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

In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnation without government permission.

Newsweek, Aug 20 2007