It's taken a long time for the original pulp space opera to make it to the big screen. To be fair, the spectacle of 15foot tall green aliens with extra limbs called Tharks was going to be a technical challenge and most part of cinema history, there hasn't been enough technology or gumption to bring this original tale from Edgar Rice Burroughs to the big screen. It might have just been over on Mars, but he painted a very big picture.
To be even fairer, most attempts at space opera have been dogs, except for Star Wars movies and even then there is great agitation and angst about the latter 3 entries into the canon. (By the way I'm still undecided after all these years as to how I feel about those films - which is a terribly long time to sit on the fence, but there's just so much undecidable about the newer Star Wars movies.) Other than that we have the rather turgid 'Flash Gordon' and the enigmatic 'Dune' by David Lynch. The trend in science fiction movies has been away from the fanciful to a weird kind of 'gritty' industrial realism as seen in the Alien series and Terminator movies.
No wonder then that the studio to bring it to the screen with all the bells and whistles it deserves, should be Disney. I sat the watching the opening wondering when the last time it was that I saw a Disney header at the cinemas. It's been a long time.
What's Good About It
There's a lot of good things about this film installment. It's got a breezy ease to the story telling, and the action is stupendous if bordering on the manic. The film has a weird digital clarity to all the manic action and yet the Mars it portrays retains a deeply romantic feel. The effects are good, the directing snappy, and the design is as sumptuous as you'd want it. Considering it is a kind of Tarzan in space, you got the feeling that Barsoom was quite warm, as people went about in loin cloths and minimal clothing. I don't know if that counts as 'good', but at least the vision had a unity to it that made the narrative convincing. It's not just Princess Dejah Thoris in the space bikini get up.
In most part it is like the book, even though it's not plot-perfect. The tone of the adventure doesn't vary, and yet it doesn't get monotonous. There's always something happening or something that needs beating. It's a jolly good ride in most part.
What's Bad About It
The biggest issue I have with it is the casting.
I like Mark Strong, but I'm sick of seeing him play the same kinds of menacing bad guys. It's getting to the point where you see him, you peg him as the bad guy, and there's no need for any nuance. He's mean, vicious and bad. He's better than that and so should the casting director making these calls.
Similarly with Dominic West who is never going to shake his time as McNulty in 'The Wire' is just too silly. To cast him as the bad guy who wants Dejah Thoris' hand in marriage is a little too easy and again subtracted from something that could have had a lot more nuance. Considering how little known the lead actors were, they could have taken bigger chances.
What's Interesting About It
What I don't get is why the New York Times is trying to bury the reputation of this movie. That link came from Walk-Off HBP on the Monday after it opened. I won't bother quoting it, but the NYT kicks off their hatchet job by likening the picture to 'Ishtar' and then 'Heaven's Gate'. But let's get a couple of things straight.
This is no 'Ishtar' - it's not a star's vanity project.
This is no 'Heaven's Gate' - it's not a film being held hostage by a director on a distant location.
We know the price tag on this film was around $250million, and so deserves scrutiny, but considering that other films that had similar price tags are 'Titanic' and 'Avatar' and 'Spiderman 3', maybe the film deserves a better comparison. And while the marketplace has changed significantly n the last 3 years or so since 'Avatar', a lot of people who have stopped going to the cinema are going to see this spectacle. So why is the NYT trying to make out this is a flop and a bad movie before all the numbers are in?
Taylor Kitsch?
The funniest thing in this film might have been the name of its leading man. It kind of described the the pleasures of the film - tailor-made kitsch for the great unwashed.
Dejah Thoris
It was great to see Dejah Thoris on the screen. Any movie about John Carter was inevitably going to turn to the Princess of Mars herself. You could say the point of making the movie is for the world to see Dejah Thoris. I think Lyn Collins did a fine job of playing the feisty princess.
What Colour Is The Sky On Mars?
One of the things that popped into my eyes that had me thinking was the colour of the sky over Barsoom. It was blue. What are the colours coming back from the rovers telling us? They tell us Mars is red. This might be so, or it might not. While the atmosphere of Mars is thinner than that of Earth, it still receives the light of the Sun, which should have the same composition of light frequency and colour temperature as what falls on Earth. So the colour temperature of sun light hitting Mars would be the same 5600 kelvin, hitting earth because it is the same source.
So... one would think the sky on Mars on a sunny day is blue and not red.
"What?!" I hear you ask.
If you've read 'Dark Mission' by Richard Hoagland, you would be familiar with this tidbit of conspiracy theory - that NASA deliberately winds up the Chroma of the red in the images coming from Mars rovers. Why they do that is a mystery, but apparently, they do.
Anyway, just for kicks, I grabbed some images of Mars from NASA and loaded it into Photoshop, and hit 'Auto Colour'. I saw blue skies on Mars.
Oddly enough, that looks more like Barsoom than Mars.
UPDATE: Many people are searching for colour corrected photos of Mars. You might want to check out this gallery here.
4 comments:
I SO want to see this movie Art! I just haven't had the time to do so. But I love for review and i think I will try and see it at some point this weekend.
Love the review.
It's pretty hold-on-to-your-seats rollicking. :)
It feels like it's been a while since a film was just satisfyingly fun as opposed to an orgy of special effects coating a sickly thin idea like the Transformers. At the heart of this isn't a campaign to sell toys. It's a story.
It's doing poorly because it's not marketed properly. Besides, leaving the "of Mars" part off the title makes the majority of the possible viewership clueless to the movie.
You're probably right about the marketing. It's a shame it's going to be branded this big failure when creatively and execution-wise, it's far from it.
It reminds me of the time 'Blade Runner' came out and the critics panned it and it flopped. The thing is, it's a very good movie and we'll be talking about it years from now. We've been here before when the critics have got it wrong and buried a movie.
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