It’s hard to parse Andrew Stanton‘s John Carter without acknowledging that the film has become a curiosity, as it’s a very expensive movie that never figured out how to sell itself. But that has nothing to do with the quality of the film itself, which suffers from a number of very familiar problems to the science fiction and blockbuster genres. Though the spectacle is often jaw-dropping in scale, Carter is incredibly clumsy in getting to those moments.

The Players:

• Director: Andrew Stanton
• Writers: Andrew Stanton, Mark Andrews, Michael Chabon
• Cast: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Mark Strong, Dominic West, Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton
• Music: Michael Giacchino
• Cinematography: Daniel Mindel

The Plot:

Edgar Rice Burroughs (Daryl Sabara) is sent an urgent telegram from his uncle John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) telling him to come to his estate. When Edgar shows up, Carter is dead. Edgar is then instructed to read his story, which shows how Carter was a civil war veteran who was transported to Mars (which Martians call “Barsoom”) only to fall in love with a princess there. She’s Dejah Thoris (Collins), who is on the verge of discovering the power of the ninth ray, but the bad guys don’t like that so they’re going to force her to marry Sab Than (West). Sab’s a brute who’s been given a powerful ray gun-like weapon by the god-like Matai Shang (Strong).  On Mars, Carter has tremendous powers to leap and punch, which makes him valuable to the Tharks, the four armed martians headed up by Tars Tarkas (Dafoe), but though he’s a reluctant hero, he falls quickly for Dejah.

The Good:

• Spectacle: The rumors of how much this film cost run from $250 to more than $350 Million. As such, when there are giant flying boats in the film, and they crash and shoot at each other, it’s pretty cool. There are some good fight scenes and though it never feels all that alien so much as a movie shot in the desert, it looks great and there’s some scale.
• Lynn Collins: As Dejah Thoris, Collins makes a great impression as the female lead of the film. She’s smart, sexy and a fierce warrior, but there’s enough going on behind her eyes that it’s not just like watching the standard obligatory pretty girl in an action movie. She’s playing a character, not an object, and that’s a big relief.
• Wit: Though this is Andrew Stanton’s first live action feature, the man knows set up and punchlines through his time at Pixar, and so there’s some witty visual gags involving Carter’s first encounter with authority, and Stanton knows how to communicate ideas visually. And he makes perfect use of the space dog in the film.

The Bad:

• Did You Really Write This?: There were rumors of numerous re-shoots, and nothing shows post-production tinkering more than the opening of the movie. It starts with the bad guys (played mostly by Mark Strong) giving West’s character a powerful weapon. Then it cuts to John Carter sending a telegram while he’s followed. Then he dies and Edgar must start reading his journal, which then puts him in the old west as a reluctant warrior unwilling to fight the Indians. This is like twenty minutes or so of material before he goes to Mars, and it’s a total jumble of exposition and back story that’s seemingly there to inform the audience what’s going on but only seems to throw information at them. And  when you have this sort of protracted prologue it means you have to have an extended epilogue, which is obnoxious because this is an action movie, and the main action is already over when there’s still ten to fifteen minutes of wrap up. When the big action sequences hit, they’re cool enough, but the story is nonsense. And after having to wait for a good chunk of running time for things to get going, by then it’s hard to care.
• Kitsch/Carter: Taylor Kitsch’s John Carter is a reluctant hero who eventually finds a reason to unleash his inner warrior, but his motivations are spelled out in capital letters, and he never seems to convincingly turn from one direction to another. On top of that his relationship with Dejah is mostly that of “she’s hot.” Kitsch was wonderful on Friday Night Lights, and his character is one of the high points of that show, but here he’s not a large enough presence to rise above the Martian landscapes. The film does recall the serials of the 1930′s, but the film would have been better served with an actor like Charlton Heston. Perhaps that’s unfair because there aren’t those actors any more, but it still remains a problem for the film.
• 3-D: The desert look of this film really worked against the dimensionality, as 3-D has a tendency to darken the image. For the majority of the movie, I spent wishing I could watch the 2-D version. There’s nothing truly great about the dimensionality of the film.
• White Ape: Much of the marketing has been based around John Carter fighting the big ape in the gladiator arena. This happens nearly two-thirds the way through the movie, and the danger of the apes is only mentioned in passing. If the white apes weren’t the lynchpin of the marketing this reveal might be cool, but…

