JOHN CARTER

John Carter stars Taylor Kitsch as John Carter, Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris. The film is directed by Andrew Stanton. John Carter is the story of John Carter, a former Civil War cavalry captain, who is now a prospector searching for gold in the midst of the gold rush. While attempting to be lured back to the military, he runs to a cave with a creature. The creature is holding a transporting medallion that sends him to Mars (aka Basoom) where there are aliens, “red people”, and the Helium people. The Theme of the film is a lone man with nothing searching for a purpose in life.

The costumes, although this is the future, are based more on ancient Rome, but everybody has a distinctive look. The people of Helium (the blue people) have Henna body and facial tattoos. They wear blue mini booty shorts (even the men), with blue armor and cape. The red people are similar but instead of blue it’s red. Although the clothes are tailored for ancient Roman times, they mainly appeared as former Las Vegas showgirls hand-me-down skimpy costumes. The bald aliens wear this heavy thick puffy metallic gown of some kind and are bald and pale. These aliens are invisible and can only be seen if the Chosen person has this vine-like arm glove/medallion thing. John Carter, throughout the movie, basically wears a kilt or a long loin cloth.

The production design is incredible from the sets to the design of the ships. Each production have their own distinct look. The ships are a mix of Serenity, but with an almost insect design. The scene when Dejah is in her room about to get married, her room has high ceilings, pillars. There is the heavy Roman-influenced architecture. There are a lot of marble and granite structures as well.

The theme of John Carter is the lone man with nothing searching for a purpose in life. How the film explores it, is very sloppy. There are so many issues with the film, from the confusing plot which left a lot still unexplained (did they ever explain the ninth ray thing? Helium? Who are the red people? Why Mars? Why is there a heavy Roman/Greek/mythology influence in the future? Isn’t that regressing rather progressing?....etc) The effects were overdone and there were so many scenes taken from Star Wars and Star Trek to Gladiator and (may be it was just me) but I also saw a little of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. I did like the movie because of its cheese factor and it didn’t take itself seriously. It’s good cheesy entertaining movie.