MRwM - John Carter

Warning: The following review contains spoilers as well as crazy opinions. To avoid being spoiled, ONLY READ what is in bold format. Any font that is not bolded MAY CONTIAN SPOILERS.

Movie Reviews with Moonpie
This Episode: JOHN CARTER

First Impressions

Okay, this movie seems like a good first review movie. It's not entirely terrible, but at the same time I can see why it flopped in the theaters.
The story is about a civil war vet who is transported to Mars where he needs to find his way back home. But there is a war, princess, and Martian culture that he gets mixed up with along the way making the task nearly impossible. Try to imagine Gladiator meets Aladdin meets Star Wars meets The Searchers.
The movie is actually based off of a book by Edgar Rice Burroughs called "A Princess of Mars" which was released in the early 20th century. A very strange choice for Disney. I mean, this is a book that even your grandparents may have a hard time remembering. Plus, the book wasn't that popular when it came out and copies of it are very hard to find today. What I do know about the book is that it was fairly advanced for its time. I don't know how much we knew about space or Mars in 1917, but at least the story was trying to put SOME science into the story.
The movie puts in… less effort. It seems as though the movie starts out good and slowly takes a downward turn as it progresses.
So let's jump into what made this movie so good/bad.

THE BAD

The Disney-Clichés
This, for me personally, killed the movie the most. This movie was covered in so many clichés that it is sickening. In fact, I remember watching this in theaters during the white ape battle scene and I left for the bathroom because I knew I WASN'T GOING TO MISS A DAMN THING. And I was right: I missed nothing.
I know Disney is really popular for creating half of the movie clichés we see today, but I would have thought by now they would be sick of their own clichés by now.
The worst one by far is in Princess Dejah. Honestly, I can say the word "princess" and I bet half of you know where this is going. We have a princess who is forced into marriage, runs away from her royal duties, is smarter than all of the scientists in her kingdom, and to top it all off, falls in love with our hero. And the worst part is that she isn't entirely that interesting, even if she didn't have those clichés.
Because of this, the plot was highly predictable and not too engaging, with the exception of one MAYBE two surprises in the whole thing. Thus the audience will be bored out of their minds.

The Logic
Oh my, was Mr. Miyagi playing with the logic in this movie?
Logic on. Logic off. Logic On. Logic Off.
This is unbearable.
Like I said before, I give the story SOME credit for interpreting SOME science into the setting. Fore example, since John Carter has a… lower bone-density or something (he's from Earth. That's all that really fills you in.) he can do simple tasks with more strength, like jumping thirty feet in the air. But after we acknowledge that, everything goes downhill. There are so many plot devices that make absolutely no sense. For instance, why did John's adoptive parent Sola get punished for giving John "juice" (we're just going to call it that. They never explain what it REALLY is) when the other parents were able to give the juice to their offspring as well? Why didn't princess Dejah kill Sab Than and end the war when she had a huge chance to do so? I could go on with the plot holes.
The biggest lack of logic can be seen through John Carter himself though. At the beginning of the film, he's smart enough to figure out that he's on Mars and suddenly know everything about the culture and politics of the planet. By the end of the film, when he has to stop the royal wedding, he actually goes to a city when he learned the wedding wasn't going to take place there HOURS BEFORE his plan had started. Actually, there's a part in the movie where the Martian leader slaps John in the head for being an idiot, and I laughed because that basically summed up the movie's logic. I also wondered why the Martian didn't do it sooner.

The Assumptions
I found that Disney did this a lot not only in the movies but even in the previews as well. Most, if not all, of the advertisements for this movie were like "Hey! There's this guy names John Carter! He's on another planet! He's a fierce warrior! THIS SHOULD MAKE SENSE TO YOU!" I can understand advertising that says "You need to go see the movie to find out what this is about." but that's only effective if the audience has enough information. This works for movies like Godzilla because people know who Godzilla is and what he does. This doesn't work for John Carter because very few people have even heard of the guy.
The fact that the audience has to assume doesn't stop there. the audience has to assume many things, like that it is NORMAL that half of the Martians look like actual aliens and the other half look like actual people. Assume that the big, fat, comic-relief, dog-creature CAN run at 500mph despite looking like the offspring of a bullfrog and a hippo. Assume that the Therns are destroying the planets because THEY HAVE A REASON TO which they will never tell you.
Honestly movie, is it that hard to explain a little more?

