John Carter
With Wit, Reviewed By Kimmo Mustonenen
This week starts with a happiness explosion from my head mind (but not in the pants, dirty people).
“Kimmo, you are the man with a bag of lucky!” say I, Kimmo, to the self inside.
You see, I am to review my first love.
Not a human person. But a reading experience of youth.
Yes, the books series that made many endless Finnish nights come to an end.
An end that of happiness. That in Finland we call “morning.”
From “A Princess of Mars” through the crappy yet wonderful “John Carter of Mars: Skeleton Men of Jupiter” all asses were kicked.
Green and caucasian. Those from Helium to far off Ptarth
Then my first meat whacking to thoughts of Dejah Thoris (so hot in my mind! Best whack ever!).
How could Mr. Hollywood put the screw in the butt of “John Carter?”
Apparently with the ease of an experienced person who screws the butt of most great books for reading.
Disappointment is a pain that crawls in my stomach like a worm.
Or, here, like green four-armed Tars Tarkas (read the damn books!).
Crappy 3-D? Check!
CGI that is less than real than fake! Check!
$250 million spent on the crapping? Check!
Plot? Too much.
John Carter to Barsoom is somehow to there from here (Barsoom is Mars to Martians and others that have been to visit… Mars).
John falls in with Tharns who are green, four-armed, and totally whack.
I didn’t know that the William Dafoe had four arms – he is a good actor.
Carter (the hero) is played as a piece of white bread (Taylor Kitsch) with muscles.
And the whack queen of my first teens, Dejah Thoris, is the un-whack worth Lynn Collins.
Hollywood, you had almost 100 years to make a piece that is of a master and this is the warm pile that comes out?
What happened Mr. Director (Andrew Stanton)? With “Wall-E” I cried at mechanical homeless person who was lost among obese Americans lost in space.
Now even green, multi-limbed, bad-ass Tharns are like mouth pudding flavor free.
The loss of the hours wasn’t so much a hurt – watching my childhood friends of imagining being ass-raped (see “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”) was a pain that I will remember as long as I can – you see, even with the smoking of many loads of the wonderful Super O.G. Kush I could not find the liking… only the hating.
And the stomach-crawling disappoint.
So I have no more to say.
One thumb droops in mourning – the death of my childhood fantasies and hopes are now the truth of the screen.
The other thumb is to be right in the Mr. Disney butt – so now Mr. Disney, you know how “John Carter” feels.
I am sad.
Kimmo Mustonenen – (Kimmo On Kino) – Behind The Proscenium
P.S. “American Idol” – cannot next year (if there is one to be) have just one woman (who doesn’t make the eyes pain) over the age of 18? The “Season of Fugly” will no longer be watched. I watch “The Voice” now, waiting for Christina Aguilara’s imminent boob explosion. I quiver with the waiting.
Wonderful review. Now I will see the movie and laugh at your pain. Ha ha. Even if it stinks I will laugh. Ha ha ha.
I saw this movie 6 days ago at a private screening at
Disney. It was a very good movie for the story line. Like Lord of the Rings- #1 wasn’t that great but #2 & #3 were awesome. This first release of Kohn Carter is the building block of a start of what could be an incredible saga. Like all media writers- seek something negative.
did you really just suggest that LOTR first film sucked and the 2nd and 3rd were great?
And are you really so simple as to think that after this box office disaster they will continue the saga?
Unless it was shot all at the same time, no sequel/trilogy/saga could hold the weight of such a magnificent flop. Nope, Stanton just hoisted himself up on his own petard. I am sure he will continue to make great pixar movies in the future. There they have less moving parts and can focus on telling the story a little better.
I saw it Sunday with the whole family. It was the 7pm show and there was only a handful of people but I suspect (hope) that that was because of the time.
It was good. It was actually very good. No one had any trouble following the plot. Although the beginning was a little muddy, it wasn’t the Barsoon prologue that I found unclear it was the switch between Carter in NY and ERB in Carter’s house…took me a sec to figure out what was going on there.
Other than that it was great swashbuckling, fantasy/scifi movie. Looked really good IMO, above average acting (compared to most ofhter Hollywood SciFi)and held everyone’s interest right to the end.
Definitely does not deserve the rap it’s gotten in the press. I mean compared to any of the Star Wars prequels or the last Star Trek movie (talk about a confused mess) it’s a freaking masterpiece of story telling. OK,it’s more of a fun matinee with the kids.
