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John Carter (of Mars) - March 9 2012 - (with Canadian Taylor Kitsch on Barsoom!)

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Aloysius J. Gleek:


http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2012/03/john_carter_starring_taylor_kitsch_reviewed.html


Riggins and Aliens
Taylor Kitsch stars in the space Western John Carter
By Dana Stevens
Posted Thursday, March 8, 2012, at 7:57 PM ET




Andrew Stanton’s John Carter  (Disney) comes into theaters trailing a cartload of production-history baggage. This would-be tentpole action picture—a retro-sci-fi fantasy based on a 1917 novel by Tarzan  author Edgar Rice Burroughs—has bounced between studios and from one big-name director to another, until finally Disney bought the rights and gave it to Stanton (best known for his animation work at Pixar, including Wall-E and Finding Nemo). The result is a strange, at times misshapen, but somehow lovable thing: a movie that keeps trying to be smaller and simpler than its $250 million special-effects budget will permit. Buried within this bloated, CGI-crammed, unnecessarily 3D-ified monster is a bare-bones space western, the movie that last year’s Cowboys and Aliens  should have been. And though that smaller movie within the movie isn’t allowed to surface often enough, what we do see of it is sufficiently winning that we keep waiting around, looking forward to its next appearance.

John Carter  starts off unpromisingly with not one but two overlong frame-story setups. The first involves a singularly unthrilling Martian air battle between two bird-like supercrafts manned by soldiers in armor reminiscent of ancient Rome, or at least movies about it. The second and more interesting framing device takes us to New York City in 1881, where the young, wide-eyed Edgar Rice Burroughs (played by Daryl Sabara) unexpectedly inherits the vast estate of his late uncle, the eccentric amateur archeologist John Carter. Going through Carter’s papers, Burroughs discovers a journal that begins by warning the reader (in slightly more formal Victorian language) to prepare to have his mind blown.

It’s not till then, in a flashback, that we finally meet John Carter, and the movie snaps to attention. Or maybe that was just all the straight women and gay men in the theater snapping to attention, since Carter is played by Taylor Kitsch, the blunt-featured, compactly buff, curiously irresistible actor who played the high-school football star Tim Riggins in Friday Night Lights.  Carter is a Confederate Civil War veteran who’s now making a living prospecting gold in the American West. He’s tough (as we learn in a redundant series of fight scenes) and stubborn (as proven by his refusal to enlist in the Apache-fighting cavalry at the behest of an insistent colonel played by Bryan Cranston).

This review would quickly get as overstuffed as the movie if I took the time to explain how Carter gets from a prison cell in the Arizona Territory to the surface of Mars (he finds a magic medallion that transports him there through a space wormhole, OK?). But once he arrives on that planet’s mysteriously oxygen-rich surface, the movie achieves its maximum buoyancy— as does Carter, who learns to harness the gravity of Mars to become an expert leaper.
 
This middle section, in which both Carter and the audience get a crash course in the politics, history, and theology of the Red Planet, is the movie at its most imaginative and most fun. Carter is first taken in by the Tharks, a race of six-limbed reptilian beings who are dissuaded from killing him by their wise leader Tars Tarkas (voiced by Willem Dafoe). Carter soon learns that Mars (known to its inhabitants as Barsoom) also hosts two humanoid populations who are at war with each other for control of the planet. The two city-states are named, wonderfully, Helium and Zodanga; the princess of Helium, Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins) is engaged to the prince of Zodanga, Sab Than (Dominic West), but, desperate to avoid this forced marriage, she’s run away to seek help in defeating the evil Zodangans.

All this Burroughsian lingo washes pleasantly over the viewers’ ears; you don’t need to get exactly what the Holy Therns are (some sort of order of shape-shifting immortal priests) to know that it’s cool when a baldheaded Mark Strong appears out of nowhere in flowing gray robes to expound on Martian cosmology. At its best, John Carter  resembles the kind of movie Raiders of the Lost Ark  was made to pay homage to, a rollicking, pleasantly predictable Saturday-afternoon serial. And the fantastical creatures of Mars—the green-skinned, 15-foot-tall Tharks, the massive albino apes who take Carter on in gladiatorial combat, and a sort of chubby half-dog, half-dinosaur that Carter adopts as a pet—are appealingly old-fashioned, like a digitally enhanced version of the stop-motion monsters Ray Harryhausen fashioned for movies like Jason and the Argonauts.

