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The Read Planet

You know the character. A stranger in a strange land. A man with no name. Caught up in a deadly battle - forced to choose sides in a war he didn't wage. Will he run? Or will he stay and fight? Fight for what's right - and for the woman he loves.

I'm talking, of course, about the Edgar Rice Burroughs character "John Carter". Why? Who did you think I meant?

Carter apprears in a series of novels by Mr. Burroughs, notably 1917's "A Princess of Mars", upon which this Disney adaptation is based.  Carter is a Civil War vet transported to Mars (or "Barsoom", as it's called by the natives) where he is caught up in another civil war, this time on a planetary scale.

Over the past few decades, a who's who of filmmakers has tried (and given up) to bring the character to the screen, only to see countless Carter descendants ("Flash Gordon", "Stargate", "Avatar") get their day in the sun.

Now Disney and director Andrew Stanton ("Finding Nemo", "Wall-E") bring us a big budget, 3D adaptation of the novel and they are true to their source material, almost to a fault. The script, by Mr. Stanton along with Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon, even wraps the story in a cute device featuring Mr. Burroughs himself. It's a shame then that the story's ideas have been copied so often that they now seem corny: a princess forced into an arranged marriage to save her people; a mystical race lording over a kingdom; a native culture relegated to the sidelines. It should be revelatory, but instead it feels well-trodden. Huge setpieces and plot points - a battle in an arena, a stand-off between foes, a desperate showdown - all feel predetermined.

Likewise, the actors do little to help. Taylor Kitsch ("Friday Night Lights") makes a fine hero, but only fine. He lowers his voice, flexes his muscles and otherwise adopts an air of gruffness, but he possesses none of the easy charm of, say, Harrison Ford in his prime. Lynn Collins makes a good go of it as the princess of Helium (yes, Helium) but her character is too much a function of plot points. Interestingly, the CG characters, the "Tharks", fare well, particularly those voiced by Willem Dafoe and Samantha Morton. Perhaps CG technology is getting that much better - or maybe we're just getting more used to it - but regardless, the Tharks are at the very least unexpected. The same can't be said for Carter's pet, a dog-like creature that serves as a reminder that this is a Disney production.

Aside from that obvious bid for kid-friendliness, the visuals nearly make "John Carter" worth the price of admission. The Tharks, the Martian landscapes, the settings and vehicles are all beautifully realized. John leaps tall vistas in a single bound due to the difference in gravity on Mars (just don't ask how he's breathing, just don't), he rides on winged airships, and for a time you truly feel transported, until the well-worn plot grounds you again like that pesky gravity. The production designers put in a lot of effort to make the alien world truly unfamiliar, even if the story is not.