Instead of writing a review of “John Carter,” I’m tempted to compile a clip-n-carry guide to the names of its alien characters, races and locations. If you’re planning to see the movie, a manual would be more helpful to you than my assessment. I went in unprepared, and I spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out whether I was looking at a Thern, a Thark, or a Thoat, who Sab Than and Matai Shang were, which of the human tribes were the Zondangans, and so on. Even Mars is called “Barsoom.”
Making matters worse, the political structure on Barsoom is needlessly complex. There are two warring human civilizations, a race of giant green beings with four arms, and a group of ethereal life forms – among others. At one point, a slavering horde appears in the desert, intent on wiping out our heroes, and although they look like a meaner version of the giant green beings, they’re called something else. At that point, I gave up.
Han Solo. Luke Skywalker. Princess Leia. That’s how you name characters in a science fiction movie if you don’t want your viewers to spend most of its running time making mental notes.
The creators of “John Carter” can’t be blamed for packing their script with hard-to-remember names, though, as they based their tale on the literary works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, who also created “Tarzan.” Burroughs wrote his “Barsoom” series over a century ago, long before it inspired “Star Wars,” “Avatar,” and other modern science fiction movies, and long before NASA’s robotic probes had revealed Mars to be nothing but a dusty rock. When Burroughs penned his books, Mars was still rich fodder for the imagination.
“John Carter” is largely based on “A Princess of Mars,” the first book in Burroughs’ series. It follows the titular Civil War veteran, who, through a chain of events, is unexpectedly whisked away to Mars. There, he becomes embroiled in the many-layered battle between its various races, meets and falls in love with a princess named Dejah Thoris (sigh), and fights giant beasts.
While I can’t address the quality of the novel, the movie is not great science fiction, or even great storytelling. My biggest complaint has to do with the Therns, the ethereal beings I mentioned in paragraph one. For reasons the creators of the movie never make clear, the Therns work behind the scenes, stirring up trouble to ensure everyone remains at each other’s throats. One of the Therns says something vague about his people feeding off dying civilizations, but that’s a weak reason for all of their machinations.
The Death Star. The Rebel Base. The Empire wants to end the rebellion. That’s how it’s done.
Despite everything, “John Carter” is worth seeing. Disney spent A LOT of money making the movie, and every penny appears to be on the screen. The battles are huge, and look incredible; the aliens have even more clarity than the computer animated beings in “Avatar”; and the locations are visually imaginative and gorgeously rendered. I especially liked the massive city on legs that strode across the desert, and the bony, mud-like dwellings of the Tharks, which look as though they grew out of the Martian landscape.
I also liked Taylor Kitsch as Carter and Lynn Collins as the princess. They needed more chemistry, and Kitsch could have been more expressive in some of his scenes, but both do a good job with their characters. Since “John Carter” is essentially an animated movie with human actors inserted into the scenery, that was quite an accomplishment.
And I enjoyed the humor. The scene in which Carter first tries to walk in the low-gravity environment of Mars had me in stitches, primarily because he doesn’t realize he’s been transported from a desert on Earth to an alien wasteland.
For all of its problems, which include some cheesiness, “John Carter” offers a good time at the movies. Under the guiding hand of Andrew Stanton, the director of “Finding Nemo” and “WALL-E,” it’s never boring, and it’s almost always entertaining. Some of its details have slipped away since I saw it, but I haven’t forgotten how much fun I had watching it.
Rated PG-13 for intense violence and action. Three stars out of four. Email David Laprad at dlaprad@hamiltoncountyherald.com.