Overall:

Enough money was spent on this film to make it look and sound great. And there’s some good things about it. But other than Dejah Thoris, the characters are mostly blanks who go through the motions. It’s big empty spectacle, which has its place, but offers little other than passing thrills.

Rating:6.5/10

John Carter opens March 9.

Photos:

Trailer:

Related Posts

• D23: Live Action Round-Up – The Muppets Wins, John Carter Stumbles and Oz: The Great and Powerful introduces itself! (0)
• Full John Carter Trailer (0)
• John Carter Gets a New Poster and Trailer (0)
• John Carter Gets a Teaser (0)
• Daybreakers: Movie Review (4)
• Sherlock Holmes: Movie Review (12)
• Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins Reunite for John Carter (0)

This is it, with The Messenger in theaters, the time for possible Oscar films has begun! First time director and co-writer Oren Moverman shows us how to make a movie with his debut film, which is as subtle and beautiful as it is poignant and dramatic. From an amazing script, to beautiful performances he has unknowingly made himself Oscar-bait.

Check out our interview below…

The Players

• Director: Oren Moverman
• Writer: Oren Moverman and Alessandro Camon
• Cast: Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton, Jena Malone

The Plot

“You always shoot the messenger.” When someone dies fighting in combat today they no longer send a message but a messenger to deliver the news. In the film one solider (Foster), who was recently been pulled from battle, is paired up with seasoned officer (Harrelson) to do possibly the hardest job in the army, inform people that their loved have been killed. The young solider gets in trouble when he becomes involved with a widow of a fallen officer (Morton).

The Good

• The Script: One of the best scripts I’ve seen all year. Every moment has a reason, each scene pushes another plot point in the story, and they never rely on cliches to get where they’re going. Every moment feels organic and makes for a series of dramatic and yet nuanced performances
• Simple Shots: As the director told us in our interview with him, often it would just be him and a cameraman in the room recording the performance. As a result, nothing felt staged, it felt like you were a part of the drama taking place. His choice to have all the message delivery scenes done in one shot again make you feel like what you’re watching is honest and real, and adds to the emotions of the scene.
• Ben Foster: Finally he gets the chance to lead a great film. His portrayal of his characters is the perfect mix of intensity and yet vulnerability. You understand where he’s been and the pain of trying to adapt to his new laugh without him ever trying to show it.
• Whole Cast: Woody Harrelson gave a serious and heartfelt performance that we’ve never truly seen from him before. He was even quoted saying that this first film where he truly cried on camera. Samantha Morton was gracious and beautiful, gave the story heart with what looked like no effort at all.
• The Music: Completely understated, as it needed to be to match the performances and the style of filmmaking.
• Directing: Honestly, everything that I’ve mentioned comes down to good directing. There are a million things that can go wrong with a movie, but this is one of the few times when everything went right.

The Bad:

• I got nothing.

Overall

From start to finish this is a great film and I can only hope it receives the recognition it deserves come Oscar time. I highly recommend it for the holiday season, it has enough humor to keep you from feeling like it’s a “downer” and leaves you appreciating what you have in front of you.

Rating: 9.7/10

Photo Gallery

The Messenger will be released in a limited amount of theaters on November 13

Watch the trailer below…

Related Posts

• The Messenger Official Trailer (0)
• Woody Harrelson in The Messenger Poster (0)
• Woody Harrelson, Ben Foster Reunite with Oren Moverman for Rampart (1)
• Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson Reunite With Oren Moverman (0)
• Call To Action: Get Ben Foster Nominated (2)
• Video Interview: Oren Moverman for The Messenger (2)
• Interview: Ben Foster for The Messenger (2)

The first official trailer for the Sundance hit, The Messenger has been released by Oscilloscope Laboratories. The film stars Woody Harrelson, Ben Foster, Samantha Morton, and Jena Malone as a group of people dealing with the after effects of the Iraq war. A couple of weeks ago we brought you the first poster for the film, which was just as depressing as its subject matter, and the following trailer magnifies that tenfold.

