FILM REVIEW: John Carter


There’s no nice way to say this, but John Carter is not a movie you want to watch, especially on Big Screen. For all of 132 minutes and some KPLC interference in between, the much hyped movie adaptation of books by Tarzan author Edgar Burroughs failed to deliver.

It took an amazing $250 million, or approximately Sh20 billion, to make and despite opening top in the US and UK box offices last week, has only raked in a quarter of what was spent, so far.

The movie is about John Carter, a bitter ex-soldier whose childish and daring escapades send him to Mars by mistake. He is captured by green long legged maasai resembling ‘aliens’ amazed by his jumping abilities. His bid to head back to earth is foiled by the irresistible Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins) a damsel/princess in distress.

Collins is horribly miscast in this movie, with a monologue that needs at least two coats of sugar. Ciaran Hinds was a surprise cast for the film but his role was not big enough to bring out his talent.

The movie is directed by Andrew Stanton, the genius responsible for Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc. His expertise is evident in the fact that the humans were severely outplayed by the aliens and space dogs and white apes. It’s almost evident that Stanton is more skilled in bringing animations to life than he is actors ~ and voices don’t count.

The spectacular graphics and sheer size of the sets they must have had to work with were impressive, but not enough to rate the movie higher than its very tiring story.

The story went through so many twists and turns, it’s easy for an audience to lose track of what the main point was. To Stanton’s credit though, the end of the movie was not as obvious as the rest of it.

Carter himself, Taylor Kitsch, did a good acting job and two of the green aliens, voiced by Willem Dafoe (Tars Tarkus) and Samantha Morton (Sola) were remarkable.

Overall rate for this Disney film is: 4/10.

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