John Carter Film Review

Disney fans there is a shocking amount of films released by the studio that people have for one reason or another forgotten about. Well this is something that i'm trying to end since all of their films good or bad should be talked about however I myself am guilty of forgetting about this films very existence heck I had no idea it even came out due to the bad marketing and so Disney fans buckle up as I remind you that Disney did indeed make a film called John Carter.

The plot of the film is John Carter a Confederate army captain finds himself transported to the planet mars aka Barsoom and while there he has to help prevent a civil war from breaking out. This is going to sound rather odd but this film is far to epic to tell in one two hour and sixteen minuet movie if anything this story should have been spread out over three films but for some strange reason they chose this plot to be told in one movie and it just doesn't work at all.

Starring in the film is Taylor Kitsch as John Carter , Bryan Cranston as Colonel Powell , Daryl Sabara as Edgar Rice Burroughs , Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris , Dominic West as Sab Than , Ciarán Hinds as Tardos Mors , Willem Dafoe as Tars Tarkas , Samantha Morton as Sola , Thomas Haden Church as Tal Hajus , Polly Walker as Sarkoja , David Schwimmer as a young Thark Warrior and Mark Strong as Matai Shang.

I honestly thought that the acting in the film was honestly one of the better things about it which granted isn't a high bar to achieve but it's still worth mentioning. Oddly enough the acting didn't get any praise when this film was released and I have to wonder why that's the case since yes this acting would be seen as bad in any other film but when you compare it to every other bad thing in this film the acting comes of as passable at best and so it should have got a mention.

The CGI for the film was done by Moving Picture Company and Double Negative and unlike the acting there was praise given to the film's visuals. Altho I have no idea on if that includes the CGI or not but if it does then it's very much deserved since the CGI in the film is very stunning to look at even with the fact that there's two effects companies working on the effects there's no dip in quality so you can't tell who worked on what scene.

This film actually caused Disney to loose around two hundred million dollars at the box office thanks to what many think is a bad trailer. I on the other hand think there's more to it then that since while yes the bad trailer wouldn't have helped things the bigger issue is the lack of any kind of marketing at all I only remember there being one trailer and that was it and that's not enough to get people interested in your movie on top of that no one has heard about John Carter which is a shame because it seems like Disney and writer / director Andrew Stanton where banking on the name alone to sell tickets which might and has worked for something like Star Wars it doesn't and didn't work for this film.

I'll be the first to admit that my only exposure to the character of Dejah Thoris comes more from the comics by Dynamite Entertainment so I can't really say of she's well represented here. However I can say that how she is done feels more like how is treated in the comics does actually work for me since I like the comic books but that's also part of the problem since a comic book has several issues to tell you about a character where as the film only has a few hours and so they have to get all of that information out a lot quicker and again it doesn't well for this film.

As you PIXAR  fans will know this was the first live action to be directed by Andrew Stanton who's previously directed films for PIXAR such as Finding Nemo and WALL-E. It really does show that he hasn't done a live action film before because it feels like he directed this film like he would an animated film which is never a good thing because they are two different mediums and so they need to be treated differently in every way possible.

Now apparently there was going to be a few sequels to this film but they shouldn't have put alot of effort into setting up sequels or planning future films. Instead what they should have done is put alot of effort into making this film as good as it possibly can be which from what I can work out is something that they didn't do and given the poor state of live action Disney films right now there more focused on other instalments and bad live action remakes that there not focused on making a good film.

It really is hard for me to say who's to blame for this film bombing and bombing fairly hard since it was the first live action film that Andrew directed but at the same time Disney was in charge of making sure that people knew about the film and they failed to do that. So i'd say that both sides are to blame since Andrew did turn out alot of the planned marketing but again Disney could have made more of an effort to make sure that people knew about the film.

Since this is an action film that does mean that we have to talk about the action that's seen in the film itself. In my opinion the action in the film is at best ok but it feels like there really trying to make the action interesting which is a shame because the Mars setting and the fact there's a bunch of aliens or alien creatures involved that alone should make the films action scenes more interesting but they don't really take full advantage of any of that.

Overall this is pretty forgetful film and so i wouldn't blame any of you if you didn't remember this film or if you didn't know that it even existed. I'm going to let you all know now the next forgotten Disney film i'm going to be reviewing is The Lone Ranger as for this film there is alot of potential but it's all wasted and so what could have been good instead turns out to be average at best and so this film gets a 5 out of 10 from me.