merpman-94402 The movie did just $73million at the domestic box office, but 3 times that overseas. I hope whoever promoted this movie was banned from the movie industry, because it was the poor promotion that killed it.The movie is very entertaining, and really begs the rest of the books to be made into movies, but because of 1 idiot, we will doubtless not be getting that.Great family adventure movie.

escctrlshift As other reviewers have pointed out, Disney badly botched the marketing of this film, which cost $250 million to make. The important thing is, in the production of this film, IT SHOWS. Buy the DVD and feast on the visuals and original soundtrack. This movie is a visual feast, even if it is not a theatrical tour-de-force of the actor's craft. That is the point, nor is the original story, per se. It is the storytelling of the production that succeeds best, but like any great storytelling, the real feast is in the retelling or rewatching of an old story. In this regard, John Carter is a classic, like the original novel it derives from.In spite of its marketing department being out to lunch, the Disney factor counts. Disney knows how to make great movies, even though their product is cloyingly formulaic at times. The script of "John Carter" derives from Edgar Rice Burrough's sci-fi classic, "A Princess of Mars". John Carter thus has some pedigree of greatness. The character of Tars Tarkus, in particular, benefits from the eminence-grise of Wilhem Dafoe's voiceover, making the CGI character heroic, even (if you stretch your poetic imagination) vaguely Christ-like. The casting and a direction of the movie are well above average, and for its time, the CGI is outstandingly executed, and well-conceived aesthetically. Mars/Barsoom is a vast wasteland full of archeological riches and a dying ecosystem, which is brilliantly (if not exactly scientifically) depicted. The location sets, including Victorian-era New York city and ante-bellum Virginia, are superb. The rest -- costumes, makeup, lighting -- all reflect the huge budget. One just doesn't get the same look or feel from CGI. This is an old-fashioned epic blockbuster, that fell flat for no good reason I can discern.

Claudia isabelle It had everything, action, adventure, romance, fantasy, you name it. Made me think at a lot of movies, like Jumper, because this guy jumps a lot, kangaroo John :)), at Warcraft because it has that Thark population with 4 arms and all are green and very tall, alien style but more like a game fantasy characters, Mad Max Road Fury cos they all do crazy battleship fights and really there is no time to get bored. Really good movie i enjoyed a lot and hardly eat my cereals cos I did not want to lose any of the details.John Carter takes Mars related movies to a whole other level, without people wondering on a deserted planet and killing one another to see who gets back home, but it has a human story with human feelings and a really good plot regarding the power balance and if this power balance is really decided through victories and defeats or already the games are being made by other high instances. Maybe some wars need to be won by certain sides and it goes like this before our planet even existed. I mean the Matai Shang makes a good point if you want to think beyond the fantasy of this movie. But sometime a hero appears who blows all the game in the air and rewrites everything and this is why I am saying.....can someone get Nick Fury to recruit this guy? Trust me he's good and i think the chick, his new martian wife will do better than Wonder Woman, has more feeling into it and kicks booms like no other.

isajademarilyn Who hired the film editor and director? I've seen more than 10k movies and this easily is in the top ten hall of shame! Some kind of mixed Sci-Fi films where nothing makes any sense. The editing is the worst ever, jumping from one scene to another without any transitions nor sense. One minute they are celebrating and in a blink they are fighting. This nightmare goes on during the whole movie.Nothing can be saved exempt a few well made aliens. Couldn't care less for the one dimensional main characters, with blank faces. The actress shouldn't work in moving images ever, rather stay on paper where she can get away with only one expression. A plant. Guy not better. Lost complete interest, real pain to watch, couldn't bear it anymore. We had to turn if off 15 minutes before the end.They should have donated their huge budget to help stop world hunger, rather than throwing it out of the window.