Cowboys & Martians

Hi. Remember me? Yeah, me neither.

So, it’s been awhile. Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of why: I got burnt out. Never thought I’d see the day. And while I won’t place the blame solely on writing these reviews, I think I have to put the lion’s share there. I found myself squeezing in flicks for the sole purpose of writing reviews of them, and with all the stuff that comes out at the end of the year it got exhausting as hell. Also, I started to not enjoy myself at the theater, which is no good. Movies have always been an escape for me, and I found myself during the course of a flick thinking things like, “well, so far this movie’s a 7, but if they don’t address this awkward pacing, it’s going to drop to a 6. And I know exactly what I’m going to call the review…” etc. Basically, it was becoming work. Non-paid work. And I was becoming one of those douchey reviewer douches I can’t stand. So I pushed back from the table and gave up on dessert for awhile.

The compromise? I’ll still be frequenting the ‘plex, but I’ll only write when and if I feel like it, which will likely be a lot less than before. Sorry to all of you (or is that both of you?) that read these regularly. It really is appreciated.

Guh. Who let Mr. Morose in here? Let’s get our collective asses to Mars…

John Carter (OF MARS. I mean, seriously, why would Disney drop that part of the title? It’s got the word MARS in it, for chrissake! “John Carter” on its own doesn’t exactly make anyone think “Sci-Fi Actioner.” Did they hope to trick displaced ER fans that missed Noah Wyle’s character into the theater, or something? Uh… sorry. Way to bring your first review in, like, 3 months or something to a grinding halt right from the get-go, Bri. Whatever.): John Carter isn’t a bad movie. It has some stunning visuals, (mostly) good acting, interesting character/creature designs, and a good story. What it lacks is a through-line. Both on screen and off.

John Carter of Mars (Taylor Kitsch *giggle*) is a 19^th-century reluctant Confederate Civil War hero who, while searching for gold out west, stumbles upon a mysterious medallion in a mysterious cave that whisks him away to a mysterious world (MARS, Disney marketing guys, Mars is where he goes. And where 95% of the movie takes place. Idiots), where the change in atmosphere and gravity grant him superhero-like powers. Which is lucky for the locals- they’re embroiled in their own Civil War, and the good guys sure could use the help of a guy like John Carter of Mars and his new green friends, the Apache the Tharks.

OK, first and foremost- I hadn’t seen anything from Taylor Kitsch *hee hee!* beyond his turn as Gambit in the unfairly maligned X-Men Origins: Wolverine*, in which he’s, you know, there. Also, no, I don’t watch Friday Night Lights (and yes, you should just leave me alone about it). Anyway, his John Carter of Mars is much like his Gambit- just sort of… there. What I’m trying to say is, ladies, go ahead and enjoy the pouty man-child sculpted visualness of Mr. Kitsch *snort*, because you’re really not getting much in the way of performance beyond some gravelly, barked out half-sentences and the occasional “barbaric yawp.” Lynn Collins (Dejah Vu Thoris) fares much better, elevating her glorified Xena: Warrior Princess role into something just one floor shy of Shakespeare. Also, HOTTT. There’s some other secondary and tertiary performances of note, unsurprisingly put forth by some of the best TV actors of the last decade- Ciarán Hinds (Rome), Dominic West (The Wire), James Purefoy (Rome), Bryan Cranston (Breaking Malcolm In The Bad Middle). Some passable (if a bit underused) voice talent for the Na’vi the Tharks- Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton, Thomas Haden Church. And, of course, total badass Mark Strong enhances every scene he’s in. Again.

Michael Giacchino continues his tradition of creating solid film scores that positively compliment a movie without standing out like a sore thumb. Which is exactly what a score is supposed to do- provide an added boost of emotion to the proceedings. You shouldn’t be able to remember specific orchestral melodies that take place during a movie after seeing it only once.

