[5]
Director Andrew Stanton (WALL-E, Finding Nemo) makes the leap from animation to live-action with this overly-ambitious adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ story A Princess of Mars. Taylor Kitsch (TV’s Friday Night Lights) stars as the title character, a world-weary Confederate army captain who gets magically whisked away to the planet Mars. There he falls in love with a Martian princess (Lynn Collins) while getting embroiled in a war among two warring factions of humanoids and a more alien species called the Tharks. As the adventure unfolds, Carter begins to wonder whether he belongs back on Earth, or if he should stay on Mars.
John Carter would and should have been more appropriately titled John Carter of Mars if another movie, Mars Needs Moms hadn’t flopped at the box office. But that wouldn’t have helped with the cumbersome screenplay. The first hour of this movie is confusing and bewildering with its massive, inelegant dumps of exposition. It jumps through time and across the universe enough to give viewers whiplash. The film’s second biggest problem is its main star. Kitsch is simply no movie star, and lacks the charisma to pull us into an adventure with him.
Despite its significant setbacks, if you can stick with the story to the midway point, the second half of the film becomes much more dramatic and entertaining. Lynn Collins is very good as the princess, a woman who falls for Carter while trying to escape a politically contrived marriage. David Strong makes for a good, cold primary villain, and Willem Dafoe lends his recognizable voice to the mercurial leader of the Tharks. The most compelling part of John Carter is its last fifteen minutes, an emotional coda that helps redeem the film’s clunky first hour. To what extent depends on how forgiving the viewer is.
With Samantha Morton, Thomas Haden Church, and Bryan Cranston. Composer Michael Giacchino delivers a nice love theme.