While the John Carter novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, published a century ago, have had an enormous influence on film science fiction from
Buck Rogers through to
Superman and
Star Wars, it's not a little disappointing that when the original character finally hits the big screen, it's to such underwhelming effect and feels like a poor Boy's Own derivative of all its successors. Even if it doesn't have the dramatic potential of Burroughs's Tarzan, the story of the Confederate cavalryman who enters a cave and finds himself on Mars with monstrous beings and arcane technology deserves more than the overlong bombardment of CGI that is provided here. Just playing up the campness a la
Flash Gordon would have done.
The film is even populated by a wealth of decent actors, not that you'd know as nearly all of them are just voices for unimaginatively realised aliens, which leaves few bared but the hero and heroine, who unfortunately have all the charisma of holiday reps. Maybe more could not have been expected of a Disney production, but it's funny to think that the director's last job was
WALL-E, which was ostensibly even more child-friendly and with two robots who couldn't talk as the leads, and yet managed infinitely more substance and emotional engagement than this painfully dull budget-burner.
3/10
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