John Carter

Grade: C-

Much like people, I try to give every movie a fair shot. I may jump to conclusions about a movie or a person, because it’s human nature, but once I’m engaged with them (or watching the movie) I try to let them make their own impression. It’s disappointing then when a movie (or a person) was exactly what you expected going in. It’s even disappointing if you went into the movie (or conversation) expecting to like it (or someone) for specific reasons and you do for exactly those reasons. It’s just more fun when there is something there you didn’t expect. It’s what makes the beautiful chaos that is existence worth doing. Even if we expect to wake up one day and have an amazing day, we could still have an amazing day for completely unplanned reasons, making the day even more amazing. That’s exactly what bummed me out about Andrew Stanton’s John Carter. It’s exactly what you think it is, only perhaps more boring. Sense that is that case I’m not really going to write this review seriously the rest of the way. One paragraph of introspection is more than enough for this movie.

I know I said last time I don’t like to spend a lot of time talking about the plot of a movie, but in this case I am going to. Otherwise this review would just be me lamenting it’s ineptness, and unless you have seen the movie, it wouldn’t make any sense.

It all starts out with the typical framing story where a kid finds out he received everything from his mysterious and adventurous uncle (John Carter). His uncle requests that he read his secret diary and Boom Story begins! It starts out with him going into an old trading station (this movie is set in the late 1800’s) where Carter is instantly laughed at by the locals (the head one played by Bob Pinciotti, in case you were wondering what he is up to) who says “we’ve already got all your money what more do you want?” and also joke about his quest to find a cave full of money and “evil spiders” (foreshadowing!). But of course John Carter is a tough rebel without a cause so he ends getting into a bit of a scuffle and before you know it he has his gun pointed at Bob. He hands him a small piece of gold to pay off his debts (by the way the gold totally has crazy marking on it, foreshadowing!!) and while he still has Bob at gunpoint he says, in complete earnestness, “Beans. The first. Item. On the list. Is. Beans.”

Next thing you know Walter White shows up in his best Cornel Mustard impersonation and he drags Carter away to do try and make him rejoin the army or something. They then do that thing in movies where they try to appeal to everyone so he hilariously escapes a few times with more bruises on his face after every time (cause nothing says family fun like using violence for laughs) and then on like the forth try he actually does escape. They chase him and then run into some Indians and then next thing you know Carter saves Walter White prompting him to say “I thought you didn’t care?” (Spoiler alert: he does care). They are chased until they hit this mysterious cave with crazy markings and the Indians go all “yeah I’m not messing with that stuff” (because ethnic people are always so much wiser about the land than us inconsiderate white people, but we show them by being more adventurous!) Of course Carter goes venturing into the cave to find gold and evil spiders. Only instead he finds some weird markings and a crazy white dude pops out and Carter shoots him. The dude had some amulet which Carter is all over, and that guy is also speaking some gibberish which Carter begins to recite and then zing bang! He’s on Mars.

I may have forgotten to mention that all while this is happening they are intercutting with some stuff about a war going on, on Mars. Honestly though it’s not really important as I assume you know where this is going, but basically there is a bad guy and he is just a puppet for another one of those crazy white dudes (played by Mark Strong who is one of many “paycheck” actors in this movie) who tells him to do bad stuff. Mark Strong also gave the bad guy this blue thing that can like do everything basically. Also the bad guy wants to marry the princess of the colony he is trying to take over, because she is really hot, and also Mark Strong says its part of some plan of him and other crazy white dudes in crazy robes made up.

Meanwhile on some other part of Mars, John Carter is on Mars and for some reason has no trouble breathing. Then he realizes he can jump really high. Then Willem Dafoe as a giant four armed alien starts talking to him but of course they don’t speak the same language so hilarity ensues and he calls Carter “Virginia” because Carter was trying to explain he’s from Virginia and Virginia is all Willem Dafoe hears in the exchange. That was actually sort of a funny little thing they did, so then naturally they beat the joke to the ground and he calls him Virginia like twenty more times. Willem Dafoe then takes Carter back with him to his home where all the other four armed aliens are. Also these aliens have face tusks and they slam them together when talking aggressively, which when this happened all I could think was “maaakkkeee ooouttttt!” but they never did.

They hang out for a bit and we find out that Carter can jump really high and kill aliens with a single punch because his bone mass is denser from being on Earth his whole life. Also he can now understand them because he drank some special elixir that makes him speak Martian, but yet still no explanation of how he can breathe on Mars. Then a big fight happens in the sky and the aliens are like “we want no part in this, let the human-ish (they are humans but the aliens refer to them as red people so they aren’t technically humans cause they are from Mars but they are just white people with tattoos and some dirt) people kill each other.” But then John Carter is all “I mean I don’t care and all but that totally hot chick looks like she is in trouble” so he jumps into the sky (literally) and saves her. But guess what? This movie isn’t sexist because she ends up kicking more ass in the fight than him! Thank you John Carter for getting rid of all gender role clichés. I have to imagine women have never been more empowered! Except lol jk cause this movie is still totally about him saving and then banging her.

So now it’s him and her with all the aliens. Then soon after they are forced to leave the place because Carter is a rebel without a cause, and Willem Dafoe’s daughter is a screw up. The next half hour to an hour (or maybe it just felt that long) is mainly just them wandering through the desert. It’s sooooo boring. Then they hit a river and find out about some stuff that’s kind of important, and then when they get out of the chamber of things that are kind of important they have to run because Mark Strong is telling some other group of aliens what to do, and he says they should attack Carter. Then Carter, who totally cares now cause it turns out he had a wife on Earth but then she died because of him which makes him feel really bad about kissing the hot Martian chick because now she might die because of him too, basically kills like half of this army of giant aliens in a effort to save the hot Martian chick who he met just a couple days ago.

What is important about this scene is that A. Mark Strong is a real dick in this movie as he just led a bunch of aliens to slaughter and B. John Carter gets knocked out leading to easily the best moment in this movie. Carter wakes up in a room with him and like twenty guards there to keep watch on him. He says “Is this Helium?” (This is where the princess is from and where they were headed to before he got knocked out) and one of the guards says “Huh, no!” HAHAAHAHAAHAHAHA!!!! Seriously that is one snarky guard! I thought guards were supposed to stay silent? I guess not this one! He plays by his own rulezz! (That’s right he’s such a rebel he spells it with two z’s)

Okay so maybe I was the only one in the theater who found this hilarious, and yeah this was just some dumb throwaway line, but this is seriously without question the best moment in the movie. It’s all very much downhill from here. You will find yourself, like I did, nostalgic for that moment the whole rest of the way. So with that being said I’m going to stop the review here because there really is no point in going on. Also, I’m tired of writing this and I’m over 1,500 words about a movie I didn’t even like so it ends here. There are some other things that happen but nothing you didn’t see coming. The ships were cool looking, Taylor Kitsch despite being perfect as Tim Riggins on Friday Night Lights (Texas forever!) probably isn’t talented enough to be a lasting leading man, and we find out that Mark Strong and all the other crazy white dudes in robes are immortal beings who control the galaxy. This of course makes absolutely no sense as John Carter clearly killed one of them in the beginning of the movie, but then again not much else of this movie made any sense or was any good so who cares? (Wow this review really spiraled out of control).