Vladimir Rakhmanin reviews Disney’s new big-budget sci-fi adventure…
Vladimir Rakhmanin
Staff Writer
When I first saw the trailer for the generically titled John Carter, I thought that it was just Disney ripping off Avatar and Star Wars in a shockingly brazen way. After a little more research, though, I discovered that that the film is actually based on a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, first published in 1917. That’s right, this novel, the first in a series, is actually a blueprint for most science-fiction novels and films that have come since. When viewed through this lens, it really becomes astonishing how far ahead of its time certain plot elements are – the feisty Dejah Thoris resembles Princess Leia of Star Wars: A New Hope, an execution scene in an arena is pretty much identical to the fight on Geonosis in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, and the rich world with a huge backstory that fuels humour based on cultural differences was clearly an inspiration for Avatar. While this is all very interesting and thought-provoking, I am here to review the film, not the novel – was it worth waiting almost 100 years for the story to come to the big screen?
The answer is yes. While it’s not the greatest film ever made, and it occasionally suffers from some pacing issues, John Carter succeeds as a fun action-adventure blockbuster, full of pulpy fun. In a way, I’m kind of sad that films like this don’t get made anymore (and probably won’t be, considering how this one fared pretty badly at the box office). I would take ‘sand-and-sandals’ epics over gritty superhero films any day. What elevates John Carter from your usual, run-of-the-mill adventures like 2002’s fun but forgettable The Scorpion King is the rich backstory of Barsoom (the ‘real’ name for Mars). You can witness wonderful attention to detail in every scene of the film, most evident in the middle section, when John meets the Tharks, a spartan-like race who have some very interesting cultural peculiarities. While all of this is not as detailed as in Avatar, it is still more intelligent than your average blockbuster – it also helps that you are not beaten over the head with exposition, making the fairly standard sci-fi tropes feel fresh and exciting.
Action also succeeds, aided by a great retro-futuristic art direction. Despite occasional flaws with CGI, watching a guy swing a chain at some aliens, God of War-style, remains immensely satisfying. A sequence towards the end that I mentioned earlier, during which the heroes are pitted against enormous beasts, is fantastic, even though it is a little upstaged by a similar scene in Attack of the Clones (the only good scene in that Star Wars film). Vehicle design is also excellent, being a mixture of steampunk and sci-fi. I also greatly enjoyed a scene which takes place in some alien ruins, which conjures up memories of such action-adventure classics as Raiders of the Lost Ark.
There are problems with the film, though – pacing slows drastically somewhere in the middle, which hurts the action a little. The protagonist’s backstory seems a little tacked on, due to its constant appearance through flashbacks, and while it might have been expanded upon in the novel it falls flat in the film. Also, I felt that the main villain’s intentions weren’t explained clearly enough – perhaps this will be elaborated upon in the sequels, but as a stand-alone film, this kind of vagueness doesn’t work.
Despite the flaws, John Carter is a very good action film. It currently has a rating of 49% on Rotten Tomatoes, and while I can understand that this isn’t an action-adventure classic, it definitely does not deserve such critical contempt. It sets out its goals quite clearly – to create a fantasy universe, within which we can have pulpy, cheesy fun – and it completes them with flying colours.
