journal features
movie reviews
photo of the day

movie review - John Carter

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2016.09.23

This is an update of an early science fiction story from a full Century ago. A human is transported to Mars because reasons, and becomes involved in an epic quest to liberate a downtrodden people from well a pretty nasty totalitarian regime. Our human has incredible strength because he's from a much larger planet and I really would advise anyone making a movie set on Mars to tread lightly with science because Mars is a hopeless hell bathed in hard radiation and anyone who thinks there's any kind of future for us there is delusional.

Oh right, movie review.

The thing is beautifully made and does a remarkably good job of staying on point despite a rather paint-by-numbers plot and any number of ways that it could have gone wrong. There's plenty of eye-candy to go with the fantasy and everyone seems to take this with just the right degree of seriousness. Imagine a shade less wink-wink than Xena Warrior Princess. The Boy, aged eight, liked it and on the whole I have to say I'm a bit surprised I haven't heard more about it.

Recommended.

rand()m quote

Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.

—John Gardner