Friday 9 March 2012

John Carter

We are actually looking at a character that was created 100 years back!!! Would you believe it??? By one of the leading authors / creators of our time. By an person who gave us one of the most memorable characters to ever be born – Tarzan. Yes. John Carter is also a child of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ imagination. He was created in 1912 and the Disney picked up a fine time to hit the screens. 100 years!!! And that too with a character that carries the name of the maker. How cool is that.

But one cannot help but wonder as to why did anyone take 100 years to come up with John Carter the Movie? From the looks of the trailer, it seems like a movie that would not be remotely short on entertainment value. The stunts seem to be miraculous to say the least. The characters are very Star Warish for lack of any other word – ergo the possibility of a fan following is huge to say the least (don’t even think that I am for once indicating that Star Wars in replaceable in any manner). Then why would it take 100 years for any production house to pick the story of John Carter and explode it onto the silver screen? Lucky for Disney that no one else did it to date.

Andrew Stanton had the backing of Finding Nemo and Wall E – 2 Animation movies that would get into the top 10 list for Animation – Any Given Sunday. And therefore, the expectations from his side were not ill placed at all. To say that he has disappointed would be unfair. But he hasn’t come upto the levels that one would have expected.

A lot of work has been done with the special effects to spruce up the movie but the screenplay and the narration get a tad complicated for the average audience as the movie moves at a brisk pace. One could not fault the audience if they were to get too confused between Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and Tal Hajus (Thomas Haden Church) and Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins) and Tardos Mors (Ciarán Hinds) and Matai Shang (Mark Strong). Kinda difficult to keep up unless you have read the books and are familiar with the story. Very Star Warish as mentioned earlier. And capable of gaining cult status like Star Wars also.

What Stanton does well though is to keep the story alive through the 130+ minutes. Gives us great quality of action sequences. Gets the near plebian star cast (except Hinds and Strong) to act a bit. And he is supported with the voices of the reliable Willem Dafoe and Thomas Haden Church. He has also left enough of a window to go into a sequel/s. And most importantly finishes off with a nice little twist. Watch out for it. Well done Mr.Stanton & more importantly Mr. Burroughs.

John Carter is a movie that can be seen by people from all walks of life and all ages. There is nothing offensive in the least. Trust Disney to make clean family movies. Definitely on your must watch list for the weekend. 7 on 10. Big screen entertainer.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2340397337/

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