John Carter

John Carter - Dir. Andrew Stanton (2012)

"When I saw you, I believed it was a sign that something new can come into this world."

Edgar Rice Burroughs is famed for writing two classic adventure novels, Tarzan of the Apes and A Princess of Mars. Tarzan became more familiar across the spectrum of pop culture while A Princess of Mars, the first in Burroughs' Barsoom series, became a progenitor of 20^th century sci-fi and fantasy. The name of its lead protagonist, John Carter, a Civil War soldier mysteriously transported to Mars, will resonate with genre fans. Sadly, that same name is now synonymous with one of the biggest box office disasters in movie history.

An adaptation of A Princess of Mars had been in development for decades as far back as 1931 when Bob Clampett of Looney Tunes fame pitched the idea of an animated version to Burroughs. In 2004, Robert Rodriguez was attached to direct a live-action film at Paramount with Frank Frazetta as conceptual artist. The project passed through the hands of Kerry Conron, the writer/director of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and Jon Favreau, who ultimately abandoned the picture to helm Iron Man. The rights passed back to Disney, who previously held them back in the 80's. Pixar's Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, Wall-E), a die-hard fan of the books, enthusiastically stepped into the director's chair and co-wrote the screenplay with fellow Pixar employee Mark Andrews and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon.

Another Pixar peer, Brad Bird, knocked it out of the park when he made his live-action debut with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, which had been released four months earlier. But, Stanton found himself well outside his comfort zone, requiring extensive reshoots for the troubled production. Negative buzz built around the film with the budget estimated to be $250 million with a marketing campaign rumored to add another $100 million on top of that. That same marketing campaign did nothing to stave off the negative buzz that was quickly building. Stanton stubbornly took charge of the advertising that included lackluster posters and uneventful trailers. The generic title didn't help matters either. A Princess of Mars became John Carter of Mars to distance itself from being a frilly girls' movie. Mars was eventually ditched because movies with the word 'Mars' in their title did poorly. Disney was still reeling from another monumental flop in Mars Needs Moms, which led to the shutdown of Robert Zemeckis' ImageMovers Digital and the cancellation of his planned 3D remake of Yellow Submarine. Thus, we were left with plain old John Carter, which makes the whole thing sound like the story of Jimmy Carter's cousin who works as a CPA.

No, John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) is a former captain in the Confederate Army now mining for gold in the Arizona desert. While being press ganged into a Union regiment by Col. Powell (Bryan Cranston), they are ambushed by the Apache. Carter seeks refuge in a cave where he somehow wakes up on Mars, which the natives refer to as Barsoom. Due to the lower gravity, Carter is blessed with superior strength and the ability to leap great distances. He is taken prisoner by the Tharks, a tribe of green skinned, multi-limbed Martians, led by Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe). Carter is soon pulled into a war between red skinned humans from the cities of Helium and Zodanga. The peaceful city of Helium is led Tardos Mors (Ciarán Hinds) and his daughter, the titular princess of Mars, Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins). The Zodangans follow the ruthless Sab Than (Dominic West), who wields a powerful force known as the 9^th Ray given to him by clandestine beings known as Therns, led by Matai Shang (Mark Strong).

John Carter may have been cursed with being too faithful to the source material. There is an inordinate amount of plot to wade through as the film laboriously details the entire geopolitical history of the planet. It doesn't help that you need a scorecard to keep track of all the characters with their hard to remember names. Secondly, Stanton does little to differentiate John Carter from other sci-fi spectacles of recent years. While the original book may have spawned Avatar and Star Wars, in the eyes of the general public, John Carter looks like a rip-off. It has the same storyline about an Earthling saving an alien race, a gladiatorial battle recalling one from Attack of the Clones, and speeder bikes ala Return of the Jedi. Worse yet, its mix of science fiction and Western elements is superficially reminiscent of Cowboys & Aliens with a hero, who looks too much like the one from Prince of Persia, both big budget failures no one should associate with.

Taylor Kitsch has received a huge push as a leading man in 2012. While he's given fine performances as Tim Riggins on Friday Night Lights, he's little more than a bland hunk of meat as John Carter. Lynn Collins fares better as her Dejah Thoris is more than just a scantily-clad princess; she is a scholar and a warrior. It's easy to see why Collins jumped to the forefront as a possible candidate to play Wonder Woman. But, the best character by far happens to be Woola, a swift six-legged beast resembling a cross between a bulldog and a lizard. It says a lot when a CGI creation is far more interesting than any living, breathing human being.

Disney made headlines when it posted a $200 million loss on the production of John Carter with Walt Disney Studios' head Rich Ross resigning a month later. John Carter doesn't deserve to be placed alongside notorious bombs like Ishtar or Heaven's Gate. It has the tone of old school adventure serials with a strong opening in which Stanton emulates John Ford and Sergio Leone. John Carter ultimately lacks the sense of wonder and majesty necessary to make it a sci-fi classic.

Rating: ** ½ (*****)