John Carter

Forewarned is Four-Armed
or
"Men are for Mars, Women, Curvaceous"

Edgar Rice Burroughs not only created Lord Greystoke (otherwise known as Tarzan of the Apes), but he created another hero who commuted between different worlds, that being John Carter, a Civil War vet, who managed to mentally displace himself from 19th Century Earth to Barsoom, as the natives called it, although we Earthers called it Mars.

The Carter books were solid pulp, but soaring adventures, with lusty Barsoomian princesses, warring political and tribal factions, including a race of 15 foot four armed insectoid inhabitants who were frequently at odds with the more humanoid Martians.  They inspired all sorts of science fiction writers like Bradbury and Clarke (and scientists including Carl Sagan) and film-makers from Lucas and Spielberg to Cameron and any author whose hero leads a Walter Mitty fantasy existence on another continent, planet or Universe. 

It's the 100th Anniversary of JC's creation, and it's about time that somebody made him take the astral projection from book-paper to celluloid...or pixels—not that there haven't been attempts over the years.  The books have rarely been out of print and—probably inspired by the covers painted by Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo that neatly made real Burroughs' vivid descriptions—and something's been in the works for the last couple of decades.  Now, finally, Disney took a chance with it—although they don't have a clue how to sell it—with director Andrew Stanton, one of Pixar's shining lights (directing both Finding Nemo and WALL·E).

And, hell, if they don't pull it off, making it work and seem fresh (if highly reverberent, as so many others have borrowed liberally from the series for years), while also recalling the straight-faced brio of biblical epics, combined with the cheese-factor of movie serials.  It's pulpy, old-fashioned, and definitely of the "white-guy-saves-the-natives" school,* but it has fun with it, playing off the duality of practically everybody in the script, reflecting the "two worlds" concepts inherent in the series.**  And why shouldn't Carter have an exploitable advantage over the Martians?  The planet's lesser gravity allows him to bound like a flea across landscapes and from precipitous tower to precipitous tower (although one loses that concept when Carter is shown getting winded climbing up steep hills).  And the Barsoomian concepts of ERB-dom are in full abundance, gathering details from the series—the white apes, the Therns (the duplicitous Gods of Mars), Carter's ways of dealing with passage between worlds (and covering up his disappearances on Earth), the participation of "Ned" Burroughs in the telling of the tales, and the environmental struggles of the dying Mars (although the canals of Mars are mostly gone, Stanton and co-screenwriters Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon, have created a gargantuan crawling city of Zodanga that sprawls across the planet's surface, leaving decimation in its wake.

Yes, it's pulpy.  Sure, it's cheesy.  But in the same way that any romance story is, (and Burroughs wrote romance novels for men), and this is boy-hokum space romance fantasy, without much logic to it, but enough momentum and emotion to keep so many of the quibbles at bay, and Stanton has shaped it in a fine, breezy style that kicks the story along at a good clip—check out the economy he uses to make note of Carter's indefatigable fighting instinct in the film's second sequence (the first is a rousing, dis-orientingly brusque Martian air battle) in trying to escape forced re-enlistment at the hands of his former Captain Powell (the now ubiquitous Bryan Cranston), then jumping from Western tropes (filmed in Monument Valley, of course) to Bibical epic trappings, to its own weird amalgamation of the two, with a bizarre twist on familiarity.  Where the movie roars are in the sword fights and hand-to-hand battles that bring to life Frazetta's "berserker" illustrations, that push the envelope of what can be presented in a PG-13 rating.

It's a grand ride, energetically told, imaginatively realized, with a good cast of fine actors, committed to doing it all with a straight face, and selling the fantasy, without any betrayal of the mechanics that had to go into this thing (a tough job to do that has bested others in the last few years).  I've read a few reviews by some critics that strike me as rather cranky about the film being derivative (in a reverse engineering way of looking at things), but, frankly, I don't think they saw the right movie.  Kill me if I ever get that sophisticated I can't have fun at something done well.  To this kid, who grew up reading the Barsoom books, (as Bradbury once wrote) Mars is Heaven.

John Carter (of Mars) is a great Saturday afternoon Matinee.

First edition depiction of John Carter and Dejah Thoris
from the initial hardcover dust-jacket

Frank Frazetta's iconic cover to "The Princess of Mars"
The production design of John Carter owes a little bit to both.

* It was, after all, written in 1912.  What's Avatar's excuse?

** Even the titular Princess of Mars has a nick-name in the film.  Carter calls her "Perfesser."  Carter's Thark name is Dojahr Sojak, but also "Virginia," after a mis-communication in greetings from Tarkus. 

Spiderman 3

Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave....

I’ve always taken a jaundiced view of the Marveltm superheroes tm as opposed to the DCtm variety. Where the spandex crowd from Detective Comicstm sprang from pulps and adventure fiction, Marvel’s were derived from Stan Lee’stm previous job--writing romance comics. Back when I picked up the occasional Marvel in the 60’s it was always apparent that they were soap operas with fights, and that it was only a short spidey-jump from “*SOB!* I forgot to have children!” to “*SOB!* I will be Spiderman…No More!” The Marvel Superheroestm are drama-queenstm. This was never more apparent than the ending of the first “Spidermantm” movie when Peter Parkertm walks away from the girl who’s just professed her love to him (and in a graveyard *SOB!*), because “with great power comes great responsibilitytm-okay I'll stop”(as with the soaps, this sentiment lasted until the next movie, which ended with them together—I guess responsibility ain’t so great, after all). “Spiderman” was a soap opera punctuated by brutal, ugly fist-fights (which don’t look so cool when not freeze-framed in pop-art patterns) I vividly recall reading the geek-reviews saying “Spiderman” is just like US!” Ri-ight. I’ll bet they didn’t have two gorgeous co-eds fighting over them in high school, as the comics character did. Where that movie worked was “Spidey” in action—especially in the ending where the camera followed him morphing into so many iconic poses favored by various artists over the years—Ditko, Romita, Kane, Andru, McFarlane. There, the true potential of a movie “Spiderman” paid off.

