two good performances that barely surpass cameos can't save John Carter.
For the most part the visuals are great on blu-ray but there are some moments when the green screen is glaringly obvious. I think at least three or four times I just shook my head at the screen because it just did not look right.
Is John Carter deserving of the massive failure it became? Well, it's a bad movie but I don't think it's awful. It's certainly not the worst thing Disney has released. Probably not the worst thing they released THIS YEAR. Unfortunately, it's not good either. It's sort of middle of the road. Not really worth dedicating two hours worth of your time to but makes for good background noise.
The truth of the matter is that the movie is really kind of boring. Nothing about it generates any kind of excitement. Not the cast, not the lame hero who can jump really far, not the bland princess or the Prometheus Engineer look alike that Mark Strong plays. There's just nothing here. It's a one note way to kill a couple of hours, assuming you don't have anything better to do. Like laundry or grocery shopping or seeing The Avengers for the third time.
I don't know where to place the blame for the colossal failure of John Carter. Whether it is a disconnected cast, or a director who might have had too many suits in the kitchen, or just a doomed project from the start. John Carter could have been a major scifi adventure franchise. Instead, it fizzles before it ever really got started and its doomed to live in infamy.
John Carter is available now on DVD and Blu-ray.
Pop Culture Beast Rating
3/10
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