Ask any film analyst in Hollywood…leading up to its release, no one had much confidence in the drawing potential of Disney’s massively-budgeted sci-fi epic, John Carter, and that was largely due to obscure source material, a lack of truly bankable actors, and a thoroughly confusing marketing campaign. I doubt many people realize that John Carter is actually a pretty historic literary character, the protagonist of Edgar Rice Boroughs’ 11-volume sci-fi series that is credited with inspiring both Star Wars and Avatar. In terms of the top-billing actors, Taylor Kitsch is known for his work on the Friday Night Lights TV-series, and both he and leading-lady Lynn Collins have previously worked together in the sci-fi realm, thanks to 2009’s X-men Origins: Wolverine. Now, both the source material and previous work of the film’s stars could have been used to add credibility to John Carter, but for inexplicable reasons, Disney’s marketing campaign couldn’t seem to decide how it wanted to position the “blockbuster,” therefore keeping audience tracking ominously low. Needless to say, despite the rise in theater attendance in March, I’m sure more than a few movie executives lost sleep leading up to John Carter’s release and the massive $250 million production cost that had to be recovered.
Definitely creative and entertaining at certain points, John Carter does show some future potential for its relatively unknown stars, but beyond that, there is little to this sci-fi epic that justifies a nearly two-and-a-half hour running time or a $250 million budget. Taylor Kitsch certainly has the definitive tough-guy heroic swagger, and Lynn Collins is beautiful enough to keep your eyes onscreen, but the individual character development and co-star chemistry takes far too long to develop. If the energy and action of the last half hour were matched throughout the entire narrative, I guarantee that both critical and audience reaction would have gone through the roof, but the lack of familiarity with the source material necessitates far too much set-up and exposition, making it one tall order to sit back and wait for momentum to build. When it comes to the dialogue, I’m impressed that the actors made it through most of the scenes with straight faces, but that still doesn’t make it any easier to follow the story, which is already overshadowed by the sub-par special effects. Bottom line, there’s not much wisdom in paying to see a “blockbuster” that was released AFTER the classics it inspired and yet still failed to achieve anything memorable, or anything that hasn’t already been seen before in a far more effective manner.
Overall Recommendation: Low