So, when the second movie, combining “Doc Ock/Spiderman…No More!/Mary Jane’s getting hitched,” came out, the screenplay (co-written by Alvin Sargent and Michael Chabon) practically sang. It was a perfect balance between character/melodrama/action and spectacle. In fact, “Spiderman II” is probably the best comic-book movie ever…and the most enjoyable since the first “Superman.” With the creators knowing what worked now, one anticipated “Spiderman III.”

Now, here it is—the most expensive movie ever made (supplanting even “Superman Returns”**) and what does it show for all that money being thrown around? A bit, actually. The cast is uniformly good given the material with James Franco finally relaxing and having fun with his role as Harry Osborne. Thomas Hayden Church takes his role as The Sandman VERY seriously—he acts like he’s in an Ibsen play—though the most effective performance is by the “Particle-Matter Generator” Gizmo that created the sequence of him first emerging and pulling himself together. Topher Grace makes the most of his non-CGI moments as Eddie Brock/Venom. And Bryce Dallas Howard (Opie’s kid), after looking like something the cat dragged in for M. Night Shamyalan’s movies, cleans up very nicely as Gwen Stacy, as that essential character of the comics finally shows up.*

There are welcome returns (from the grave, flashback-style) of Cliff Robertson and Willem Dafoe, and J.K. Simmons proves once again he’s the perfect embodiment of Daily Bugle Editor J. Jonah Jameson.

Now, for Tobey McGuire and Kirsten Dunst, here's the problem. For the third in the series the writers were obviously looking for something interesting for the two leads to do. "We'd left them in No.2 happily in love. So....let's shake that up a bit." In this one Peter is going bad (didn't Superman do that in his third movie?) and "MJ" is hitting acreer set-backs to star-dom. Spiderman's popularity is up, while hers is down. Wasn't this "A Star is Born?" Only Tobey is Judy Garland, and Kirsten is James Mason. Getting kinda sudsy there, isn't it? McGuire is allowed to cut loose as "Bad Peter" (under the influence of a "symbiote"--that's how they say it--from outer space. Kirsten Dunst gets to sing in an opening sequence that Sam Raimi stages like its right out of MGM. There are some great fights (some of them are more...dust-ups) that lacked the zanily ferocious wit of the ones in II, go on too long, and are marred by some too-intricate camera-work (or camera simulation) for the sake of too-intricate camera work. Finalley, the whole thing ends in another "Spidey's Gotta Save MJ" grudge-match with the web-head up against Sandman, Venom and Son-of-The-Goblin. It far overstays its welcome and ends in what seems like an interminable wallow.

Anything else wrong? YEAH! Too much Stan Lee screen-time! Stan's cameos are getting longer and longer to the point where he might as well have a running character as a street-sermonizer. Stan! Y'know that phrase "'Nuff said?" Mean it next time!! Oh! And have we managed to get EVERY member of Sam Raimi's family on-screen yet? Next movie, Spidey's going to be fighting The Nepotist!

There's an awful lot to enjoy in fits and starts, but you have to be a certifiable card-carrying true-believer to be completely satisfied with this movie. It's a case of the film-makers throwing as much webbing as they can on-screen and seeing what sticks. Unfortunately, not much. What was promising to be the best comics franchise in movies is making the same mistakes as all the others: Too many villains, too much "business" and "busy-ness," and not enough care for the strengths of the characters and what has been done before. They've attempted too much and accomplished too little...while spending as much money as possible.

"Nuff said.

"Spiderman 3" is a rental, and no, you're not going to miss any details on the small-screen--everything's moving so fast you can't see it on the BIG screen either--not even IMAX!


*Curiously, the two women’s roles are completely reversed in the translation from the comics to the screen. In the comics, Gwen is the sincere hometown knockout, while Mary Jane was the flighty supermodel (“Romance” comics, remember? With a little “Archie” thrown in)

** I'm wrong here. Incredibly, the second most expensive movie in history is "X-men 3: The Last Stand." Hell, "X-men 3" didn't even LOOK good!

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Post-Script: It's always alarming to see how well crap--even well-constructed crap--sells. Now, "Spidey3" is tearing up the box-office with enough momentum that it could very well become one of the "Largest Earning Films in History." In doing some research for an earlier post, I was alarmed to see what is now on the list of the "Big Boffo" films: "Shrek 2" is #3? It wasn't as good as "Shrek 1!" The second "Pirates of the Caribbean?" It was bad--not even fulfilling the promise of the first one, but it's at #6! "Independence Day" at 21? "Narnia" at 24? "Meet the Fockers?" At 29! ("Spidey 3" at the time of this writing is at #33).It's also interesting to note how sequels seem to fare better than the originals--as if their popular momentum has increased (something that might be attributable to more people seeing it initially on home-video than the theater)--certainly "Spiderman 3" bares that out even more than "2" did.

But one can't get too exercised about this: "Norbit" was the top box-office draw one weekend, after all. And as James Aubrey once said: "No one ever went broke under-estimating the intelligence of the American people" (I believe that was right after he green-lit "The Beverly Hillbillies" for CBS).