John Carter (2012)

DIRECTED: Andrew Stanton

STARRING: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe

AGE RATING: 12A

I'm not one hundred percent sure that I know what this film is about.

Wikipedia tells me that it's about an American Civil War captain fighting 12 foot tall aliens in space, to hook up with the Princess of Mars. Which sounds simple enough, but no, no, no, there is a lot more, too much to mention without slipping not only into spoiler territory, but into the first stages of insanity. This film is kind of ridiculous and sky-high levels of cheesy, but it's entertaining. Its sort of like someone has been granted access to a child's toy-box and told to make a film using every toy as a prop or character, but the end product is fun. Playing with kids toys can feel silly for a while, but once you get into it, it's awesome. John Carter's kind of like that.

So I can't say that the film lacks narrative creativity – it's almost as surreal as an episode of The Mighty Boosh to be honest. Although, as an adaptation of a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, I'm not sure how much credit can be given to Stanton for the adapted script.

Because there is so much going on, it makes for an awfully long film (a whole 2 hours and 12 minutes to be precise) and it drags. I found myself fidgeting in my seat about half way through and sighing inwardly a little every time I thought I could see the end in sight. There are a lot of storylines going on that need to get tied up and there is always another around the corner getting it's narrative ends ready for knotting just as the last one's been pulled. Not that the film got boring – maybe a little boring, I guess the whole mish-mash and absurdity of it all couldn't keep my attention completely, but only because it went on for so long. If it could have been successfully condensed, or maybe even if certain less important things could be erased it would, in my honest opinion, be loads better.

Putting aside the somewhat busy storyline, the film is actually funny. Language barriers and speedy space canines alleviate a weird tone brought on the film by what I have to announce as terrible acting. If anything stinted the film's success, it was probably the acting (not taking into account how Disney expected to make more than the crazy $250 million that was spent on this movie, whoa). Lynn Collins in particular made me feel a little uncomfortable, I'm not going to lie. There was a lot of awkward line delivery and strange over-acting that made me feel a little squeamish – romantic scenes were particularly gross. Not that she can take all of the blame for bad acting, Taylor Kitsch perhaps wasn't the best casting choice for the bruised-guy-acts-like-he-doesn't-care-but-he-does-have-a-heart-really kind of role, but maybe he was? He did a lot of squinting and standing without saying anything or really doing anything when he wasn't jumping really high and jabbing things with swords.

But it's an action flick at heart and where the action is concerned … well that's pretty funny too. Watching a swarm of aliens bustling to get a hit in and catching sight of Carter leaping into the air all over the place, it's stupid. But entertaining, so it's all good.

Overall, John Carter isn't as bad as the rep it's gotten, I think. It's silly and fun and nothing to take serious. Like I say, I enjoyed this film and would probably watch it again, for all it's flaws.