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 (*****)

Johnny English Reborn

Johnny English Reborn - Dir. Oliver Parker (2011)

2011 was the year of sequels, remakes, and reboots. Hollywood churned out new entries in blockbuster franchises like Pirates of the Caribbean, Fast and the Furious, Scream, and Johnny English. Wait, what? Yes, imagine my surprise when a sequel to the 2003 Rowan Atkinson spy spoof was scheduled for release in October. Surely, the original Johnny English was a flop? Domestically it only made $28 million off a $40 million budget. However, it raked in over $132 million in foreign markets, meaning it made four times its production budget. Eight years later, Johnny English Reborn did worse in the U.S. and even better in international theaters with $8 million domestic and $151 foreign. No doubt this has less to do with Atkinson's work on Black Adder and more to do with his instant recognition as the silent bumbler, Mr. Bean.

Secret agent extraordinaire Johnny English (Atkinson) has retreated to the seclusion of a Tibetan monastery to retrain his mind and body following a botched mission in Mozambique. English is called back into action by the fictional MI-7 and its new head Pamela Thornton (Gillian Anderson), code-named Pegasus. Word is out that a clandestine organization known as Vortex is plotting to assassinate the Chinese premier. English is put on the task and paired with the eager and inexperienced Agent Tucker (Daniel Kaluuya).

The cast also includes Dominic West as the suave Agent Simon Ambrose, Rosamund Pike as a psychologist and potential love interest, and another Black Adder alumnus Tim McInnery as Patch Quartermain, MI-7's weapons designer.

I'm not sure what there is left to mine in the spy genre. The Austin Powers pretty much stripped it bare. It's been eight years since the last movie and the cinematic spy has become a different beast thanks to The Bourne Identity and Casino Royale. Johnny English Reborn attempts to go grittier while parodying all the familiar staples and the combination just doesn't work. It doesn't help that none of the gags are funny or original. There's the standard scene where English is equipped with all the latest high-tech gadgets including a missile launching digital camera and a Rolls Royce Phantom with voice command. Problem is the Bond films made these sequences so famous that they themselves poked fun at them. Usually you'd see Pierce Brosnan muck around with the equipment much to the consternation of Q, then spout a few quips. The fact that you get the exact same bits here makes the scene feel so tired. The rest the humor revolves around people getting kicked in the genitals repeatedly and English's recurring run-ins with an elderly Chinese assassin, who is disguised as a cleaning woman.

Atkinson is a talented comedian with some great facial expression and a capacity for physical comedy, but there's not much he can do with such flat material. The filmmakers want Johnny English to be a capable agent, who can hold his own against a group of martial arts experts. Yet, at the same time, he's also incredibly stupid. There's a point where the character goes from being stupid in a funny way to being stupid in an infuriating manner. Again, the script from Hamish McColl, who also wrote Mr. Bean's Holiday, can't find the right balance.

What saves Johnny English Reborn from being a total loss is the presence of two beautiful women, referring to Gillian Anderson and Rosamund Pike. Anderson's role is essentially a take-off of Judi Dench's M, a leader looking to rid the agency of outdated methods and chauvinistic attitudes. She makes for a good foil to English's outrageous antics. Pike, a former Bond girl, is a welcome presence as someone who is both smart and sexy. You only wish the character had more to do.

Unless you're a huge Rowan Atkinson fan or just want to watch him beat up old ladies, then skip Johnny English Reborn.

Rating: * (*****)

Centurion

Centurion - Dir. Neil Marshall (2010)


Neil Marshall is a genre director through and through. Marshall’s feature film debut was Dog Soldiers, which can best be described as Deliverance meets Platoon with werewolves. His next film was the claustrophobic spelunking horror flick, The Descent. But, Doomsday was probably Marshall’s most geektastic work, a post-apocalyptic action movie that paid homage to Mad Max, Escape From New York, and Excalibur. Marshall brings a trash cinema flavor to his version of the swords and sandals film.

Centurion is one of two recent projects inspired by the disappearance of the Ninth Legion of the Roman Army, beating Kevin Macdonald’s Eagle of the Ninth to the theaters. It is 117 AD and the Roman Empire has been mired for years in their attempts to conquer Britannia. The polished and disciplined Roman soldiers are no match for their supposedly backwater natives, the Picts. They have stymied every effort by the invading Roman forces with their knowledge of the rugged terrain and use of ruthless guerilla tactics.

Enter one Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender), a brave Roman soldier and son of a gladiator. He is the sole survivor of a Pict assault on his outpost in what is now Scotland. Quintus manages to escape and comes across the Ninth Legion under the command of the awesomely named General Titus Virilus (Dominic West). The General has been tasked by an opportunistic senator to kill the Pict King Gorlacon (Ulrich Thomsen) and wipe out all opposing forces once and for all. However, the Legion is slaughtered and Gen. Virilus captured with only Quintus and a handful of comrades surviving the ambush.

After failing to rescue their commanding officer, Quintus and his ragtag band of legionnaires must brave harsh terrains and equally harsh weather in order to return home. They are dogged at every turn by a hunting party led by the animalistic Etain (Olga Kurylenko), an expert tracker and warrior goddess. Etain was raped as a child by Romans who also cut out her tongue and killed her whole family. She’s pretty pissed off about all that.