The Subplots
You know how much people hate being thrown into a story not knowing what is going on and having to catch up by themselves? This movie does that.
My gosh, in the first ten minutes alone, I have never been more confused in my life. John Carter is a business man, then there's a war on Mars, then John's nephew Ned inherits his uncle's property, then John just got out of the war, then he's on mars, then there's this smart princess, then-
ENOUGH!
You don't just throw people into a story like that! Pick a story and develop it PLEASE! It's like being thrown into a bad roller coaster ride where you want to get off after the first turn.

THE GOOD

The Costumes
I don't really pay much attention to outfits in movies because I focus more on the plot and characters first, but this movie had a great wardrobe. The outfits were unique enough so that the characters had their own style and were able to fight, plot, do whatever they needed to, but at the same time you were able to tell which team each character was playing for.
I make a joke about this movie that the only thing that got me through it was the fact that John Carter was shirtless in most of the movie (and oooooh baby, he's good) but his armor was both fitting to the story and very heroic-like. Don't worry boys. The princess has a wedding dress similar to princess Lea's whore outfit so you won't be disappointed either.

The Graphics
I don't need to tell you that this movie has CGI effects in it. But for this day and age, they weren't too bad. There was probably one bad scene with the white ape that I wasn't too fond of but everything else was done rather well.
Personally, I think the 3D would enhance the graphics and make them pop out a little more at you if you really wanted, but there's not really a need for that. The graphics by themselves are fairly nice and I give the movie credit where it's due.
Mars, or Barsoon as they call it, looks amazing. The cities are breath taking. Even the smaller villages are incredibly well done. The animators clearly put detail on everything and every scene making sure that nothing is left out or stands out for being too dull. Well, okay the plain deserts are a little dull I admit, but they're like an interesting kind of dull… if that makes sense. If you're a fan of graphics and animation, you'll be able to enjoy the scenery on the planet easily.

The Culture
As stated before, there are two types of Martians of Mars. The first type is the Tharks, the green, four-armed, taller Martians who live in a large village. The other types are the human-looking Martians, the "Red Martians" who live in Helium and Zodanga.
We don't see as much of Zodanga as I would have liked, but Helium is large grand and stands proudly, much like its people. They clearly care about their royals which is why the marriage that will end the war is such a big deal to then.
But the one that we see the most, and stands out the most, are the Tharks. I'm glad we got to see how these Martians interact, how they punished the bad, how they cared for their young. There was one scene that stood out to me where a Thark named Tars barks back at a greedy general. As he snaps, their… um… "tusks", lock with each other until the general finally stands down. For me it shows how a culture can be both civilized and also beastly like animals.
Though scenes like these are very rare in the movie, they are the scenes that define the movie the most. I honestly wish there were more scenes like these so we can see the cultures of each individual city and/or race. In fact, in the book, Helium and the Tharks are the ones at war, so it would have been interesting to see how that would have turned out.

Other Notes
-The character interactions were alright, but again they were predictable and not too interesting.
-The story itself was good, aside for the plot holes. It was fairly creative.

IS THE MOVIE WORTH IT?

Well… yes. I wouldn't say it was a Disney highlight and I can see why the movie flopped so hard as it did. But at the same time, I wish it had more people who enjoyed it. It's not a bad movie it's just a sloppy and lazy movie with some good points: like a research paper that was written the night before it is due.

YOU SHOULD SEE THE MOVIE IF…

-You are into animation and CGI.
-You like adventurous sci-fi movies with complex plots.
-You are able to withstand a Disney cliché without vomiting. Gagging is okay, but make sure you are in control.

For the best experience, I would recommend waiting until this movie came to a cheap theater that plays the movies weeks after they first come out. Don't bother with wasting your money on the 3D unless you are a DIE HARD ANIMATION FAN. I would try to watch this in a big screen with any sound system. You can see this movie with friends or by yourself. It doesn't really matter. This movie was made to be a masterpiece, but just turned out to be a little less than average. Still, it's worth seeing at least once.