John Carter

Mention the word “John” followed by the word “Carter” at the Disney studio’s at the moment and you’ll be taking your own life into your hands. As I type this the Mouse House is currently staring down the barrel of an estimated $200 million dollar loss on this film. That, my friends, is some hit to take. So how did this come to pass and, perhaps more crucially, how did this happen to a film which isn’t actually all that bad? A quick outline of the story first. Following the death of former Confederate soldier John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) the film is then told in flashback as his nephew reads from Carter’s journal. What we discover is a pretty bonkers story (based on some of the Carter novels written by Edgar Rice Burroughs) involving planets, Martians and warfare. Despite having quite a few flaws (some awful special effects, mediocre 3D, a killer running time and an ending that makes no sense) this is actually more entertaining than not. It’s also sporadically very funny, though what with director Andrew Stanton’s (making his live-action debut here) Pixar background this is hardly surprising. The biggest problem the film has is its confusing screenplay. Nothing much makes much sense or is all that well explained when it comes to the background behind the inhabitants of Mars. So, is that the main reason why has this been such a massive flop then? Personally I can see two reasons. The first is the film’s title. John Carter says about as much to me as David Smith. I understand that Disney were reluctant to put Mars in the title (see the internet for details regarding the previous times they’ve been burned with that issue) but John Carter on its own just doesn’t work, especially when the main character is being played by a virtual no-one. For example, John Carter starring Christian Bale would pull them in regardless. John Carter starring Taylor Kitsch, has not. Secondly the marketing for this film has been all over the place and has basically made it look like a poor man’s Tarzan. Again, which modern audiences are going to want to watch that? Not many it seems. Having said that (as I’m only finally now posting this some weeks after I wrote it), I’ve just seen that the film has started to return strong figures from the European box-office, so at least it appears this won’t be appearing in the worst flops list after all, which, to be fair, it didn’t really deserve to in the first place anyway.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
At the end of the day this is enjoyable trash, which is surely better than being just trash?  Rating: 7/10.