The Roman fugitives receive a brief respite when they come across the home of a beautiful village girl (Imogen Poots) who was banished by the Picts for witchcraft.

Centurion is hardly a nuanced picture with rich characters. Fassbender who was so excellent in Hunger and Inglourious Basterds isn’t called upon to do much than be the square jawed hero. Liam Cunningham essentially reprises his role from Clash of the Titans as the crotchety veteran. I couldn’t tell the rest of the fellows apart without double checking IMDB. One soldier is a cook from the Middle East, another is an African marathon runner. Unique traits not seen in similar films, yet they are hardly expanded upon.

Marshall draws obvious allusions to Vietnam and the conflicts in the Middle East, but any political pretenses are buried under a mountain of severed limbs and mutilated corpses. Body parts fly in every direction and skulls are crushed in an explosion of blood. It’s a pure testosterone driven film. Olga Kurylenko is sexy and fierce though too slight and petite to be a believable huntress. But, Marshall isn’t going for true historical accuracy.

Marshall dispenses with pseudo-Shakespearean dialogue and doesn’t feel the need to stretch out the runtime. It’s a welcome change of pace to bloated films like Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood. Centurion is a quick and dirty version of the historical epic for action junkies.

Rating: **

Punisher: War Zone

Punisher: War Zone - Dir. Lexi Alexander (2008)

”Somebody has to punish the corrupt.”

Or maybe somebody should punish the folks who can’t seem to put together a good Punisher movie. Out of all the comic book characters there are, the Punisher should be one of the easiest to pull off. No superpowers, no goofy outfit, no crazy comic book science to explain, and no need for $200 million in special effects. Just one mean badass with a shitload of guns. War Zone follows in the tepid footsteps of the no-budget Dolph Lundgren version and the so-so Thomas Jane vehicle. Was the third time the charm? It’s leaps and bounds ahead of the previous versions, but pales in comparison to The Dark Knight and Iron Man in terms of 2008’s comic book adaptations. It has more in common with testosterone-fueled action flicks like Commando or Rambo.

War Zone takes the Punisher back to his roots, plopping him down into the seedy streets of New York City (though it was actually shot in Montreal). Dark, cold tones with neon highlights, a far cry from the sunny beaches of Tampa. His origin remains much closer to the source material and is briefly seen in flashbacks so we can get right into the action. This iteration of Frank Castle is the brooding, taciturn killing machine he needed to be. The man doesn’t even speak his first lines until about half an hour into the movie. Who has time for action hero one-liners when you’re hanging upside-down from a crystal chandelier pumping several hundred rounds of ammo into the bodies of hapless goombas? This is a Punisher who doesn’t bother with Machiavellian schemes involving fire hydrants. Not when he can punch his fist through someone’s face or stab a man through the eye with a chair leg. The violence is like an Itchy & Scratchy episode. The film also features the best use of a rocket launcher in cinematic history. This is a Punisher who really does some serious punishing.

Ray Stevenson fits the role of Frank Castle perfectly. He’s big, mean, and looks like he’s seen some serious shit. Stevenson is the Bradstreet Punisher come to life. Even Wayne Knight (“Newman…”) has some good scenes with Stevenson as the Punisher’s tech-guy, Micro. The rest of the cast doesn’t fare so well on the other hand. Dominic West (McNulty!) goes over over-the-top as Frank’s facially mangled arch-enemy, Jigsaw. West switches from narcissistic mob boss to cartoon character in a heartbeat, a combination of Jack Nicholson’s Joker with a Dick Tracy villain. The same goes for Doug Hutchison as Jigsaw’s cannibalistic brother, Loony Bin Jim, an original creation of screenwriter Nick Santora. Julie Benz (who I usually adore) plays the same damsel in distress role as she did in Rambo, but now with a poor New York accent. In fact, nearly everybody in the film has a bad stereotypical accent, be it Italian, New York, Russian, or Irish.

The film also spreads itself too thin by throwing in far too many characters. The filmmakers mined Garth Ennis’s seminal run on the Punisher MAX series to fill out the supporting cast. There’s sad sack NYPD detective Martin Soap, Paul Budiansky (another NYPD detective in the comics, now an FBI agent), black Irishman Maginty, and Russian gangsters the Bulats. Despite this being his film, the Punisher becomes marginalized too often in favor of characters that are essentially cannon fodder. As a fan of the MAX series, I felt a lot of great villains were wasted. Nicky Cavella is turned into an undercover FBI agent, his psychotic henchmen Ink & Pittsy are now comic relief toadies, and the Bulats (from one of the best Punisher stories ever) are barely a blip on the radar.

In their zeal to create a sympathetic lead, the filmmakers tend to humanize Frank a little too much. Despondent over accidentally killing an undercover officer, he contemplates giving up his alter-ego. After all, we've never seen that in a comic book movie.

In his review, Roger Ebert called War Zone “one of the best-made bad movies.” That hits the nail on the head. Punisher: War Zone is a film for those who are looking for an hour and a half of mindless violence. It’s a throwback to the 80’s style action film. Taken at that level, it works. Lexi Alexander, a German-born kickboxing champion, joins a tiny club of female action directors whose only other member I can think of is Kathryn Bigelow. Alexander handles the gun battles and fight scenes well without relying on the Bourne-style of quick edits and tight close-ups. A guilty pleasure all the way.

Rating: ***