marco-galvez
At first i thought that the mix reviews were due to the combination of genres, being this a cowboy, scifi and fantasy movie all at once. It wasn't untill the end i realized it was due to great and terrible moments this movie has. The first half of the movie was strong, from character introductions and storytelling to even editing. Halfway through things get abrupt, Carter had a full hour and a half of potential character development, yet they push his motivation in half a minute of screen time during an action sequence edited horribly with a montage sequence of the past. I understand that writers might have wanted this to be the breaking point, but directing missed heavily. From here on things go on a decline, not so much as story wise, but more of those as pacing, editing and overall acting.
Movie that was firm with its idea but loose on its execution.
Bilal Pervaiz
Great Movie, One of my favorite movie
Amazing, this is the best movie os his time...
best regards
escctrlshift
As other reviewers have pointed out, Disney badly botched the marketing of this film, which cost $250 million to make. The important thing is, in the production of this film, IT SHOWS. Buy the DVD and feast on the visuals and original soundtrack. This movie is a visual feast, even if it is not a theatrical tour-de-force of the actor's craft. That is the point, nor is the original story, per se. It is the storytelling of the production that succeeds best, but like any great storytelling, the real feast is in the retelling or rewatching of an old story. In this regard, John Carter is a classic, like the original novel it derives from.In spite of its marketing department being out to lunch, the Disney factor counts. Disney knows how to make great movies, even though their product is cloyingly formulaic at times. The script of "John Carter" derives from Edgar Rice Burrough's sci-fi classic, "A Princess of Mars". John Carter thus has some pedigree of greatness. The character of Tars Tarkus, in particular, benefits from the eminence-grise of Wilhem Dafoe's voiceover, making the CGI character heroic, even (if you stretch your poetic imagination) vaguely Christ-like. The casting and a direction of the movie are well above average, and for its time, the CGI is outstandingly executed, and well-conceived aesthetically. Mars/Barsoom is a vast wasteland full of archeological riches and a dying ecosystem, which is brilliantly (if not exactly scientifically) depicted. The location sets, including Victorian-era New York city and ante-bellum Virginia, are superb. The rest -- costumes, makeup, lighting -- all reflect the huge budget. One just doesn't get the same look or feel from CGI. This is an old-fashioned epic blockbuster, that fell flat for no good reason I can discern.
Love_of_Film
This movie could have been the start of a very successful franchise. Unfortunately, the writers and the director seem to have decided that their ad lib on the original story by Burroughs would be better. They added a nonsensical magic priest cult that has nothing to do with the original story to make it more believable... This is a work of fiction! Believable? I've read the books so many times and was looking so much forward to seeing it made into a movie. The writer/director destroyed Burroughs carefully crafted story. I doubt that he was a fan of Burroughs or even heard of the Mars series until he was hired as a last resort for this project. Read the books! It is so much better than this movie. I wish someone who loved these books by Burroughs, someone like Peter Jackson and how he materialized Tolkien's works, would redo this movie right. "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings" also had a bunch of flops made before Peter Jackson. One can only hope.
AD
