John Carter: A Fun, Fantastical Space Romp

Much has been said about the acclaimed Pixar directors venturing out of their CG wheelhouses into the wild world of live-action – with Brad Bird tackling the Mission: Impossible franchise and Andrew Stanton heading out to the red planet for John Carter – and just how successful they’d be. You’d be crazy not to bet on both of them given their pedigree; just because their collective hits (little flicks you may have heard of called Finding Nemo, Wall-E, The Incredibles, Ratatouille) were all animated doesn’t mean that their abilities to visually tell a compelling story are any less worthy. And having seen both, I’d have to say they both pass the bar.

John Carter is a fun, fantastical space romp that earns its cheesy, eye-rolling moments by maintaining a kid’s-movie tone throughout – apparent early on when Carter (Taylor Kitsch) arrives on Mars (aka Ballsoom) and bounces around the landscape in a cartoon-esque scene of getting used to the low gravity. Despite the PG-13 rating (likely for the skin-baring clothing on most of the main cast as well as the frequent battle scenes), it’s evident early on that Stanton brought many of his child-centric sensibilities from his time spent at Pixar on his plunge into the live-action world.

Of course, Stanton did more of a half-leap. It’s not much of a stretch given how much CG Stanton employed in bringing to life John Carter, whose bizarre storyline involves a princess, 12-foot aliens with tusks, ships that soar on light, and a Confederate soldier transported from the Wild West to Mars by a magic talisman. While Stanton went practical with many of the physical stunts, most of the world and entire characters are completely computer-generated. This could’ve ended up badly. But thankfully, we’ve come a long way from the days when “computer generated characters” would reflexively make you cringe as you immediately thought of Jar Jar Binks.

Honestly, it took a bit for me to get thoroughly into John Carter, but once I did, I enjoyed myself. Here’s the gist of it: Captain John Carter is a former Confederate soldier trying his hand at hitting it big in the gold rush of the late 1800s in Arizona when he happens upon a bizarre foe who drops a medallion that then transports him to Mars. It’s here that he immediately loses the medallion (doh!) and is taken prisoner by a race of tall, tusked aliens called Tharks led by Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe), who is in awe of Carter’s ability to defy Mars’ gravity – which is weaker than here on Earth, allowing Carter to jump essentially as high and as far as is necessary for that particular scene. (Convenient, I know.) Meanwhile, Dominic West’s villain Sab Tham has given the city of Helium an ultimatum: Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins) must marry him, or the city falls. And if the city falls, the idea is that the whole planet goes with it. Naturally, John Carter and Dejah Thoris cross paths and the battle to save Ballsoom (Mars, as known to those who live there) begins. Still with me?

When I first heard the premise, I had trouble reconciling the two worlds of Confederate-era America and Mars. After seeing the movie, I still do. It’s almost like the result of one of those creative writing exercises where you draw a card from the Character pile and match it with a card from the Places pile and have ten minutes to write a story about the two. Thankfully, Edgar Rice Burroughs – author of A Princess of Mars, the story on which John Carter is based – turned what could’ve been SyFy Channel schlock (which I think they’ve done already, in case you’re into Asylum-style versions of Hollywood films) into a fully realized fantasy property. Still, aside from the fun running gag where the Tharks think that Carter’s name is Virginia, and Kitsch’s propensity for delivering an excellent Southern drawl, there’s no real reason for Carter to be a Confederate soldier. Stanton and co-screenwriters Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon didn’t guide the film into being overtly political – aside from the red-state/blue-state color-coding of the warring human tribes (guess which ones are the bad guys) – and I’m not sure what Carter was like in the book, but it seems like introducing a character as being specifically Confederate in heritage makes for some strong insinuations as to his political leanings. Other than perhaps accounting for his ability to fight, which could’ve easily been explained by a myriad of other backgrounds, Carter’s history as a Civil War solider for the South doesn’t lend anything to what he encounters on Mars. It does make him a unique as a protagonist in any recent film, much less a fantasy film set on another planet, but it feels like a novelty.

That said, Kitsch is well cast in the role. He physically looks the part and has chemistry with Collins, who is also solid. The one knock on Kitsch is that he’s just not at all the kind of guy who can give those bombastic “THIS! IS! SPARTA!”-style speeches, which Carter has to do at least a couple times. Also annoying is how his go-to method of conveying importance is for Carter to be out of breath and panting laboriously through his speech. Catch your breath, then talk. Still, he manages the film well, if not completely leading the charge. He’s extremely likeable, as any fan of Friday Night Lights can attest, effortlessly exuding that Southern gentility that he did so well as Tim Riggins.

Truth be told, though, the film truly wins on the strength of its supporting characters, namely Sola (Samantha Morton) as the Thark daughter who flees her people to join Carter and Dejah on their quest, and Tars Tarkas (Willem Defoe), Sola’s father who is the Thark that saves Carter’s life when the rest of his race wants to kill him. Despite being entirely CG, they provide some of the strongest emotional weight to the entire story with their complex relationship between each other and with Carter and Dejah.

As far as origin stories go, John Carter is one of the more imaginative and entertaining ones I’ve seen at the movies in a while, even more fun when you go into it expecting a kid’s flick. Albeit a violent and challenging one whose visual style doesn’t always fit the mostly PG-aimed tone – notably the odd scene where Carter takes on an entire horde of baddies getting intercut with a flashback of Carter back on Earth burying his wife and child. This is the sort of movie that you’re excited to see on TNT on some lazy summer afternoon even if it isn’t setting the box office on fire. Full of action, imaginative alien lifeforms (the best of which is the six-legged speedster beastie that is essentially the Ballsoom version of the most loyal dog ever), and adventure, John Carter delivers.