Review: John Carter (2012)

[Mark R. Leeper]

JOHN CARTER
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: JOHN CARTER is the lackluster title of
Disney's film adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs's
A PRINCESS OF MARS, just over a hundred years old.
People who have grown up reading Edgar Rice Burroughs
novels (or people like me who have failed to grown up
but still have read the novels) will probably be
startled at the imagination of this epic production.
Newcomers and even some non-newcomers may find the
story more complex and harder to follow than one would
expect from the adaptation of a pulp fiction science
fantasy. The viewer should not expect a great story--
perhaps not even a comprehensible one. But it is
fascinating to spend time with this visualization of
Burroughs's Mars/Barsoom. Somehow a novel that just
seemed like silly fun is transformed into an epic film.
Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10

Back when the film THE PUPPET MASTERS was released I had a
discussion with a friend about the film. I said that it had
covered a lot of the same territory as the three--now four--
adaptations of Jack Finney's (INVASION OF) THE BODY SNATCHERS did.
My friend was quick to correct me. Actually Robert Heinlein's
novel THE PUPPET MASTERS pre-dated the Finney novel. Heinlein had
done it first. I readily admitted that was true. The filmmakers
had every right to rehash overly familiar material. But that does
not make the content any less familiar was still going to count
against the film for most viewers. Curiously I had almost the same
discussion over the 2007 film I AM LEGEND, which rehashed a lot of
familiar horror. I mention that to head off the same discussion
with JOHN CARTER. Today's fantasy and science fiction, especially
in films, owes a lot to pulp writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs,
A. Merritt, and Robert E. Howard. These are not highly
accomplished writers, but their leaping imaginations have inspired
generations. When George Lucas puts a hero into an arena with a
fierce gorog the size of an elephant, Lucas is doing homage to
Edgar Rice Burroughs. As far as written fantasy is concerned,
Burroughs got there before (probably) anyone else. But still
putting it into a film now after decades of Flash Gordon and Star
Wars and many more, it is going to be hackneyed and stale. The
filmmakers' only hope is to try to make it feel new. Sadly they
chose that image to center their ad campaign around.

For many decades there have been rumors of various filmmakers
wanting to turn the Burroughs science fantasies into film. Of
course, Burroughs writing was frequently the inspiration of films
on the screen, but almost always it was a wildly inaccurate version
of his Tarzan books. In the mid-1970s Amicus and American
International Pictures cooperated on adaptations of THE LAND THAT
TIME FORGOT, THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT, and AT THE EARTH'S CORE.
Sadly, of these only THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT took itself
seriously and had a good script. In 2009 the exploitation film
company The Asylum did versions of PRINCESS OF MARS and THE LAND
THAT TIME FORGOT. The former was terrible. I have not seen the
latter but do not have very high expectations. But for years there
were many projects attempting the making of A PRINCESS OF MARS into
a film. Names like Ray Harryhausen and Tom Cruise were attached to
projects that never reached fruition. Presumably it was too
daunting a task to show the armies of alien creatures the film
would have called for. Then the LORD OF THE RINGS films showed
that such epic fantasy could be done with newer technology. One
such project has finally come reached fruition.

The script by its director Andrew Stanton, Mark Andrews, and
Pulitzer-Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon somewhat embellishes
the story by Burroughs. The film already gets into adventures
before John Carter (played by an uninspired Taylor Kitsch) ever
gets to Mars. The film even dramatizes the forward to the book in
which Edgar Rice Burroughs is called to his uncle John Carter's
deathbed only to arrive too late with Carter having died only that
morning. The young Burroughs we are told had always been
enthralled by his uncle's stories of his life in the Wild West and
fighting in the Civil War. The amazed boy is given a sheaf of
papers. This is Uncle John's account of his most amazing
adventure, one that involved him being teleported to Mars where he
is the keystone in ending a civil war.

Fleeing from a United States Army determined illegally to impress
him into service, he runs afoul of a mystic something-or-other
perpetrated by Holy Therns (who do not actually appear yet in the
book A PRINCESS OF MARS). Carter finds himself on what he
discovers is the planet Mars. Due the different gravity he finds
he can leap tall canyons in a single bound. (Leaping tall
buildings comes later.) Tharks, tall green men with white tusks
and four arms each, capture him. The viewer is introduced to them
and several other species, human and non-human.

Full disclosure: I had read the book, but not in years. With the
flood of unfamiliar names, familiar names that I could not quite
place, and actors who did not enunciate, I can say I still followed
the plot at a high level, but don't give me a quiz on the names of
animals, people, and places on Barsoom. I am reasonably certain
that even if I could have run the film with subtitles and could
stop it when I wanted, my life would not have been transformed by
any great themes that were presented. This is all pretty much an
American 20th century "Arabian Nights". Like the original "Arabian
Nights" what is essential is not the deep story but the tone,
texture, and atmosphere. When one reads one of Burroughs's science
fantasies one visualizes what was going on. As I read I can
visualize the scenery a little more ornately than the Amicus film
adaptations did in the 1970s. That imagination was far surpassed
by the visions on the screen. And remarkably that gives the story
the feeling of more heft and even more complexity. This is not
pulpish storytelling even if the century-old novel is.

The film is usually respectful of the Burroughs material, but
within that constraint there is more than a little humor. Due to a
miscommunication the Tharks all call Carter "Virginia". Carter
seems to crash a variety of Martian flying machines that he tries
to pilot. Carter is given as a pet and guardian Woola, a big
sloppy dog-like creature.

The film has been released to very mixed critical reactions.
However, the closer the reviewer is to the science fiction fan
community and the people who respect Burroughs, the better reaction
the film seems to get. The fans may be pleased that someone has
made a decent film respectful of the original novel. I rate JOHN
CARTER a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10.

One problem with the film is that the title is so totally bland and
colorless for such a colorful story. Apparently there were
struggles over choosing the title, and the film still shows the
title JOHN CARTER OF MARS in the closing credits. The filmmakers
would have done better with the title of the Burroughs novel, A
PRINCESS OF MARS. It has been suggest that a Disney film with
"Princess" in the title might sound like it was for only young
girls. I wonder if that was the reaction when Buena Vista released
PRINCESS MONONOKE.

Film Credits: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401729/>

What others are saying:
<http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/john_carter/>


Mark R. Leeper
mle...@optonline.net
Copyright 2012 Mark R. Leeper