I wouldn’t mind at all seeing a sequel. There’s a petition online for one but I doubt it will happen. I guess we’re doomed to more Thor and “new Coke” Star Trek.
@Gregers: did you really just suggest that LOTR first film sucked and the 2nd and 3rd were great?
not the original person who commented, but i take your question as implying that the first LOTR movie was better than the 2nd and 3rd – if so, i agree wholeheartedly (and okay, i was pleased tom bombadil wasn’t in, i don’t like that chapter.) the whole LOTR movie trilogy was good enough if one admits there is no perfect rendition of the books on the screen, but that first movie was the closest to the spirit of the book i read (tom bombadil aside :D)
re: “john carter”… i read burroughs’ first book as a teen but didn’t have access to the rest of them (was behind the iron curtain at that time, so i only had the first one in a translation). i liked the story as a kid, but not enough to place any hopes or even expectations on anything “adapted” to the screen by disney.
they might aim for big budgeted action+FX+lots of explosions / swordfighting / 3D things that attracts kids, but they can’t do it for me… so well, i won’t be watching “john carter” any time soon.
on the other hand, since LOTR was mentioned, i DO place some high expectations on jackson’s “the hobbit” duology and if he manages not to completely destroy the story (and howard shore writes another epic soundtrack), i’ll probably be the first in line for the tickets to it 😀
Kimmo you have convinced me to fuck the movie and start reading the first book of the series “A Princess of Mars”. God Bless free public domain eBooks.
I think you already fucked both the movie and the books.I didn’t mind some of the things done.I seen worse John Carter adaption-from bad comics to total shit movies,premiered on the Sci Fi Channel.Besides John Carters mom liked it.
Wow! You know it’s just a movie right? A princess of mars was horrible,Disney is for kids not for adults with no imagination so remember! Kids see things differently,put your kid glasses on!
This movie cost 275 million to make and needs to gross 750 million just to break even
after advertising expenditures………..Good Luck Disney!
I read The Gods of Mars almost 50 years ago and was hooked…so I’ll be seeing it, no matter how awful it might be.
Tremendously entertaining review.
Like others, I read the books as a kid. So I’ll have to see it. I just hope it isn’t as fucked up as this review says it is.
Haven’t seen it but making a “sci-fi” movie about a campy novel written in the past with so many scientific inaccuracies (because it was written so far in the past) just doesn’t fly with me. They usually look ridiculous and judging by the previews, this one does also.
This isn’t meant to be a sci fi movie in the same way we’ve seen recent blockbusters. Andrew Stanton made this film as a period drama, it just so happens to take place on Mars.
In fact, the title was changed to John Carter (without the Mars) because it’s a character-centric movie. It’s about John Carter and his journey, not about scientific plausibility and how many cool gadgets and gimmicks there are.
It’s a fantasy movie in the best sense of the word.
Despite occasional moments of silliness, the old-fashioned sense of adventure and brilliantly rendered aliens elevate this above other derivative big-budget sci-fi fare. I still wished that Kitsch did a lot better in this lead role but he was only there for eye-candy really. Good review. Check out mine when you can.
Another movie for gay married couples.
Thanks Kimo. Question: Who reads these screenplays? The people in Hollywood couldn’t even get a movie with Hanks and Roberts (Larry Crown) to make a buck. Thankfully the American public is not falling for these hucksters any longer.
As a child Burrough’s, John Carter and Robert E. Howard’s Conan books sustained me through long lonely days and nights, and I credit these two authors for enlightening me towards the power of reading books and I learned how they could take you to another world and make everything that was bad in your real world good, at least for a while. Few people today seem to know about Carter, since he was always overshadowed so heavily by Tarzan, but he was my favorite. I was so looking forward to this movie, and parts of it were OK, but they were widely spaced and to be fair it must be hard to portrait a book as complex as John Carter is on film in a couple of hours, but honestly, give me a couple of hundred Million to work with, and I firmly believe that I, with zero film making experience could do bettee than this warm streaming pile of Barsoom!
I’m with you. I’ve read some of Burroughs’ fantasy works, but was never remotely interested in his Mars or Venus series, even as a kid, because I could never suspend my disbelief concerning civilizations on these planets. Even fantasy has to have some real basis; some reality in the initial formula has to exist.
