Wa-Hey Peeps!
Guess what? I'm on a movie-roll here hehe. Managed to get tickets to watch John Carter last Sunday, so the whole clan minus lil' Delea (she's too young for now) went to Tropicana City Mall's GSC to watch Disney's latest offering.
Now, I dunno about you guys, but judging from the movie trailer and posters, I expected it to be a gladiator-ish movie with a half-naked, muscle-flexing hero slaying strange, ugly CGI-created creatures.. not unlike Clash of the Titans. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there was an interesting storyline that stands out from the typical monster-slaying hero.
Pic courtesy of movieposter.com
[SPOILER ALERT!!! Those who do not want to find out how the story goes can skip this part]
First off, I never knew that the story was based on a novel (or chronicles to be exact) by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Trivia: He also created "Tarzan"), so I went in thinking this was just another epic movie. After abit of googling after watching the movie, the interesting storyline that seemed more in depth than the usual run-of-the-mill movies finally made sense to me. And, as you all know, I'm a sucker for novel-based movies haha.
The story started not in some foreign, barren wasteland I initially thought the scene took place, but in 19th century America circa The Civil War. The barren wasteland that we see in the movie trailers is actually Mars, so that explains all the dusty brick-red rocks and dirt. So as the story goes, John Carter (hunky Taylor Kitsch of Friday Night Lights fame) unwittingly and accidentally teleported himself to Mars, better known as Barsoom to the Martians. Now, if you expect to see little green martians, you'd be really disappointed, coz in this movie, the only green martians you'll see are these barbarian-ish lanky creatures standing a good 5 feet above normal human height called the Tharks. The rest of the Mars population preddy much look like us humans, with apache-ish tattoos and armour similar to Lord of The Rings' wardrobe. Oh and lets not forget the strange looking monsters and beasts that they treat as pets.
John Carter in a Gladiator ring with 2 White Apes
Pic courtesy of digitaltrends.com
So while John Carter was busy getting acquainted with the Tharks and their pets, the human-like Martians were at war for power. Princess Dejah of Helium (Lynn Collins) was forced to marry Prince Sab Than of Zodanga (Dominic West) to forge peace, but of course, the evil Sab Than, aided by an ethereal being with teleporting powers (Mark Strong) had ulterior motives. The Princess, an intelligent free-spirit, refused to go down without a fight and fled amidst a battle between the 2 clans, and as expected, rescued by John Carter. What ensues is pretty predictable -- John Carter helps the Princess save her people, and she helps him find a way home to earth. They fall in love in the process, which led John Carter to decide to stay at Mars with his Princess. A twist in their happy ending sent John Carter back to earth, right back where he had started. And so, he tries to get back to Barsoom, taking years to do so, but in the end... he does.. :) I'm guessing from the ending and depending on how well this movie does this year, there might just be a sequel... *wink wink*
[End of Spoiler: Its safe to read now hehehe]
All in all, the movie is fast-paced, action packed and well developed. Sci-fi geeks and epic movie fans will find this their cuppa tea, although they will most definitely start to compare some bits to other sci-fi and epic movies. The script was no brain surgery, littered with some humour and gags. Nevertheless, it was a fun movie to watch, a good form of escapism for me. So if you crave for some alien-slaying action, this is a must watch for ya!
P/S: My Deena didn't quite like this movie though, coz as soon as the credits started to roll, she yelled (loudly i might add) "Ummi!! This story is BORINGGGG!!". Apparently any movie that doesn't have any cartoon character innit is boring to a 4-yr old.. :P
That's all for now... till next rambling entry then... ciao!
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