The critics have been harsh on the Disney film John Carter to the point where the New York Times compared it to Ishtar, but we've seen it and the Szondy family disagrees. We found it refreshing, a lot of fun and the daughter was so taken with the epic that she's penning her own story, A Princess of Venus: an adventure of Peter Angels.
Somewhere Burroughs smiles.
Having both read the reviews and seen the film, I am somewhat surprised at the critical reaction.
ReplyDeleteSure, some of the dialogue can feel cheesy (there's just something about hearing the word "Helium" used as a placename that seems incongruous) and the pace is a little slower than most contemporary films, but does that make it a bad film?
Personally, I thought that it was a competent, even a good film; it may not be a defining film in the history of cinema (although this close to release, that's hard to say) but it certainly didn't feel like a waste of 2 hours of my life.
In fact, it rather put me in mind of the 1980 Flash Gordon film. Although the two films have basically nothing in common, they both feel like good, "old fashioned" science fiction films, rather than slick modern blockbusters (although I'm sure that that's something of a left-handed compliment as far as the producers of John Carter are concerned)