Disney
132 min., dir. by Andrew Stanton, with Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, and Dominic West

TV teasers for John Carter come with the tagline, “Before there was Avatar, before there was Star Wars, there was John Carter.” Sure, John Carter is based on Edgar Rice Burroughs works published 100 year ago, but films like Star Wars and Avatar were made first. So what can John Carter offer that is new? Pretty much nothing.

It’s the late 1800s and a former Confederate Civil War captain with a chip on his shoulder, John Carter, is trying to escape army officials who claim his services to the country are not over. However, he didn’t plan to have his escape impeded by a group of Native Americans who fire upon him while the officials chase him. Taking refuge in a small cave in the mountains, Carter comes into contact with a creature that appears out of thin air. Killing the man-like being in self-defense, he picks up a medallion and is transported to a weird desert where he seems to be able to jump higher and further than any man should be capable of.

John Carter has somehow been transported to Barsoom, as the locals call it. Barsoom, though, is what we call Mars, and since Mars has different gravitational properties than Earth, John Carter can do some interesting things, like leap tall buildings. He quickly becomes wrapped up in another civil war between the last remaining inhabitants of the dying planet. What does a man who doesn’t care about a civil war on his own planet do when put in a world where only he can break the laws of physics?

Well, he whines a lot and then decides to help for no good reason, other than having a boner for the Princess of Helium (Helium is the “good guy city”). Easily adapting to his new situation, Carter has no issue incorporating all these new wonders into his working character.

John Carter is a story riddled with holes. Most of these issues arise from the writers’ seeming refusal to use any artistic license. The source material was written long ago, and no one thought to insert their own ideas to solidify a corny early sci-fi vibe. They must have walked into the writers room and thought, How dare we meddle with the words of Edgar Rice Burroughs? We’re not worthy. Half of the dialogue is laughable, while the other half is bland and forgettable. I dare anyone not to laugh when the Princess of Helium reveals her full title and occupation.

The original stories were serials, and that cheesy sci-fi nonsense is fine if that’s what you’re clearly trying to present. This, however, is a big budget picture that’s trying to ramp up the “wow” factor. A separation has to be made somewhere; otherwise, it’s all set up to fail. Blame it on the dialogue if you want, but the acting did nothing to help. A heaping pile of over-delivered schlock from a wide-eyed princess and a glass-eyed hero just add to the chuckles. The only good acting was from the people who weren’t even in the film as humans. Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton, and Thomas Haden Church lend their voices to the Thark, the race of tall, four-armed, green creatures that first find Carter.

The source material for John Carter was written before George Lucas was even a glint in his mother’s eye, and this fact will be driven into your head. That doesn’t change the fact that the orchestration mimics the generic big budget sci-fi archetype, as the manual flying machines of Barsoom look like speeders with feathers, and the famed white ape fight is just like Luke fighting the Rancor. John Carter is here to do nothing more than look pretty and make people pay more money to see something in 3D that never benefits from it and falls short in nearly every category.

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Matthew Schuchman is the founder and film critic of Movie Reviews From Gene Shalit’s Moustache and also the contributing film writer for IPaintMyMind.