I loved the Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars series books so seeing this movie was a must. I'm glad I did, despite some of the critical negativity out there. It's a scifi movie in the more traditional sense, with the old fashioned tale of a hero rescuing an exotic princess from the villain. Traditional tale aside, the special effects were outstanding, and while the film varies from the original book in many areas, it's not bad at all. In fact, the changes add even more excitement to this tale of a wandering, disheartened civil war vet who finds himself transported to the red planet; they help flesh out several of the main characters in a way that helps those who haven't read the books understand who's who and what's what.
Taylor Kitsch is well cast as the titular John Carter and he plays him with a whole lot of depth and a bit of humor, showcasing his acting ability in a way that he couldn't on the TV show Friday Night Lights. Kitsch strikes me a talent that's going to stick around for awhile and grow into even bigger leading man roles. Good for him. Mark Strong is really making a name for himself playing the dark roles , like Matai Shang here, the mysterious and nefarious ancient Barsoomian changeling with questionable morals. He's so good at being bad that it's no wonder so many films cast him in nice, meaty, villainous parts. He's great at it.
This film was very good and again, it played out like an old time Hollywood space opera (with top notch special effects) and maybe didn't hold the critics attention with the usual sights of mindless crap blowing up (though there's plenty of large and small scale battles in this movie, FYI) or the typical dumbed down dialog that seems to be more and more prevalent in so many movies, but it's certainly not a flop or failure in any respect. Good story, good cast, entertaining as hell, especially for people who like original scifi. Check it out.
Taylor Kitsch is well cast as the titular John Carter and he plays him with a whole lot of depth and a bit of humor, showcasing his acting ability in a way that he couldn't on the TV show Friday Night Lights. Kitsch strikes me a talent that's going to stick around for awhile and grow into even bigger leading man roles. Good for him. Mark Strong is really making a name for himself playing the dark roles , like Matai Shang here, the mysterious and nefarious ancient Barsoomian changeling with questionable morals. He's so good at being bad that it's no wonder so many films cast him in nice, meaty, villainous parts. He's great at it.
This film was very good and again, it played out like an old time Hollywood space opera (with top notch special effects) and maybe didn't hold the critics attention with the usual sights of mindless crap blowing up (though there's plenty of large and small scale battles in this movie, FYI) or the typical dumbed down dialog that seems to be more and more prevalent in so many movies, but it's certainly not a flop or failure in any respect. Good story, good cast, entertaining as hell, especially for people who like original scifi. Check it out.