Yes, based on Edward R. Burroughs beloved sci-fi novels, John Carter is the epic that I don't think anyone was really waiting for. Mostly because my generation had never even heard of it. And I'm sure Burroughs appreciated being in the film and the suggestion that the story actually happened to a relative of his (not).
Anyways, John Carter is an old Confederate soldier looking for gold. His wife and daughter died in a fire, they never show who killed them and now John is avenging them by finding gold? I guess?
Well, the gold is located in a room that magic priests from mars (sorry, Barsoom) use to travel between planets. John Carter (Taylor Kitsch, in another humongous flop of a movie) gives the priest a taste of good old American bullets in his stomach before accidentally transporting himself to Mars. (Again, they call it Barsoom if you didn't get that).
Once on Mars, John discovers that he has the superpower of jumping really high because gravity isn't that strong compared to Earth (Jasoom). Normally, that means he'd walk around like he was constantly on a trampoline but it only applies to jumping, and punching. And only sometimes when punching. Some people go flying, others just get punched. And when he uses a sword all of a sudden his power goes away. You'd think the instant he picked up a sword he could slice through anything like butter. NOPE. Anyone that's normal can block his sword attacks. Until he punches them.
There is a lot of nitpicky stuff, like the bad guy has an all powerful superlaser that he conveniently forgets to use in the end. The native america metaphor species the thrak are the stupidest, most easily influenced aliens I've ever seen. And the love interest likes to say "John Cahtah, of urth" as often as stupidly possible.
On the other hand, the graphics are decent, Taylor Kitsch is amusing and it's your basic run of the mill marraige/war plot with magical undertones. They just didn't execute it very well. Oh and Bryan Cranston has a 4 minute part. That was sweet.
2 out of 4 stars
-Christopher O'Connell
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