A Movie Review: John Carter

John Carter. John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) finds himself transported to Mars where he meets some fascinating characters who are entangled in a war. This movie got a lot of press for the huge write-down that Disney needed to take. As for the movie itself? Not bad, but not great. I do love attempts at a grand vision of a new world. For example, in literature, the Dune series. For movies, the first Star Wars trilogy or the Lord of the Rings trilogy (along with the books). An example of a movie that attempted this vision, but didn’t quite make it would be The Chronicles of Riddick. John Carter falls in the camp of Riddick. It just didn’t get there. One reason, and maybe my viewing was ruined by my reading Roger Ebert’s review before hand: if folks can shoot with what appear to be lasers and glide through the air in flying contraptions, why in the world was there so much sword fighting? Of course, one might want to view this through the lens of the Civil War-era when there probably was still a lot of close range sword fighting along with the use of guns. Beyond that, I didn’t feel that certain expects of the movie were explained properly. What exactly was the role of those god-like figures? And why did they not take a more active role in pushing their vision? I know this was all addressed in the movie to some degree so maybe I should give the movie another chance to grow on me.