U.S.A. | 2012 Directed by Andrew Stanton Starring Taylor Kitsch Lynn Collins Willem Dafoe Color | 132 Minutes | PG-13 Blu-ray / DVD Combo (RA-HD / R1-NTSC | 2-disc set) Walt Disney Video Hold your mouse pointer over an image for a pop-up caption

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		Review by Brandon Tenold Film:7 BD/DVD:10

NOTE: Screenshots were taken from the DVD

A century after he was first created, author Edgar Rice Burroughs' interplanetary hero John Carter finally got his own movie. Although never as popular as Tarzan, another Burroughs creation, it's actually quite surprising that it took this long for Carter to come to the screen, since the character casts a pop culture shadow over everything from Flash Gordon to Star Wars. Unfortunately, despite the character's obvious influence on sci-fi adventure filmmakers from George Lucas to James Cameron, Disney's John Carter, a big-budget adaptation of the first book in Burroughs' series, A Princess of Mars, opened to disappointing box-office and lukewarm reviews — which is a shame, as it's an enjoyable, if flawed, space adventure.

As the opening narration by Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) informs us, Mars (or "Barsoom" as the natives call it) is not the dead planet we know, but a dangerous world full of strange creatures and competing alien races, and one that threatens to be torn apart by war. Through a series of strange circumstances, ex-Confederate cavalryman John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) finds himself transported via an alien talisman to Barsoom, where the planet's lower gravity grants him enhanced strength and the ability to leap great distances. While trying to find his way back to Earth, Carter is caught up in a struggle between the warring city-states of Zodanga and Helium for the fate of Barsoom, all while still finding the time to fall in love with the beautiful Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins), Princess of Mars.

The above plot description is only a very brief overview of John Carter, a movie brimming with various alien characters and terminology. Burroughs, y'see, was a man of ideas. Big ideas! And his fertile imagination is what has helped his creations endure for such a long time despite the occasional hokeyness of his writing. To his credit, director Andrew Stanton, known for directing Pixar movies like Finding Nemo and WALL.E, makes sure the world of Barsoom is well laid out and doesn't treat the subject matter with the kind of eye-rolling irony that some other filmmaker might've been tempted to. This is not to say that John Carter is cerebral science fiction. Far from it. Rather, it's a pulpy, old-fashioned adventure that in many ways actually has a lot in common with previous adaptations of Burroughs' works like 1976's At the Earth's Core, which had Doug McClure as an all-American stranger in a strange land going up against similar fantastical creatures and situations.

What sets John Carter apart from previous attempts to bring Burroughs' works to the screen is its massive budget (reportedly $250 million), allowing Stanton & Co. to bring Burroughsian worlds to life in ways the makers of At the Earth's Core could've only imagined. Indeed, many of the sights in the movie could've easily come from a dusty old issue of Amazing Fantasy, from the 10-foot tall, four-armed alien Tharks to steampunk-style flying machines and even a cartoonish alien dog sidekick for Carter (which, thankfully, is not as annoying as it easily could've been). Stanton does his best to cram in as much information as possible about this alien world, which brings me to my biggest complaint about the film. Clocking in at well over 2 hours, John Carter feels a little bloated. I understand that they were going for an epic feel here, but Burroughs' stories work best as breezy, fast-paced adventures, and I think John Carter would've worked better if it had been trimmed by about 20 minutes or so. Stanton (or perhaps the film's producers) also made the mistake of automatically assuming the movie would be successful, ending it on a cliffhanger and deliberately leaving some plot elements unresolved in order set up a series of films. Since sequels are unlikely given the film's domestic box-office take, John Carter feels a bit incomplete as a standalone film.

As the hero, Kitsch does a decent enough job, supplying the chiseled abs and gruff voice, although I will admit he looks more like a modern-day pretty boy than a grizzled ex-Confederate soldier. Collins (True Blood, X-Men Origins: Wolverine) fares a bit better as Dejah Thoris, getting some fighting skills to go along with her good looks, although ultimately her purpose in the story is to play the damsel in distress (we are talking about a movie based off source material that's a century old, after all). The supporting cast is filled with great (mostly British) character actors like Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds, Dominic West and James Purefoy, and they play their roles well despite not being given a ton to work with.

As big-budget summer tentpole movies go, John Carter is an entertaining bit of sci-fi spectacle. It's not quite as breathlessly fun and entertaining as it could have been, but it's ambitious and doesn't insult the audience's intelligence the way some other CGI-heavy blockbusters do, and some of the source material's "whiz-bang" giddiness does manage to shine through. While it falls short of being a sci-fi classic, I enjoyed it a lot more than other failed mega-budget attempts at movie franchises such as The Golden Compass, and if you like your science fiction done the old-fashioned way, with an emphasis on adventure and spectacle over science, John Carter delivers the goods.

Still, after the end credits rolled, I couldn't help but wonder what a $250 million Doug McClure movie would've been like...

Despite the film's disappointing box-office, Disney has gone all out with the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack for John Carter, offering up virtually flawless audio and video as well as a great selection of extras that should make fans of the film very happy. The 1080p/AVC encoded video transfer is rich and warm, with great colors' and detail and the DTS-HD 7.1 soundtrack is thunderous and makes great use of the Surround channels while also retaining clarity. In terms of both audio and video, this makes a great demo disc to show off your home theater.

Extras include a commentary track featuring Stanton and producers Jim Morris and Lindsey Collins as well as a "Second Screen" mode, where you can sync the movie with a laptop or iPad via an app in order to view extra content. There are also two featurettes, 100 Years in the Making (10 min.) which details Burroughs' original John Carter stories and the various attempts at bringing the character to the screen over the years, and 360 Degrees of John Carter (35 min.) which goes over the film's production. Rounding out the extras are a selection of deleted scenes (including an alternate opening) and a short blooper reel.

Fans of John Carter should be very pleased with the film's presentation on Blu-ray and those who missed it in theaters would do well to check it out. 6/12/12

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