John Carter Review

John Carter Review

I remember the first time I laid my eyes on this mess. I remember the feelings of confusion and horror seeping over me as I slowly came to the realization that it may well have been the worst movie I had ever seen. Granted, I know full well that there are some worse films out there; however, this gets dangerously close to them. 

The movie opens with the apparent death of John Carter. (Yay.) But as we learn later, not really. Anyway, his nephew, Edgar, is introduced to us as the only character that is notably the closest to being consistent and not aggravating in the entire picture. John Carter's body is placed in a tomb that can only be unlocked on the inside. Boy, that doesn't sound suspicious to anyone. Why would a tomb even need a lock on the inside unless the person wasn't actually dead and planning on escaping? This sure doesn't sound like someone faking their death using some obscure powder substance to me! Perhaps they should have waited a little while to see if the idiot was actually dead. Now that would have been entertaining in the most awkward way imaginable. 

Because Carter died so unexpectedly (no one guesses that he faked his own passing despite it's obviousness), Edgar is given the task of reading through his journal to find clues to his death. I will bring this up at the end of the review, but this whole chunk of the film is a failed attempt at being clever and giving the film a twist ending. It's unnecessary to the extreme, as well, and does nothing but add running time to this disaster. 

It is now in the journals that we begin the actual plot and are introduced to John Carter. Unfortunately. You see, John Carter is a bit of a dork. Actually, he is a strong contender for the most unlikable lead character in the history of cinema, period. He is only interested in his own personal gain, he treats others with little to no respect, his sense of humor sucks, and he just comes across as a super lame attempt to create a disturbed character. We discover later in the ONLY good scene in the entire movie that his wife and daughter were civilian casualties in a war he apparently fought in; he, in fact, had to bury them afterwards as well. As admittingly tragic as this is, the fact that it turns him into a jerk is a horrible choice on the writer's part. I will use Doctor Who as an example: the Doctor's personal losses only make him more compassionate and caring over the years. Granted, it does give him flaws too, but that's to be expected. The fact that the Doctor chooses to love after all he has been through shows so much strength in character that it makes him incredibly easy to root for. John Carter, on the other hand, is just a horrible character. He's mean, selfish, and has a bad sense of humor. Also, whoever's acting as him sucks. Period. 

The rest of the movie is cliche to the point of frustration. Carter somehow gets transported to Mars because he is able to kill an alien with a slug pistol even though the same species was shown to be invincible to even the most advanced of technology, but whatever. I don't know why the alien took the time to transport him to Mars; it's not like the other Aliens are there to greet him with laser blasts, as awesome as it would have been. In fact, the only reason why he's able to stop these aliens is because the one brought him to the planet for no reason in the first place. Whoever wrote this movie, you suck. 

Carter meets a Princess who has mood swings every two seconds (some of the conversations in this movie are so inconsistent and feature so many random decision changes that it's simply baffling), a stereotypical cute sidekick who's hardly memorable, these aliens called the Thark who's motivations and characters constantly change for no reason as well, and the lamest excuse for an evil dictator ever. Oh, and those aliens are apparently screwing around with civilizations because it's fun to them or something; I dunno. Nothing in this movie makes sense, so I wouldn't really expect that to either. 

After far too many boring misadventures that only make the movie more confusing, Carter somehow thwarts the indestructible-except-to-primitive-earth-technology-aliens' plans and gets the princess despite how he basically treated her the same way he treated everyone else: like dirt. It is here where we are connected to the beginning of the film: the aliens sent Carter back to earth when they had the jump on him instead of just killing him, causing him to fake his death to draw them to him, as they now apparently want to kill him, and he used his own nephew as bait to achieve this. I. Hate. Him. 

I frankly have already written more about this abomination than I ever want to again, so I'll just abruptly cut this review off to let you all go on with your lives. Never see this movie if you don't want your intelligence to be insulted. The script is incredibly weak at absolute best and the characters are either unlikable or flat. This film caused Disney much trouble do to it's miserable reception at the box-office, and for a good reason. It's about as dumb and cheap as you can get when it comes to the science fiction genre, and is one of the most miserable experiences I have ever had while watching a movie.