The costumes were… passable, I guess. At times the Martian humanoids went a little too far on the Roman gladiator side of things, I guess, and the leather-stone-and-bone look of the green “natives” was a tad obvious, but neither was so egregious that they got in the way. I really only noticed during the chunks of time where I tuned out (read: the second act, mostly). I did dig the henna-tattoo thing, though. The “red capes vs. blue capes” finale thing? Not so much.

The special effects are mostly really good. The design and execution of the Gungans Tharks is certainly some of the best CGI I’ve seen. These creatures have been rendered so very realistically, right down to the crow’s feet at their eyes and the cracked and chipped (and, in one instance, broken) tusks protruding from their weathered faces. The baby Ewoks Tharks? Well… not so much. Same goes for John Carter of Mars’s sort of Purebreed Pug/Starship Troopers Brain Bug hybrid pet, “Woola” (which is too bad, because what a great little character!). But, honestly, ultimately, who cares if the CGI is a little spotty in places**. As long as the movie’s good, right?

So, was the movie good?

Well, yes. Good. It was good. But in the end that’s about all I can give it. “Why,” you ask?

I said something back up there somewhere about “through-line.” Not sure if that’s the right (hyphenated) word for it, but… I think you get it. Basically, what happened here is we’ve got all these elements (acting, visuals, costumes, etc.) that range from good to great on their own. But together? An awkward mashup. It’s as if all the separate talent that went in to making these elements never got together to decide what meshed and what didn’t. They just all brought their dishes to the table and served the meal, even though white wine doesn’t go well with marinara. I’m not sure I can think of a better way to describe it, so I hope that makes sense. In this way it reminded me of last summer’s dull thud Cowboys & Aliens (<;-click it!)– a movie that, considering the talent involved, should have worked like gangbusters. But, uh, didn’t. John Carter of Mars definitely fared better than C&A (I only checked out for a few minutes at a time, and only during the first two acts), but not by a wide margin, to be sure. And, hey, at least I can remember much of JCoM…

Another big problem? EPIC SCI-FI. John Carter of Mars is simply not an epic Sci-Fi movie. But MAN, OH MAN does it try SO HARD to be one. I mean, the (castrated? Amputated?) title alone brings you in to the thing expecting a very personal story about one man’s journey. In this case, it’s a man seeking a cause to believe in after experiencing the horrors of war and the death of his family. He’s a man disillusioned by his service to an army that no longer exists (he was a war hero for the “wrong side,” after all), and approached by another army that wants him to do even more morally ambiguous deeds (like help them to drive the Apache out of their own lands). And suddenly he finds himself in the exact same situation on another planet. But before we can care about what JCoM is going to do, we’re bombarded by populous Martian races, alien technology, sacred burial grounds, flying warships, green Martian baby hatcheries, shape-shifting bad guys, language-translating milk (yup), fast-running brain-bug dogs, societal power-struggles, anti-gravity hijinks***, impending unfair arranged marriages, etc… etc… And the filmmakers seem to think each and every one of these things is SUPER IMPORTANT and must be PROMINENTLY FEATURED. Seriously, the only peaks and valleys this movie has are in the landscape. And with all these distractions, how are we supposed to feel about the title character of Mars? Who cares. Director Andrew Stanton sure didn’t seem to (god that’s hard to type. The man brought us A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo, and Wall*E, for fuck’s sake). And, yeah, it didn’t help that said title character of Mars was basically played by a pale, grunting man child, but I think the fault lies elsewhere. And while I pointed out Stanton above, I think there are two other places where something went even wrong… er: the screenplay & the editing. Lemme (attempt to) explain.

