Disclaimer: This review was earlier published on Mouthshut, but I’m re-uploading it, as the category was wrong the last time.
Its One of the advantages of living in a metro, is the fact that you are able to watch a paid-preview, a day before the movie officially releases. It’s a win-win situation both for the theatre owners who get to gauge audience reactions, and the rest of us, who get to see it first! Well, too much of studies on, with the kids having their exams, and what better way to give them a break than to take them for a movie. The promos for ‘John Carter’ indicated that it was a Walt Disney production, made at a huge cost of over$ 250 million, a sci-fi thriller with action-packed adventure, and so my feeling was that a production house like Walt Disney Pictures, which has given us so many memorable movies cannot go wrong. And….my feeling was proved correct on all counts. John Carter was a memorable, awesome movie, which is not only worth watching once, but perhaps more than once, as you would invariably catch many of the nuances of the movie the second or third time around.
Based on a character created by Edgar Rice Borroughs(The creator of Tarzan), in a story “The Princess of Mars”, the movie is about John Carter(Taylor Kitsch), a civil war veteran in 19th Century America, who is more interested in finding his own wealth, and is some sort of rebel who hates working for somebody else. Running from his own soldiers and the Apache red-Indian warriors, he finds himself in a cave wherefrom he gets transported to Mars. He shrugs off his initial wonder, and begins to enjoy his superpowers due to the lower gravity of Mars. Just when he is beginning to enjoy himself, he finds himself becoming a prisoner of the Tharks, the original 12-feet inhabitants of the red planet, which they call Barsoom. He keeps constantly plotting his escape, but things get complicated when he encounters the beautiful Deja Thoris(Lynn Collins), who is the Princess of Helium. She herself is out finding a saviour who can save her from marriage to a hated person who wants to take over the planet(her father wants the marriage to take place as the only option to save the planet), and to, on a more important scale, save the planet. The movie is brilliant, the scope vast, the picturisation stupendous. The shots of the stark Mars landscape are stunning.
A comparison with Avatar of James Cameron is inevitable, as both movies have been made on a very grand scale. But its amazing to say the least, that Andrew Stanton(dir) has made a movie with 1/5th the budget of Avatar, with equally amazing special effects.
I am not a movie connoisseur and as such, had never heard of the main characters of the movie before. But, Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins(from Texas, who has a Shakespearean background) have done remarkable justice to the roles they play. Understated elegance marks both their roles, and needless to say, we shall be seeing plenty more of them in the years ahead.
The screenplay could have been better. For an Indian audience especially, crisp dialogues is the need, and at many places, you have to really strain your ears to make out what they actors are saying. Blame it on the subtitled serials we get to watch on TV! The plot is quite complicated and needs your undivided attention. Music by Michael Giachinno suits the story and the backdrop. 132 minutes for the movie is perhaps not enough, as there was much more that could have been covered due to the vastness of scope of the story.
The film ending is stunning and well-executed, leaving you gasping for more. Andrew Stanton has given us a movie which has all the makings of a block-buster, never mind the recent Newsweek article that says this movie could be one of the biggest flops from the house of Disney. I am sure there would be a sequel. Take your kids(PG 13). You will not regret the outing.