John Carter (3D)

Movie: John Carter (3D)

Genre: fantasy-action

Synopsis: This is based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs Martian series.  John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) is a Civil War veteran.  He finds a mysterious cave in the desert, which results in his losing consciousness.  When he wakes up – he is on Mars.  Mars is in the midst of a war between two groups of humans, with a third group of 12-foot high 4-armed creatures thrown in for good measure.  Because of the weaker Martian gravity, John Carter has enormous strength – and the ability to leap hundreds of feet in a bound.  He meets up with a beautiful princess (Lynn Collins) whose city is about to be destroyed by the other ‘human’ group.  Against his wishes, he is pulled into the war.  Lots of action and fighting follow.

My two cents: I had heard nothing but negative reviews and went into this with low expectations.  I loved it.  Lots of great battles and fighting.  I liked the damn-the-physics premise of John’s strength and leaping ability – and the presence of air on Mars.  This was written somewhere around 1910 – so cut it some slack. I think the science fiction from the first half of the 1900’s has a lot of charm that is lost in more recent literature.  Criticizing this movie for stuff like John’s leaping ability is like criticizing Twilight Zone for being too old-fashioned.  My only regret was that I did not see this in IMAX.

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