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. 

A look at the hidden story you never knew in The Lion king.

The Lion king, released in 1994 is a classic Disney animation that has garnered extremely positive reviews and grossed almost $1billion dollars. The movie has won 2 academy awards, and a golden globe award.  The movie was the highest grossing animated movie of the time. The plot of this movie is pretty straightforward and enjoyable for the whole family. Or is it?

PLOT:  You see the plot of the lion king is basically that the king of the pride of lions, Mufasa has a son. All the animals of the area are gathered to bow before the new cub that is born. years later when the son, Simba is put in a dangerous situation by his uncle Scar and then when Mufasa tries to save him, Scar makes sure Mufasa dies, then tells Simba to run away. Scar being the next in line since Simba is gone becomes king, lets the hyenas that were banished come to the plentiful land. Simba meanwhile had been found by a meerkat Timon and a warthog Pumba. They teach him a fun song about a laid back lifestyle. Years later when he is grown up he goes back to his home and kills Scar and takes his rightful place as king and prosperity returns to the land, and all is hunky dory.

NO!

Scar: The truth is you have to see the movie from the point of view of Scar. He is born into a family of ruling monarchs. The king lion rules over a harem of women that ONLY the king can have access to while all other males are banished never to be able to reproduce.  Another pack animal the Hyenas are banished to the wastelands with their families to starve and barely scrape by with whatever they can found in desolation. Scar grows up not having any power, future, respect, and is the second rate son who will never amount to anything. He sympathizes with the oppressed group of the hyenas and wants to improve their lives from the continual oppressive monarchy.  In his frequent visits to the badlands Scar works on his dream to become a professional grade choreographer and creates a stunning show of dance, singing, and rocks coming out of the ground with tasteful steam and fire.  When his brother Mufasa takes over, and has a son; all the animals of Africa are forced to come and bow down before a new prince, and their next ruler. Now you have to look at this. The lions are the top dogs of the plains; all the other animals have to be killed with no say in whether or not their children and sick get eaten. They are under the complete power of the lions, and are forced in slave labor to maintain the luxurious lawn of the king. Scar sees this oppression because he is almost a 3rd party. Scar knowing that the only way to fix the evil that has been going on in the land, kills his brother and makes Simba leave. Scar allows the starving group of hyenas to come and eat in the land, and allows the animals that eat, fertilize, and spread vegetation do as they please. The animals leave the land of their previous oppressors because they do not wish to remember those dark times. Scar then has to deal with the grumbling of his people, because now instead of having their prey handed to them, all trapped in one place like sitting ducks, the lionesses have to actually travel a few miles to go work for their food. Scar is under the pressure of sustaining his own people, while balancing a fair government that does not discriminate or oppress. As the movie wages on you can see how he gets thinner and the stress of leading is getting to him. Now we have to go to the other story that is happening parallel to scar's.

Simba: After his uncle successfully overthrew the oppressive dictatorship / monarchy that hung over the land, Simba ran away. After running for possibly days he collapsed just outside a jungle due to heat exhaustion. 2 friendly animals, Timon, and Pumba decided to care for him and raise him together. They taught him to live with the sins of his forefathers, sloth, greed, and gluttony. For years of his life Simba was taught that life requires no work, and you should just sit around and eat, sleep, and play 24/7. This is a terrible thing that parents are allowing their children to learn. Simba forgets his past and lives a life of laziness and gluttony. One day a lioness who was a childhood friend of his just shows up looking for food and they talk. She is sick and tired of having to work for food, and wants to go back to the old custom of rounding up the animals and herding them to slaughter. So she then uses her seduction to lead Simba back to his homeland and kill Scar the liberator. Simba travels for about 1 minute in the movie while music is playing and feet pounding to make him seem heroic. Upon the arrival to his home nobody is happy to see him, except the lions. Scar tries to defend the peaceful life that he created in the land, but a storm brews in the sky and it strikes a tree with lightning and makes a large fire. Simba uses the opportunity to throw scar into the fire, and slay the real good guy. Simba then takes over as the king of the land, and established a strict dictatorship of the area. All vegetarian animals are rounded up from their homes, and forced to stay in the lions land. Every season the new children must be sacrificed as food to the lions, and slave labor is enforced to keep the massive 5,000 acre lawn of the king all green. The hyenas are forced back into desolate wastelands to starve again and the lion pride is allowed to go back to sloth, Greed, gluttony and continue the perpetual cycle of evil, and oppression.

