John Carter (of Mars): not a review.
Mar. 31st, 2012 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbSo today I set out on my intrepid journey across Athens to find the one cinema (in the not-quite-a-suburb of Pangrati) that was showing John Carter. This cinema lairs in a shopping centre that is tiny even compared to Irish shopping centres, slightly dingy, and, well, all told? Not very prepossessing, although four storeys tall inside.
It took me an hour and some to walk across the city, and I had time to lunch on chips and coke in a nearby KFC outlet before I bought my ticket, since I'd left myself a Getting Lost margin that I turned out not to need.
I was the only person in the cinema.
John Carter is better and more coherent than the hot mess that was Conan (2011). It beats out Transformers and POTC: On Stranger Tides as well. In terms of coherency, it probably has an edge on the last Indiana Jones film.
Don't get me wrong, it's an entertaining film. But Taylor Kitsch, who plays our titular male lead, has only limited charisma and screen presence. He's pretty, but pretty isn't nearly enough to carry a film. His essential blandness wasn't helped by the directorial choice to play things large and exaggerated: much of the framing has a comic-book feel, and such a choice needs someone with screen presence (Johnny Depp, for example, or Liam Neeson, or Idris Elba, or Matt Damon) to keep it from veering into the cartoonish.
But it has airships and explosions and TWO WOMEN. A green woman with four arms (Sola) voiced by Samantha Morton, and Lynn Collins' Dejah Thoris, Regent of the Royal Helium Academy of Science. (She's the daughter of a king, but by god, she introduces herself as a scientist first.) These two women don't talk to each other. But in their own ways, they both drive the plot much more than the titular Carter. Who is out-charisma'd in every scene by everyone around him, but particularly by Collins.
Apart from the airships and a couple of moments of Pure Awesome involving Dejah Thoris (Scientist Princess!) it didn't hit my narrative squids. But it wasn't a wasted two hours, either: it's entertaining planetary romance, and airships! It has airships! (I forgive much for airships, and scientists with swords.)
Sadly, Dejah Thoris would be more awesome if she and the green lady ran away together, rather than falling in lust with John Carter. Her lust/love actions only make sense if she's trying to get him to join her cause, because really? What does a smart, tough girl like her see in him apart from his muscles?
Some nice touches: several random spear-carriers were women, and their armour (or lack of it) was just like everyone else's. Airships! Landscape shots.
Things that didn't make me happy: the Mysterious Ebil Guys' motivations are completely inexplicable. Apart from Destruction Gives Us A Happy, which is not a very sensible motivation?
It took me an hour and some to walk across the city, and I had time to lunch on chips and coke in a nearby KFC outlet before I bought my ticket, since I'd left myself a Getting Lost margin that I turned out not to need.
I was the only person in the cinema.
John Carter is better and more coherent than the hot mess that was Conan (2011). It beats out Transformers and POTC: On Stranger Tides as well. In terms of coherency, it probably has an edge on the last Indiana Jones film.
Don't get me wrong, it's an entertaining film. But Taylor Kitsch, who plays our titular male lead, has only limited charisma and screen presence. He's pretty, but pretty isn't nearly enough to carry a film. His essential blandness wasn't helped by the directorial choice to play things large and exaggerated: much of the framing has a comic-book feel, and such a choice needs someone with screen presence (Johnny Depp, for example, or Liam Neeson, or Idris Elba, or Matt Damon) to keep it from veering into the cartoonish.
But it has airships and explosions and TWO WOMEN. A green woman with four arms (Sola) voiced by Samantha Morton, and Lynn Collins' Dejah Thoris, Regent of the Royal Helium Academy of Science. (She's the daughter of a king, but by god, she introduces herself as a scientist first.) These two women don't talk to each other. But in their own ways, they both drive the plot much more than the titular Carter. Who is out-charisma'd in every scene by everyone around him, but particularly by Collins.
Apart from the airships and a couple of moments of Pure Awesome involving Dejah Thoris (Scientist Princess!) it didn't hit my narrative squids. But it wasn't a wasted two hours, either: it's entertaining planetary romance, and airships! It has airships! (I forgive much for airships, and scientists with swords.)
Sadly, Dejah Thoris would be more awesome if she and the green lady ran away together, rather than falling in lust with John Carter. Her lust/love actions only make sense if she's trying to get him to join her cause, because really? What does a smart, tough girl like her see in him apart from his muscles?
Some nice touches: several random spear-carriers were women, and their armour (or lack of it) was just like everyone else's. Airships! Landscape shots.
Things that didn't make me happy: the Mysterious Ebil Guys' motivations are completely inexplicable. Apart from Destruction Gives Us A Happy, which is not a very sensible motivation?
