John Carter (Review)
John Carter
aka John Carter of Mars
2012
Written by Andrew Stanton, Mark Andrews, and Michael Chabon
Directed by Andrew Stanton
As you might expect, I’m a rather big fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs and his Barsoom stories. I have the whole series in old out of print volumes culled from bookstores across the country. I have many other Burroughs books and other pulp novels. I have the Guide to Barsoom and some other books where Martians show up, and some of the old Marvel comics. You might say I like this crazy fantasy stuff. So, yes, I was excited that we were finally getting our big screen Barsoom film. Then it got renamed John Carter.
After 100 years, A Princess of Mars is finally coming to the big screen (if you ignore Asylum’s DTV Princess of Mars…) as John Carter. John Carter. No “Of Mars”, no “A Princess of Mars”, no nothing. Add to that all the other abysmal marketing Disney did for the film, and suddenly the rumors that this will be the biggest box office bomb in the history of the planet and the red planet as well started to spring up. “Whatever,” I said, because I’ll let the movie speak for itself. And the movie has finally spoken. And it’s good. Not excellent, but good. Good enough that John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) should be doing better at the box office than it is tracking. Good enough that the naysayers were wrong, even if John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) does lose a lot of money, it is not because John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) failed.
That is not to say there isn’t any problems. There are. Some are pretty big. But I’ll get to most of them. But a simple review like this right after watching on opening night doesn’t do John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) justice, so rest assured there will be another, longer, super detailed, mega-ultra-hyper-giga-supreme-double-secret-comprehensive review once John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) is on DVD and I can screencap and watch a bajillion times to my heart’s content.
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John Carter of Mars – more casting
More casting news on the John Carter of Mars front:
Samantha Morton, Dominic West and Polly Walker are joining the film
Samantha Morton will be playing Sola, the secret daughter of Tars Tarkas who also trains John Carter when he first gets to Barsoom
Dominic West will play the evil Zodangan prince Sab Than, who you may recall is part of the civil war fun
Polly Walker will play the evil Sarkoja, who exposed Tars Tarkas’s lover, thus causing her death.
The fact all those characters are there gives hope they are following the book pretty closely. And thank goodness there is no Tracy Lords in the cast.
Categories: Movie News Tags: Barsoom, Dominic West, John Carter of Mars, Polly Walker, Samantha Morton