STAR WARS and AVATAR work because the initial premise and fictional worlds are at least agreeable to your belief system–they are so far, far, away, they can at least be accepted and bought. Not so this premise.
STAR TREK and STAR WARS can get away with characters breathing, living in alien landscapes, because there are millions of planets out there and it’s possible. We KNOW there is no breathable air on Mars, so Burroughs’ story can be nothing else but garage even before you sit in your movie seat.
Perhaps in Burrough’s time this nonsense could be acceptable and maybe fan boys or people who live in a fantasy world already–bookworms, fantasy buffs, sci-fi buffs, etc., will buy into it. The more grounded will find it harder to accept, and when you spend 250 million on a film and asking your audience to buy into just the initial premise itself, that’s a losing proposition going in. Add to this, movie audiences are WAY more sophisticated and savvy today… that’s a losing situation. The film-makers, at the very least, should have changed the locale. No wonder they took Mars, out of the title. They knew going in how silly it was.
Suspension of disbelief is very important to any story or premise for a live action film, and especially for fantasy. Once that is won, a storyteller has a good chance to win his audience. A pity the film-makers didn’t understand that.
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! If there’s no air on Mars, what do the Martians breathe ?
Come on, you know I meant breathable air that humans could breath as seen in the movie and books. John Carter was a human. There are no Martians as discribed by Burrough’s book, or this movie on this planet–past or present. It’s fantasy and poor fantasy at that.
Are you for real?!!!!
The best fantasy is totally with out any reality basis, it is escapism entertainment.
You complain about no air on mars because we know there is no air but when the book was written they still had a different perspective on life on other planets and in our solar system. Come on we still have a flat earth society! and we did not land on the moon.
Look at Superman, you think that is poor fantasy? cause believe me man CANNOT fly and try bouncing bullets off your chest.
Answer this after you do!
You know, if you did read the other books, you’ll know that the Mars is dying, it will soon be a lifeless husk of a world. Since John Carter was set in the 1800s, and Mariner did not fly by Mars until 1971, who’s to say that Mars did not end up a dead husk by the time we visited it?
So suspension of belief is not necessarily, this was Mars as it was, not Mars as it is now.
And all these races, civilizations and remnants of them, just disappeared in such a short time period? Come on. Pure fantasy, and nothing more. As I said, a certain kind of audience can buy this, and if you are one, great. Just isn’t credible enough for a vast number of us film goers and readers to swallow I’m afraid. Would have been much better to put it on another planet, in another galaxy, therefore no problem buying into the premise.
if there’s a WWIII here on earth and we manage to destroy all major industrial centers (and ourselves, in the process)… who’s to say it won’t all revert back to nature in a few hundreds of years? as for the rural communities – assuming there are no humans left (say, there’s a bio-weapon that wipes us out completely), they’d be taken back to wilderness in even less time.
and also, there’s no caveat that all / any other evolved civilization HAS to take the industrial road or even do it like we did it, at all. what if they’re telepaths? (not talking about burroughs’ barsoom, let’s try a few general models). would they need to write? would the need to vocalize their discussions?… what if they’re round puffy beings? would they need an opposable thumb? would they need shelter at night? would they even have nights on that planet / satellite they evolved in?
there are lots of conditions that make species evolution a very diverse game (even here on earth – if only for a few happy accidents of nature, humans could have been extinct and the sabertooth might’ve ruled the earth. or any example of the megafauna. or even the dinosaurs :D)
and this is just one planet… what if the gravitation was higher? or lesser?
the “what if” game is what makes the alien possible, any and all of them. even the greenies from mars, trumpet-form ears or not.
did burroughs write sci-fi or fantasy? well, he was writing adventure (just like tarzan and just as far-fetched, if you compare what he wrote with what we know about little children grown in the wild.)
imho, the barsoom series is more fantasy than sci-fi (if it’s sci-fi at all), but the gist of it is – this is adventure and doesn’t want to build any new world / universe.
thinking of that, where are the movies based on cherryh’s books? i really want to see if someone manages to make something of “downbelow station”!
All fantasy stories require suspension of disbelief on at least one point. Otherwise, they would be ordinary fiction. I’m impressed that you found Star Trek, Star Wars and Avatar so believable as they break the laws of physics constantly.
The fact that the story takes place on Mars is what breaks your suspension of disbelief? Only that one Point? So if Disney changed the planet to one circling another star, you could have enjoyed the movie, finding it all believable?