To sum it all up: The story shown in this movie is basically the same as the warlords of Africa that go and slaughter, rape, and torture innocent people. They take whatever they want, and try to have complete control. The lions are White, and the hyenas are dark, so it’s pretty much like South Africa where the white people drove the black people out of their fertile land and into the desert wasteland. The lighter colored lions have supremacy over the dark colored hyenas, making this movie pretty racist. When all the innocent animals are released from the lions’ land, their slave labor is no longer there to care for the acres and acres of grass, and so it withers away due to the sloth of the lions. Mufasa was an oppressive king and Scar brought peace, and freedom to the land. The lazy son of Mufasa who hadn't had to work a day in his life came and restored dictatorship to the land and re-established slave labor and mass slaughter of children to his homeland and got to have a big harem of lionesses to make him a bunch of cubs that could grow up one day and continue the “Circle of life”. In the end the movie has terrible morals, and makes the good guy look evil, and makes a hero of the bad guy. The lion king has a hidden plot that most people have not been able to see, because of Disney’s clever cover up with pretty colors, music, and smartly fabricated lies.

“The truth Hurts”

This has been a deep analysis of The Lion King, by Jared Read

Equilibrium Review

As of the writing of this review, Equilibrium has a 37% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. By contrast, Minority Report has a 93%, Titanic has 87%, and Avatar has 83%. Critcis critisize Equilibrium for being stupid. So... why do those three insults to human intelligence have such a high rating? As a matter of fact, Equilibrium isn't even bad, and it certainly raises a lot more genuinely thought-provoking questions that all three of them combined. It's flawed and uneven, but overall, it's good. 

The story starts after a third world war in a city-state known as Libria. After the war, one unified government took control and looked for the cause for the destruction in order to prevent it. The answer? Emotion. Faith. Opinions. Everything that seperates us from machines and makes us the imperfect beings that we are: humans. Yes, it was our own humanity that started this war. And so, Libria produces a drug that eliminates all emotions and forces their citizens to take it. 

Of course, most people eventually comform and sell their souls. However, predictably, not everyone does, and this is where the plot begins. Interestingly enough, the writers made a surprsing choice to tell start the story off not from the point of view of the rebels, but of a comformist named John Preston. He is a cleric, or assassin who deals with "sense-offenders"; those who reject the drug in return for their own humanity. Father, the universal dictator of the land, sends him and other clerics off to deal with the rebellion. 

Two things instantly struck me at the beginning of this story: one, the concept is amazing. The fact that the movie mostly deals with emotionless characters and still stays interesting throughout is a miracle in itself. Just watching John do his job at the beginning of the film and seeing just how cold he and everyone else has become is intriguing, especially when his partner ends up "betraying" him and stops taking the drug, forcing John to kill him with no regret. On a storytelling level, it all begins very well. 

Unfortunately, this is also where my first gripe with the movie comes up. Note that, as an action fan, I find this aspect of the film to be freakishly awesome; however, from an objective, reviewing stance, the action scenes don't fit with the thoughtful story. We have asssassins who are essentially ninjas with guns. Again, awesome, but how does that fit into what the movie is actually about? It just... doesn't. 

Harrison Carsh, January 20, 2013 

Anyway, we soon learn that John does, to an extent, feel emotion as he dreams. His wife died, and as he sleeps, the feeling of loss finds it's way to him somehow. So much, in fact, that the next morning, he skips out on his drug dose after the canister breaks, and decides to not replace it, intrigued the feeling of... feeling for the first time. 

And my goodness, this is handled EXCEPTIONALLY. During the sequence, John slowly becomes more and more human. He feels regret for murdering his partner. The loss of his wife huants him. The robotic actions of everyone, even his own children, begins eating him away. Finally, in perhaps the greatest scene in the movie (and personally one of my favorite scenes ever), John discovers a stash of artwork. Snowglobes. Paintings. Music. He cries for the first time in his whole life, realizing that it will all burn. And it does, with him watching. He realizes that the government is waging war on the human mind itself. And so, he sets to bring it down. Will the world be perfect? No. It will be even less "perfect" technically than it is under Father's control. Emotion is dangerous. But if we remove it, what are we? 

Thus, the movie, at it's core, a story of us. If we remove emotion, there would be no war, no pain, no heartbreak. By all means, it would be a more effecient way to exist. But the point of the movie is that it would simply be existed; without feeling, one cannot truly live. 

This topic is explored, and it's endlessly interesting, as is the story itself. However, there are flaws. I don't think that they necessarily ruin the movie by any means, but they do damage it. I already mentioned the action sequences; they're cool, but out of place. The other problem that I have is generally exclusive to the final act; it concludes dar too quickly. An exposition would have given the movie a knockout punch; instead, the final battle ends, and it's all over. I really wanted to see what the ending of the story meant for the world; the movie more than implies what it means, but for a movie that stresses the importance of feeling, the ending is ironically robotic. Just 5-10 more minutes worth of screenplay would have done the film good.

As it is, however, Equilibrium is a good movie. Even when its at its absolute worst, it never gets boring; and when its at its absolute best, its enthralling. So, in conclusion, while still quite a bit unbalanced and lazy in areas, Equilibrium is worth at least one viewing. It won't be the most memorable or incredible movie you'll ever see, but it's a solid action flick with a great message.