John Carter

This big-budget adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' science-fantasy novel A Princess of Mars is the (sort of) live-action debut of Pixar helmer Andrew Stanton, director of the incredibly overrated animated hits Finding Nemo and WALL-E. The film was the most notorious bomb of the year, with Disney sinking around 250 million into this space epic with no box-office stars. The rights to the Burroughs' Barsoom series, of which A Princess of Mars is the first book, have been in Disney's possession for decades, but when it finally came time to releasing the film, the heavily invested studio feared the word "Princess" in the title would not appeal to young boys and the word "Mars" in the title would not appeal to people who don't like sci-fi. So they changed the title to John Carter, a title that appeals to no one.

The film is filled with the usual digital characters battling each other, blowing stuff up, and leaping through the air in ways that might as well be flying. It generally defies all sense of our physical laws and even some of its own, but I think this is a decent picture—certainly better than its reviews and domestic box office performance would lead one to believe. First of all, this is based on books written 100 years ago, when we knew nothing about what Mars was like. Burroughs (who also wrote the Tarzan books) is one of the main writers responsible for creating the sci-fi genre. Viewed on these terms, one can accept that Mars might have air humans can breathe and sustain all kinds of other humanoid lifeforms.

But the main reason the film works is its light, humorous, but never tough-in-cheek tone. Stanton and co-writers Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon have written a youthful adventure script with quite a few laughs, and it is paced far better than either Finding Nemo or WALL-E—and better than most modern big-budget summer movies. In many ways, the film is a throwback to an older kind of sci-fi movie, but given the full 3D, CGI treatment. It is a contemporary Sword-and-Sandal-Picture with a sci-fi twist.

Unfortunately, the cast is rather forgettable. John Carter is a movie that cries out for strong, young leads, and while Taylor Kitsch and Lyn Collins are OK, they're not enough to carry the weight of this giant picture. The supporting cast are all playing digital aliens, so it almost doesn't matter who they are.