Yes, it is pure fantasy.
“I’m impressed that you found Star Trek, Star Wars and Avatar so believable as they break the laws of physics constantly.”
We do not yet KNOW *all* the laws of physics. Your conclusion is therefor inherently erred.
we DO know sound doesn’t propagate in space. i love star wars – loved it even more as a teen – but scientifically correct, it’s not.
p. s. talking about the first / original trilogy, i don’t like the new one much. a lot more flashy, a lot less interesting.
Oh please, obviously you didn’t grow up watching DR Who. Anyone who looks for scintific accuracy in the movies is….well, doomed to failure. Even today when there’s no real excuse for getting basic facts wrong movies still mangae it. Given that, I think we can forgive a story written in the 19th century would have some of it’s facts wrong…I still enjoyed it,, BTW, will someone make a note that we can no longer enjoy THe War of the Worlds in any of it’s incarnations.
If you’re interested in all the stuff that Hollywood gets wrong in science google “Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy”
I agree with this drunken Finnish movie reviewer, and I haven’t even seen the piece of shit yet!
I am really looking forward to a sequel now. At the time movie ended I wanted it to continue the most! I haven’t read much of Carter but this is probably where book and movie differ–Stanton’s Carter is copied from Earth to Mars unlike the book.Of course, the copy doesn’t create another copy and is eliminated when transporting back. If it isn’t so then there would be three Carters: two on earth, one left in mars!So, whenever he’s transported to a new place a copy is created and his soul travels with it..and when he goes back to original body his soul simply leaves the copy and enters the original Carter..so apart from Mars he can co-exist in Venus, Pluto etc but original will remain on earth.This concept also agrees with ‘law of something’, “soul is one and like energy can’t be destroyed, it only transforms from one form to another”Maybe, for transporting, that locket thing uses a worm hole or there is some time warp..or like that movie ‘Timeline’ there are portals at specific locations which can be used to travel in time or universe..No wonders a lot of us are perplexed! Not because it is too difficult to understand but some things haven’t been explained at all. Stanton has probably left these for sequel. Both the scenarios are possible in sequel: copy eliminated, copy simply inactivated.My review: http://www.worldcinemareviews.co.cc/2012/03/john-carter-2012.html?showComment=1331409134887#c4695673225098912924
I know how Kimmo feels. I loved Frank Herbert’s “Dune” and waited with great anticipation for the movie based on his books to come out back in the ’80s. Long story short I saw it and was crushed at how it had been trashed. Later on the SCI FI channel’s version was equally disappointing. I read the John Carter novels when I was a kid and when I heard Disney was making a movie about them I hoped that a decent movie would be produced. Unfortunately the cheese factory in Holly Wood put out an expensive CGI filled dud. From now on I’m sticking with the books.
I’m sorry you find the movie such a disappointment, but I too read the Barsoom tales of of Edgar Rice Burroughs and I thought the movie did capture the spirt of ERB’s Barsoom. The movie was great not only as an action-adventure flick, but also as an homage to stories featuring John Carter of Mars.
Maybe you ought to view it again.
What will the second movie be about? They have destroyed the whole premise of the second book in their abusive rewrite.
This review is now my homepage. What a fucking masterpiece. I hope they do make a sequel so I can read your review of it.
I didn’t read the books and I care less. The movie is nice, well done like Avatar and this is what matters now. I know that Venus and Mars are uninhabitable planets and maybe we are the very first civilization ever in the Universe and all the others will follow…hey it must be the very first civilization ever in the Universe who fantesized like us that they were not alone…and they were ha, ha, ha … so we could be the very first one… and WE ARE THE VERY FIRST CIVILIZATION in the Universe, prove it that we are not!!!
I watch this kind of movies to enjoy a little bit, and if I want to learn something then I open the math and physic books…
WE ARE THE VERY FIRST CIVILIZATION in the Universe, prove it that we are not!!!
i say we are NOT the very first civilization in the universe… prove it that we are! 😀
there’s a quote from peter beagle’s “the last unicorn” that says something about that: “As for you and your heart and the things you said and didn’t say, she will remember them all when men are fairy tales in books written by rabbits.” (talking about how the unicorn – an immortal – will remember humans even when the humans were no longer even believed to be real.)
