Curator Watchlist
A big, earnest pulp adventure with real visual imagination and old-school swashbuckling energy, but also a clunky setup, uneven lead performance, and enough exposition to blunt its momentum. If you like sincere space fantasy and can forgive a messy first act, it’s more fun than its reputation suggests.
Where to watch: Buy
Wed · 2h 12m
Director: Andrew Stanton
Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton
John Carter is a war-weary, former military captain who's inexplicably transported to the mysterious and exotic planet of Barsoom (Mars) and reluctantly becomes embroiled in an epic conflict. It's a world on the brink of collapse, and Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands.
Andrew Stanton
Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton
A big, earnest pulp adventure with real visual imagination and old-school swashbuckling energy, but also a clunky setup, uneven lead performance, and enough exposition to blunt its momentum. If you like sincere space fantasy and can forgive a messy first act, it’s more fun than its reputation suggests.
John Carter is the rare expensive flop that feels less cynical than confused. It wants to be a rousing, romantic, old-fashioned adventure, and when it settles into that mode it has a surprising amount of charm: big creatures, strange politics, and a sense of movement that keeps the film alive even when the script is over-explaining itself.
The movie’s biggest problem is that it takes a while to find its footing. The opening is overloaded, the hero is intentionally blank but not always compelling, and the emotional beats don’t always land with the force the film wants. Still, the world of Barsoom is vivid, and the film’s sincerity goes a long way toward making it watchable.
For viewers who miss studio sci-fi that plays like a Saturday matinee on a giant canvas, this has enough spectacle and momentum to recommend. It’s not a lost masterpiece, but it is an underrated piece of pulp entertainment with more heart than polish.
Framesofnick (2.5★) · 1048 likes
John carter I hardly know her
Noel Mellor (4.5★) · 702 likes
With the heart of classic 80s adventure and a modern aesthetic, #johncarter did what so many have failed to do. It made me feel like a kid.
Matt Singer (2.5★) · 371 likes
Watching this for the first time since theaters my opinion remains totally unchanged: An extremely earnest and faithful adaptation of its source material about a guy who jumps around Mars like a human flea; with a deeply miscast hero (and I love me some Friday Night Lights so it pains me to say that) and a female lead who completely outshines him and steals the movie to the point where I remain mystified she didn’t go on to massive stardom.
karen h. (3★) · 289 likes
woola mvp
nick atkinson (3.5★) · 266 likes
Criminally underrated.
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For the immersive alien-world design, imperial conflict, and transportive blockbuster scale.
A classic wish-fulfillment sci-fi adventure that shares the wide-eyed, youthful sense of discovery.
A more intimate sci-fi tale about learning across cultures and finding humanity in an alien conflict.
pulp adventure, space fantasy, planetary romance, war and honor, fish-out-of-water, colonial-era adventure echoes, epic worldbuilding, earnest blockbuster tone
space opera, pulp sci-fi, swashbuckling, alien civilization, epic adventure, old-fashioned spectacle, earnest tone, worldbuilding, action-adventure, blockbuster flop