The film’s last third overestimates the viewer’s patience for extended battle scenes, grand CGI-augmented processions, and pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo. But it’s to the credit of the screenwriters (Stanton, Mark Andrews and the fantasy-friendly novelist Michael Chabon) that underneath the layers of cheese is a strangely believable romance between the taciturn earthling John Carter and the fiery Martian princess Dejah. Collins, a Cate Blanchett lookalike who made a memorable Portia in 2004’s The Merchant of Venice,  has a serene, poised presence even in the goofy midriff-baring costumes she’s forced to wear; like Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia, her Dejah is a worthy warrior and ally, not just interstellar arm candy. And Taylor Kitsch may not have the broadest range as an actor, but there’s something endearingly sincere about his performance. He takes his job as an action hero seriously and never hints that he’s ironically slumming, even when emerging from the innards of a giant ape drenched in royal-blue blood.
 
I only wish John Carter  had had the courage of its convictions, and not tried to be all things to all demographics. At heart, this is a niche movie for lovers of literary science fiction; it’s clear that Stanton’s intention was to create a rich, internally coherent fantasy universe, the way Peter Jackson did in the Lord of The Rings  films or George Lucas did in the first Star Wars  trilogy. The film should also have kept the working title that it shyly reveals only before the final credits: John Carter of Mars.  It’s that unexpected juxtaposition—the ordinary guy who finds his inner hero when he wakes up on the wrong planet—that lends this overlong but sweet-spirited movie its charm.

Aloysius J. Gleek:



Ok, which one----is the prettier?
Hard to tell!

 :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Aloysius J. Gleek:



http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/03/the-hokey-fun-of-john-carter/254214/


The Hokey Fun of 'John Carter'
Disney's updating of the Edgar Rice Burroughs sci-fi classic
embraces its own ridiculousness

By Christopher Orr
Mar 9 2012, 8:01 AM ET




You can take the boy out of Pixar, but can you take Pixar out of the boy? That question was raised last year by Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol  and now by John Carter, the first two big live-action films to be directed by members of Pixar's enviable stable of writer/producer/directors. The provisional answer, I'm happy to report, is no—or at least, not entirely.

The Pixarian in question this time is Andrew Stanton, who, in addition to directing Finding Nemo  and Wall-E, essentially served as the studio's in-house screenwriter on its first five films, and has played some role (executive producer, voice actor) in every Pixar film save Cars 2.  As a movie, John Carter  is not near the level of Stanton's Pixar work—but then, how could it be? The studio's magic is in large part the result of its collaborative ethos and the animators' freedom from the demands of a live-action shooting schedule. Still, the modest charms of John Carter  are another reminder that Pixar's success is due not merely to a triumph of process, but to a collection of exceptional individual filmmakers.

The first installment of the John Carter  saga, upon which the movie is loosely based, was penned by Edgar Rice Burroughs (of Tarzan  fame) 100 years ago. Entitled Under the Moons of Mars  when it was first published serially, and retitled A Princess of Mars  when it was later released as a novel, it is an ur-text of modern genre fiction—pulp, science, fantasy, and superhero—an important forebear not only of Superman  but of Brave New World  as well. It is, however, by any objective measure, an awful book: inert in style, haphazard in plot, and woefully, annihilatingly devoid of humor. Given such source material, Stanton's John Carter  might easily have been the kind of glum, tooth-clenchingly self-serious "entertainment" of which we have seen so much in recent years.

But it's not. Rather, Stanton embraces the inescapable ridiculousness of his premise and adds several additional doses of likable whimsy.

Said premise is that, in 1868, a former Confederate cavalryman named John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) is prospecting for gold in Arizona when he is unexpectedly transported to Mars—or Barsoom, as it is known to the natives. (The name sounds rather like an exotic scent for men—sandalwood, perhaps?—though the resonance is presumably unintentional.) A war is taking place between two cities with heavily tattooed human-like inhabitants: Helium (the good guys, devoted to peace and science) and Zodanga (the bad guys, devoted to conquest and pillage). You can probably guess which side is winning. What neither side knows is that both are being manipulated by a race of immortal, unimaginably advanced beings called the Therns, who thrive on conflict.

