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/

X Men Origins - Wolverine

What defines a successful movie franchise? Or for that matter, any successful franchise? I would guess it would be scalability. In the easiest possible manner. When the first edition of X Men, directed by Bryan Singer was released 10 years back, I think the makers would have given serious thought to ensure that it was not the last time an X Men movie was released. 3 successful movies later, it was only natural that they go into letting people know how they all started in the first place. One can’t help but think that Wolverine is the first in the series of X Men Origins. Actually, one would hope that this is not the last coz they are all very well made to say the least. And they have Stan Lee and Jack Kirby to thank for starting it all nearly 50 years back.
James Howlett, as a young boy, kills his biological father Thomas Logan in a fit of rage when Logan Sr. kills his father John Howlett. Logan Sr. leaves behind Victor, who is James’ elder brother. Both of them then take off and Victor gets James to promise that they would look out for each other for as long as it takes. What they don’t quite understand is that they have natural regenerative powers. In other words, it would take a lot and I mean A LOT to really kill them. Over the next few decades, they grow into James (Hugh Jackman) and Victor (Liev Schrieber) Logan through all possible wars from the late 1800s to date.
As the years roll by, Victor’s rage gets completely out of control till he kills an officer who stops him from raping an innocent girl in ‘nam. After a while, Major William Stryker (Danny Huston) offers the brothers a place in the Team X which includes Bolt (Dominic Monaghan) who can control electricity, Wade (Ryan Reynolds) and manic swordsman, Agent Zero (Daniel Henney) an expert marksman, John Wraith (Will I Am) who can teleport and Dukes (Kevin Durand) who is indestructible in a manner of speaking. However, with Victor’s rage not improving and not being in agreement with the concept of Team X, Logan decides to part ways.
Six years later, Stryker tracks Logan who is now settled with Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins) and informs him that someone is killing the members of Team X one by one. Stryker asks Logan to help him in vain. However, when Kayla is killed shortly after, Victor agrees and gets enrolled into a programme where his bones are bonded with a new substance called Adamantium which is literally indestructible and recovered from a meteorite. However, he hears Stryker asking the team to erase his memory and flees. Knowing that Kayla was killed by Victor, Logan begins the search for his brother so that he can get his revenge. The transition is complete when he changes his dog tags from Logan to Wolverine.
Wolverine is directed by little known director Gavin Hood whose claim to fame before this would have been the 2005 South African Academy Award winning movie Tsotsi. That one was quite critically acclaimed. I haven’t seen that one yet and Wolverine does not completely inspire me to either. Hoods direction is just about at par and does enough to ensure that the excitement of the X Men franchise continues and keeps you looking forward to the next one.
Hugh Jackman continues to play the role of Wolverine like no else I can think of. The rest of the cast is quite passé. The movie overall is very exciting and quite full of action. Similar to the previous 3 editions of the X Men. Special Effects are definitely up there. Overall I would give this a 6 on 10. Worth a watch for sure. Preferably on the big screen though.