Take a look at the first trailer for The Messenger…

Here are some of the plot details…

In his most powerful performance to date, Ben Foster stars as Will Montgomery, a U.S. Army officer who has just returned home from a tour in Iraq and is assigned to the Army’s Casualty Notification service. Partnered with fellow officer Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) to bear the bad news to the loved ones of fallen soldiers, Will faces the challenge of completing his mission while seeking to find comfort and healing back on the home front. When he finds himself drawn to Olivia (Samantha Morton), to whom he has just delivered the news of her husband’s death, Will’s emotional detachment begins to dissolve and the film reveals itself as a surprising, humorous, moving and very human portrait of grief, friendship and survival.

The Messenger marks the directorial debut of Oren Moverman, and will be released on November 13th.

What do you think of the trailer for The Messenger?

Related Posts

• The Messenger: Movie Review (1)
• VOTD: Woody Harrelson Goes Bald for The Troops (1)
• Woody Harrelson in The Messenger Poster (0)
• International Zombieland Trailer (1)
• New Green Lantern Trailer – Que the Green Special Effects! (0)
• Final Trailer for ‘Cherry’ Released (1)
• Ultimate Guide to Flight Trailer (1)

The sci-fi epic John Carter of Mars just infused three more talented actors into it’s casting pool. Today must be a good day for HBO alumni because Dominic West, Polly Walker, and Samantha Morton have all signed on to star in John Carter. The film will be produced by Disney, and directed by Wall-E’s Andrew Stanton. More on the actors and their roles below.

John Carter of Mars is based off of the Edgar Rice Burroughs books of the same name. Carter is an injured Civil War vet who mysteriously finds himself transported to the planet Mars. Taylor Kitsch has been cast as the title character, his love interest will be played by Lynn Collins, and Willem Defoe will star as his right hand man.

According Empire, “Morton will be playing Dafoe’s daughter Sola, West will play the villainous Sab Than of the Zodangans, who believes he ought to be ruling Mars. And Walker will star as Sarkoja, an aggressive Thark. In the books, the Tharks are green and have four arms.”

Today’s HBO connection is out of control. Stephen Moyer from the series True Blood just joined the film Priest, now stars from The Wire (West) and Rome (Walker) also got movie deals. Both actors were featured on shows that never got the credit they deserved. At least their talented casts are making strides in feature films. Production on John Carter of Mars will start early next year in Utah.

What do you think about the trio of actors joining the film?

Related Posts

• Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins Reunite for John Carter (0)
• John Carter: Movie Review (0)
• John Carter of Mars, Frankenweenie Get New Release Dates (3)
• Release Dates: John Carter of Mars, Frankenweenie (0)
• Josh Duhamel Cast in What’s He Got? (1)
• More Toy Story 3 Casting Announced (0)
• Purefoy, Church, and Strong Join John Carter of Mars (0)

Related Posts

• INTERVIEW: Catherine Keener for Synecdoche, New York (4)
• Best of the Week: Charlie Kaufman, Danny Elfman, Seth Rogen and MORE (0)
• Movie Release: Changeling, Let the Right One In, Pride and Glory… (0)
• ‘The Master’ Teaser Trailer Offers First Look At Paul Thomas Anderson’s Controversial New Film (0)
• Tribeca Film Fest 2012: Take This Waltz – Movie Review (1)
• Robert Rodriguez Officially Starting Production On ‘Sin City 2,’ Wants Mel Gibson For ‘Machete Kills’ (0)
• News Roundup: Trailer For Michelle Williams’ ‘Take This Waltz’, ‘Game of Thrones’ Fan Art, and More (0)