John Carter, meanwhile, finds himself in different company altogether, as a captive of the decidedly inhuman Tharks—primitive, martial creatures with green skin, four arms, and tusks. Luckily for him, he quickly discovers that, thanks to the weaker gravity of Mars, he is imbued with superhuman strength and the ability to jump great distances (the latter trait destined to be rather over-utilized by the filmmakers). Will John Carter impress the Tharks with his cunning and prowess? Will he aid Helium in its fight for survival? Will he and the lovely princess of Helium (Lynn Collins) wind up smooching? The answers are unlikely to surprise you.

High-tech/low-tech, sci-fi/western hybrids of this kind inevitably find themselves in dangerous territory—Cowboys & Aliens territory, Wild Wild West  territory. Moreover, the plot of John Carter,  if you have not already surmised as much, is not a selling point for the film. (Though it bears noting that, goofy as it is, it makes a great deal more sense in Stanton's telling than it did in Burroughs's.) The action sequences are for the most part unremarkable and in many cases resemble scenes from the Star Wars  movies to a degree that teeters between homage and plagiarism. And while there are some nice, painterly backgrounds on display throughout the film, the special effects are hardly cutting edge.

Yet despite such shortcomings, there is a hokey charm to John Carter,  a clear understanding that, at the end of the day, we are there to have fun. Stanton has scattered throughout the script a surprising number of genuinely witty moments. (I laughed more during the film than I did during Adam Sandler's last three comedies combined—which is a long way of saying, I laughed.) And his cast delivers performances ranging from the entirely solid to the rather good.

In the first category are the two leads, Kitsch (from Friday Night Lights ) and Collins (the doomed love-interest/character-motivation in X-Men Origins: Wolverine ). Neither wows, but neither disappoints, and Kitsch offers an unexpected hint of Timothy Olyphant's lupine appeal. Moreover, the film's performances improve as we move out from the center. Dominic West and Mark Strong are deep in their comfort zones as, respectively, the sneering, treacherous warlord of Zodanga and the quietly malevolent leader of the Thenns. Willem Dafoe has a number of the movie's better jokes as the voice of Tars Tarkas, the Thark chieftain; and James Purefoy, as a warrior of Helium, has perhaps the best.

But the most indelible performance in the film is not, strictly speaking, a performance at all. Rather it is—perhaps appropriately—a feat of animation. This would be Woola, a six-legged, razor-toothed Martian hound who serves as John Carter's captor and later companion, and who rather resembles a cross between a bulldog and a fetal gila monster. As you might imagine, he's not much in the looks department, but it's been some time since cinema has seen a more adorable sidekick. Late in the film, Strong's cold-blooded Thenn warns Carter against taking sides in the war between Helium and Zodanga, explaining, "You don't have a dog in this fight." He's wrong, of course, in every way.

Aloysius J. Gleek:


Who Knew?? Dep't

 :o :o ??? ???  ::) ::)



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_of_Mars

Princess of Mars
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Princess of Mars  is a 2009 direct-to-DVD science fiction film made by American independent studio The Asylum, based on the 1917 novel A Princess of Mars  by author Edgar Rice Burroughs [and starring American actor (and Calvin Klein model) Antonio Sabato, Jr. as well as actress Traci Lords]. The story has inspired some elements of James Cameron's Avatar, as mentioned on the film's promotional art. It is not to be confused with the higher-budget 2012 film John Carter, which is also an adaptation of the novel.



[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-x5zZ6rIVc&feature=related[/youtube]


[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO5RC-qeGqY[/youtube] ::) ::) ::)
 :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

oilgun:
OMG! Antonio Sabato Junior back when he was hot!  Too bad he couldn't act though, lol!

I so wanted to see John Carter, Taylor Kitsch is such a hockey hottie, but then I read this review by The Globe & Mail's Rick Groen.  I think I'll pass:


[...]
But the irony is obvious: At this point in the history of pulp, it’s the original that seems derivative. Neither the writers nor Stanton have done anything to address that problem, with the inevitable result that our eyes glaze over when the action heats up. A century ago, Burroughs’s imaginative brand of silliness was unique; now, when silliness abounds, it’s just trite.

Our slumbering interest does get ramped up at the finale, although no thanks to Kitsch, whose inflections remain as flat as ever. Then again, perhaps we shouldn’t slight him, because here at last the symmetry is perfect. His John Carter does what John Carter is – it’s an epic delivered in a monotone.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/movies/john-carter-two-epic-hours-of-cgi-enhanced-yawning/article2361962/

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