… let’s talk about elves 😀
Don’t worry about the budget. Sit back and have a little fun. There are tons of dimensions you cannot even imagine, if you know your physics. And do not worry too much that the moon really is not made of green cheese. Doesn’t anyone notice how tongue-in-cheek this film is? It is actually pretty intelligent. Someday all the inside jokes will be fodder for a good book.
Based on this review I think Finland may be more exotic than Barsoom. I can hardly wait for Disney’s take on John Carter in Finland. A sure winner, I’m sure Egger Rice wouldn’t mind, Gad, the way those Lapland babes Finnish you off. In 3D
In 1912 A Princess of Mars was first published in serial form in a publication called All Story, and the novel has been in print ever since. This was the first novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs who went on to enjoy a prolific career as a pulp writer. A Princess of Mars has long been considered a classic of science fiction and fantasy, and offers readers generations after its creation an epic story, an alien world, and John Carter, gentleman of Virginia who is the quintessential fast-punching, sword-slashing, gun-toting, and ship-flying hero.
Read ERB’s books (if you can find them), political correctness be-damned! I am now re-reading them after a 40-some year absence beginning with the Pellucidar series, then the Barsoom series, followed by Tarzan, Venus and all the rest (I have everything he wrote including the Westerns)…
Disney is taking a $200M writedown on this. Any company that names their movie John Carter with multicultural and young audiences deserves to lose their butt.
This review was thoroughly unreadable. I think he wrote it in Finnish and had Google translate it for him because in English it was nonsense.
No, you are thoroughly unreadable.
Good one Kimmo.
…hmmm, are all Finns as fond of anal sex as this guy seems to be? or bodily functions below the waist? this guy has no girlfriend, and it seems never will
Well… I liked it.
I know! It was a really good, highly entertaining film! The reviewers have enjoyed thrashing it, but if nothing else I predict this film will develop a very large cult following.
… most of the really bad movies do that, you know – they become cult movies. doesn’t make them better, though.
The title and premise is ok with me…I’d see the creature from the black laqoon vs harry potter in a cage match on the sun for 2 hours but I just wont pay disney to see it…the mouse is evil in so many ways.
Hollywood wasted money to make the Hulk 2x and both of them sucked. Also why is Iron Man & Hulk’s antagonist bascially a bizarro version of them ….cant writters come up with something better.
Hats off to the reviewer from Finland…you are very funny
Yo Kimmo. (i think it was you who wrote this)
Your a genius!
First, “One thumb droops in mourning – the death of my childhood fantasies and hopes are now the truth of the screen.”? Your English is not even remotely good. You sound like an elementary school student trying to write a pretentious haiku.
Secondly, Lynn Collins is “un-whack worth?” What movie were you seeing? Geeze.
Un wackworthy? Even in an emergency??
People should learn that if a book series was ever held dear to you do not ever, for the love of God, see the movie adaptation. If it’s just a book you like, okay, go see it. But if it’s a childhood love that brought you an experience like nothing else, do not ever see the movie adaptation. Not only will it inevitably be disappointing, but your memories and imaginings of the world and characters will be forever influenced and altered by the imaginings of the film company.
I learned my lesson with Lord of the Rings. A fabulous series, yes, that forever robbed me of *my* version of Middle-earth. I haven’t watched Narnia or Game of Thrones, and I doubt I’ll see The Hobbit despite my lust for Aidan Turner.
Pam,
You must really broaden your horizons, LOTR was not really that bad compared to the books considering that it would really take several years of a really good series to portray it well. But do go and see those movies you mentioned with the Idea that they are similar stories to what you read. The are quite good 2-3 hrs of entertainment even though they are not exactly like the books that they portray
Oh and Game of thrones!!!! not exactly like the books but very close to the important parts, you will do yourself a huge disservice if you do not see it!
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Despite a few changes,I enjoyed the movie.Finally,somebody did Edgar Rice Burroughs right.The only screw,was all those previous movies,from Tarzan to David Innes.And when it comes Burrough adaptions,I’m fard to please.Now only if they can do the other books justice>
Crap.Least this wasn’t Doug” McClure bubbling around a cheap set,with unknown british actor playing Tars Tarkis and Hammer bimbo of the week,playing Dejah Thoris.Or better yet,Antonio Sabatta,Junior,playing some John Carter imatator and Tracy Lords,playing Dejah Blowjob.
It is my opinion John Carter was wrongfully treated by critics. It is a pretty good movie, though a little slow in the beginning. But overall, it’s an incredible sci-fi / fantasy story.