The highly promoted, $230 million budgeted, Disney movie, John Carter came out this past weekend. The movie tells the story of an ex-military captain named John Crater (Taylor Kitsch) who has lost his desire to fight for any cause. When he is captured by soldiers and requested to return to duty, John flees his captures and ends up finding a cave full of gold. He doesn’t have too long to admire his find, as he encounters a strange human-like being, who he ends up mortally wounding. As the stranger is laid on the ground severely hurt, he pulls out a gadget and activates its functions. John grabs the device from the being, and it transports him to an unknown land. John quickly finds out that his new surroundings are far from being that of Earth. As John is discovering that he now has huge leaping abilities because of the anti-gravity effect this planet has on his human body, he is also being watched by some of the planets inhabitants. John gets captured once again, but this time by a strange group of aliens, led by their leader Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe). Tars takes John to his village, where he plans on showing off John’s leaping ability to his tribe of Barsoomians. He wants John to become their new hero against the human looking race of soldiers who are out to control the planets. John is reluctant to fight by their side until he meets Queen Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins) who is from the planet’s other human resembling residents , who are also in a war against the rival military bent on controlling the whole planet. John becomes the tribe of Barsooms last hope of keeping their village from being destroyed by the marauding invaders. He once again finds his humanity, as he realizes that the survival of Barsoom rest solely in his hands.
This movie was highly advertised as being the breakout movie to start off Disney’s 2012 run of films. From the end of last year, there were many trailers pushing the release of this film. I have to say I was even excited to see this film. Unfortunately I wasn’t all that happy after finally seeing it. I thought that this film would be a sci-fi powerhouse of action and excitement like that of Avatar. Hey it even had aliens that kind of resembled the ones from that movie. Plus it had a huge budget, also giving the impression of being a block-buster movie. After seeing the movie, I felt it was a bit too young oriented. I thought this movie was geared towards teenagers and adults, being that it had a PG-13 rating. The movie was a bit too Disney like, including silly little sound effects in some of the early scenes.
Now as far as visual effects, the movie was outstanding in that degree, but the overall story seemed recycled. There weren’t really a lot of battle scenes, as it seemed in the trailers. Also the arena fight against the huge white furred ape-like creatures was the only scene that featured large alien creatures that were intimidating to the eye. Even that scene went by a bit quick, and unimpressive. At no time did this movie grab me, and have me feeling like this was an action packed block-buster movie. I gave this movie 1 ½ stars, mostly because of the visuals effects. It just didn’t live up to all the hype. The film runs 2 hours and 12 minutes. It’s rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action. It was directed by Andrew Stanton.
Sometimes you can become alienated by too much exposure. – Ezo
Next movie reviewed – TBD
