Maybe the highest compliment that can be paid to
John Carter, the long-awaited version of
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is that it looks just like it ought to look. Again & again, watching it, I was struck by how seamlessly the filmmakers had captured the visual flavor of the cover paintings of ‘70s-era sci-fi-fantasy paperbacks, by the likes of Frank Frazetta & Boris Vallejo & the Brothers Hildebrandt & James Bama.
These covers, often far more than the reprinted pulp tales from a generation or two earlier that they enclosed, had an effect on the imaginative landscape of Boomer-era boys that shouldn’t be underestimated, & the degree to which
John Carter brings them to life is no small achievement. The green, six-limbed Tharks, the elite Red Martians, the rampaging White Apes, the cityscapes, the flying machines, even the hero’s endearing dog-like companion Woola—all of them struck this Burroughs reader as just right visually, & the battles, duels & gladiatorial combats are excitingly staged by director Andrew Stanton.
This makes it all the more disappointing to report that the movie isn’t the knockout that it wants to be. It’s terrific in stretches, but overall it’s tiring, with little of the book’s hearty, free-wheeling sense of storytelling panache.
Originally serialized as
Under the Moons of Mars in 1912,
A Princess of Mars was enormously influential on popular fiction in the 20th Century—even more so, possibly, than that later & more iconic Burroughs yarn
Tarzan of the Apes. It tells the story of a former Confederate officer, John Carter, who, under attack by Apaches while prospecting in the Arizona Territory, suddenly finds himself mysteriously transported to the surface of the planet Mars, or “Barsoom” as it’s called by its inhabitants.
It’s a dying desert world, peopled by perpetually warring tribes of various bizarre races. Carter is caught up in these conflicts, & the lower gravity, coupled with the intrepidity & brash, boyish courage common to Burroughs heroes, makes him a virtual superman, & thus a legendary warrior among the Martians. He becomes an ally/friend of the fierce but honorable Thark chieftan Tars Tarkas, & also with the loyal Thark female Sola, & he also finds love with the beautiful Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium.
Silly as all this sounds—& is—this rambling adventure narrative can give a heart-lifting delight. The movie, for all its craft, & for all its diligence in tidying up the source material’s 19th-Century chauvinisms, doesn’t come close. It’s badly overlong, & while the dialogue is intelligent, the screenwriters—Stanton, Mark Andrews & Michael Chabon are credited—weigh down the movie with layers of confusing, unnecessary & wearyingly “grown-up” exposition & backstory.
In this way
John Carter is, regrettably, very much like the latter-day
Star Wars trilogy. As with those films, the filmmakers seem to have been so intent on not treating the material as kid stuff that they forgot that kid stuff was exactly what we wanted from it—& just what Burroughs always gave us.
Another part of the disappointment may be that Taylor Kitsch, who plays Carter, isn’t quite up to it. He has a fine physique but a callow, somehow unmemorable beauty & no particular presence as an actor. The character is saddled, again unnecessarily, with a tragic backstory in the spaghetti-western vein, & he speaks in the same manner as Christian Bale in
The Dark Night, that growl by which unconfident young leading men of our era try to project heartsick manliness, but which really just makes them sound like they need a lozenge.
One of Kitsch’s supporting players, James Purefoy as the valiant Kantos Kan, might have done better with the title role; he has a relaxed, swashbuckling charm. On the other hand, Lynn Collins fits the role of Dejah Thoris, here admirably more Amazon than damsel in distress, perfectly—gorgeous & regal, yet likable.
It’s especially gratifying that in modern-day Hollywood, Collins was entrusted with a romantic lead at the crone-like age of…34.