This film is an adaptation of A Princess Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I haven’t read it. But from what I understand, it has a strong following (and, like 200 sequels in print (exaggeration)). I’m sure it features everything we see on screen and more, but… isn’t it the job of the adaptER of Mars to pick and choose what gets adaptED? And isn’t it said screenwriter’s solemn duty to make his work, you know, flow? Also, if something isn’t working, or is obviously killing a desired pace, isn’t it the job of the editor to cut a scene or two out of the thing? “BLASPHEMY!” you say? I point you to the director’s cut of Aliens. If you haven’t seen it, do. There’s some really great stuff in there… that landed on the cutting room floor for a reason. We didn’t need a 20-minute sequence establishing the colony that gets wiped out (we literally learn everything we need to know in 2 or 3 lines from “Van Leuwen”), and we knew enough about Ripley without the scene where we find out she had a daughter that died an old lady while Lt. Ellen slept in a cryo-tube (we know plenty about her motherly instincts from her dealings with Newt). I could go on, but I’m already off topic. So… where was I? Right. John Carter of Mars. From the midway point of the first act through the end of the second, we’re “treated” to these short scenes that don’t allow for any coherent through-line. Example: there’s a sequence where John Carter of Mars, Deja Vu, Brain Bug, and the Green Girl (not the Star Trek one) make a pilgrimage to some holy land, or whatever, to… uh… wait, why DID they go there? You see? So much stuff thrown at you in such a fragmented way that I can’t even remember WHY. So frustrating. I think they went there so we’d get some cool visual effects. Anyway, my point was that these travelling scenes could have worked as a wordless montage, but John Carter of Mars is the kind of movie that feels the need to stop every few minutes and give you unnecessary, repetitive “exposition” instead of letting the visuals do the talking (again, a head-scratcher, considering Mr. Stanton’s involvement. The first act of Wall*E was mostly non-verbal. I should probably just assume Disney had their micromanaging hooks in during every aspect of the process here. Because it’s not really a stretch to assume that). And getting back to the whole “adaptation” thing- it’s OK to leave some stuff out. There’s little doubt that the Lord Of The Rings trilogy is one of the greatest accomplishments in cinematic history (unless you have no soul), yet there are countless deleted chapters, merged moments, and changed characters in its adaptation. Because such omissions serve the narrative of the FILM. If your favorite book has been adapted for the screen and you’re mad that Tom Bombadil or the Elf Liberation Front or the 21^st Chapter or the Tyrannosaurus river chase was left out, I suggest you crack open a book, or a Kindle, or an iPad, or something and reread it. Complaining about it can only result in more unnecessarily bloated movies. Like John Carter of Mars.

I don’t want to leave you thinking John Carter of Mars is a waste of your time. It isn’t. It’s a post-production mess, but you can still see it has heart. And everything it gets right, it really gets right. Which is why the stuff it gets wrong is so damned frustrating. Also frustrating? All this talk about how Disney is “set to lose 200 million dollars,” when it’s obviously the combination of their incessant tinkering and marketing shortfalls that caused said loss. But following numbers is a whole different discussion that I’m surely not ready for.

So, a rating?

Um… I’ve become even more uncomfortable about assigning numeric grades to these things (see the preamble at the top for the gist), so I’m going to keep it really basic from now on. I’ll either like, dislike, or have no real opinion of a movie. Basically a thumbs up/down/sideways-type of thing (and hopefully that doesn’t sound too much like that bitter queen Ebert). I might try and refine it a little later on, but for now, John Carter of Mars gets…

A Somewhat Unenthusiastic Thumbs-Up for a movie with a little heart, but too much fat.

12/17/12 EDIT!!!!!: I have seen many more movies this year, and I now know my thumbs-up from my elbow.  So, as Lucas of me as it is, I’m retroactively changing this one to a THUMBS-SIDEWAYS.  I mean, just look at my face up there.  If that isn’t a thumbs-sideways face, I don’t know what is.

*no, Wolverine of Mars isn’t The Godfather. It ain’t Drive. Hell, it’s hardly even Green Lantern. But it’s a lot more watchable than the über nerds and their stinky opinions would have you believe. They’re just mad that their man-crush Hugh Jackman didn’t turn lead to gold. Or adamantium. Whichever.

**I love it when people complain about CGI looking so fake, then they go back and watch obvious blue screen stop-motion in their favorite 80’s action flick and pretend it looks seamless.

***that shit got so old so soon, and they were still making such a big deal of it in almost every scene up until the end, like “leaping tall buildings in a single bound” was the most original visual effect ever created, ever. Again, pacing, y’all. Editing.