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 (*****)

We Bought a Zoo

We Bought a Zoo - Dir. Cameron Crowe (2011)

The holidays are usually a great time for Hollywood to unleash schmaltzy, family friendly entertainment to the masses. This past Christmas was no different with the release of Steven Spielberg's War Horse and Cameron Crowe's We Bought a Zoo. Both directors had been incognito for several years, but have returned with a vengeance.

Crowe wrote and directed one of his most critically acclaimed films in Almost Famous, based on his experiences as a teenage journalist for Rolling Stone. However, Vanilla Sky, his remake of Alejandro Amenabar's Open Your Eyes, met with mixed reactions and his rom-com Elizabethtown was a critical and commercial flop. Crowe's recent output includes a documentary on Pearl Jam and one on Elton John and this drama based on Benjamin Mee's memoirs, We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals That Changed Their Lives. A columnist for the Guardian, Mee, purchased the troubled Dartmoor Wildlife Park in 2006, which he ran with his wife (who later passed away from a brain tumor), brother, two children, and mother.

For the first time, Crowe isn't the sole credited writer. He rewrote the screenplay originally penned by Aline Brosh McKenna, who also adapted The Devil Wears Prada and I Don't Know How She Does It. Crowe transplants the story from foggy England to sunny Southern California and casts Matt Damon in the role of Benjamin Mee, a writer who has just lost his wife to cancer. Benjamin is left alone to care for his young daughter, Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones), and teenage son, Dylan (Colin Ford). Dylan deals with the death of his mother by drawing gruesome pictures in art class and is eventually expelled for stealing.

Looking for a change, Benjamin quits his job and purchases an 18-acre farmhouse outside the city that actually houses a ramshackle zoo. The zoo is maintained by a skeleton crew led by the spunky Kelly Foster (Scarlett Johansson) and is home to a variety of species including tigers, peacocks, a lion, and a depressed grizzly bear. Rosie predictably falls in love with the place while Benjamin sees it as a new adventure, but Dylan hates it there, despite a budding romance with Kelly's shy cousin Lily (Elle Fanning). Kelly isn't enthusiastic either, seeing the new owner's lack of knowledge and experience as a severe detriment. Benjamin has to mend his broken family and rally everyone together in order for the zoo to pass inspection. Can they pull it off or will the zoo be shut down forever?

If you have any doubts in your mind, then We Bought a Zoo must be the first movie you've ever seen. Crowe sticks to a well-worn formula with characters drawn in broad strokes. Rosie is precociously precocious and Dylan is the typical angry and brooding adolescent. The supporting characters are similarly thin with Angus Macfadyen as the angry Scotsman, John Michael Higgins as an unctuous zoo inspector, and Almost Famous lead Patrick Fugit as the guy with a monkey. Seriously, that's his character, he has a monkey.

Music has always played an important role in Crowe's films. Aside from a serene score by Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi, Crowe's soundtrack selections are way too obvious, just as obvious as a subplot involving a tiger with failing kidneys that's meant to echo Benjamin's spousal loss. Tom Petty's "Don't Come Around Here No More" comes on when Dylan gets kicked out of school while a rain soaked montage is set to "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" by Randy Newman. "Don't Be Shy" by Cat Stevens becomes the theme for the awkward and budding romance between Dylan and Lily, which comes close to replicating the iconic love stories of the 80's that Crowe became famous for.

We Bought a Zoo has some strong points. Matt Damon is infinitely likeable in the lead role, Elle Fanning gives another solid performance, and Thomas Haden Church injects some much needed wit as Benjamin's brother. You'll definitely get a warm and fuzzy feeling thanks to cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (21 Grams, Brokeback Mountain), who gives the film a bright, sunny sheen. However, it doesn't feel like a Cameron Crowe movie. There are no "You had me at hello" or John Cusack holding up a boom box moments. In the end, We Bought a Zoo is an innocuous little picture that might have aired on the Disney Channel on a lazy weekend afternoon.

Rating: ** (*****)

Easy A

Easy A - Dir. Will Gluck (2010)

Easy A might be the surprise hit of the summer. I wasn't expecting much, but it is several notches above recent teen comedies that favor raunchiness and gross-out gags.

Emma Stone has seen her star rise steadily since debuting in Superbad. She cemented her status as one of the most talented actresses today with roles in The House Bunny and Zombieland. Even in subpar movies like The Rocker and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, she's able to shine. In Easy A, Stone receives her first starring role as Olive Penderghast, a virtual non-entity attending high school in Ojai, California. To avoid going on a camping trip with her best friend Rhiannon (Alyson Michalka), Olive tells her she's got a date with a boy who goes to community college. The boy doesn't exist and Olive actually spends her weekend at home giving the dog a pedicure and listening incessantly to Natasha Bedingfield's "Pocketful of Sunshine."

Olive's little white lie begins to spiral out of control when Rhiannon jumps to the conclusion that her BFF lost her virginity to this imaginary boyfriend. Olive rolls with it and the news that she busted her cherry is spread all over campus by Marianne (Amanda Bynes), the self-righteous leader of a circle of Christian conservatives. Next, she's approached by Brandon (Cougar Town's Dan Byrd) who is constantly bullied due to his homosexuality. They concoct the plan to fake having sex at a wild party to pass Brandon off as straight. Soon, Olive is trading pretend sexual favors for gift cards in order to bolster the reputations of the school's geeks, losers, and fatties. One gawky kid can only sheepishly offer a coupon to Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

Taking inspiration from The Scarlet Letter, Olive decides to really roll with it by dressing provocatively and embroidering a big red A on her clothing. Before nobody knew she existed, now Olive is turning heads wherever she goes. However, her newfound notoriety isn't all it is cracked up to be considering no guys have bothered to ask her out on real dates.

Easy A doesn't have the bite of the darker edged Heathers. It doesn't have the resonance of the John Hughes films it references multiple times, even if the redheaded Emma Stone reminds one of Molly Ringwald. Still, there is an underlying level of poignancy, especially given the recent spotlight shown on teen suicides. The cruelty seen in Easy A never reaches those same levels, but it comment on the difficulty of adolescence and the damage that can be done by rumor mongering. Aided by text messaging and the internet, gossip spreads like wildfire within seconds. Despite her new status, Olive has no one to confide in. Her best friend turns against her and her parents (Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson) would rather be her pals than her parents. Seeking guidance from the school counselor (Lisa Kudrow), Olive is given a handful of condoms instead along with a curt brush off.

Easy A does ask its audience to make a few leaps of faith. As with the majority of teen movies, the young cast is comprised of 20-something actors who still look too old to be in high school. The point is joked about in Marianne's boyfriend (Cam Gigandet) who has been stuck as a senior for almost four years. It's also hard to believe that Emma Stone could ever be invisible. She's pretty, charming, and almost carries the picture. I say almost because some of the adult actors provide notable performances. Tucci and Clarkson are hilarious as the free-spirited parents, Thomas Haden Church appears in an understated, yet funny turn as an English teacher, and Malcolm McDowell is good as the school's uptight principal.

Rating: ***