Way Over the Rainbow

It's not often that a film gets blasted before a single soul ever sees it. Normally, a well-known piece of American literature (in this case Edgar Rice Burroughs' "A Princess of Mars") would be at least respected by potential audiences and reviewers months in advance. And yet, thanks to what has been called a "lackluster" marketing drive by Disney and a $250 million budget routinely criticized by movie "experts", there is a good chance that you will not see John Carter on the big screen in the coming days. That would be a mistake, as no matter how much Disney might not know how to advertise a movie geared towards boys (after all, their entire business used to be solely appealing to girls) it doesn't change the fact that I had a ton of fun watching it this past weekend. Todd and I had a choice between this and Silent House (which I'll be reviewing next week), and we decided that we were more in the mood for a light-hearted adventure tale than a spooky horror flick. Sure, 3D hasn't always been kind to me. Sure, it's being released in March, and there's not much released during this particular month that is usually any good. But dammit, we wanted a mindless sci-fi action film, and we didn't care from where we got it.

Soon, he'll be adding Best Picture nominee Battleship to his resume.

When Confederate Civil War hero John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) finds himself mystically transported to Mars (known to the locals as Barsoom), he finds himself squarely in the middle of an inter-species conflict, as war rages between the cities of Zodanga, a warrior nation intent on destruction, and the peaceful, scientifically superior city of Helium. Somehow Zodanga's leader Sab Than (Dominic West) has gotten his hands on a weapon superior to anything Helium has been able to produce. Dominating his enemies, Sab Than is intent on conquering Helium, and taking the genius Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins) as his bride. Asked to help, John Carter is searching for meaning in his life but nevertheless intent on returning to his little bit of nowhere in the American West and a substantial deposit of gold that awaits his return. In his way is the war, a tribe of green skinned aliens known as Tharks, and a mysterious sect known as the Holy Therns, who have their own plans for cities and people of Barsoom.

Yeah, yeah, she's hot... but can she ACT?

John Carter might not seem it at first, but sitting through it makes you appreciate the work of Burroughs, essentially one of the great-grandfathers of modern science fiction. First published in 1912, Carter's adventures have always enjoyed a pulpy feel to their telling, a method that translates to the big screen easily, even if this is the first time the tale has been told in such a visually spectacular way. Director Andrew Stanton, whose resume has mostly consisted of animated films Finding Nemo and Wall-E, does an excellent job in his live action debut, though perhaps not as well as his Pixar compatriot Brad Bird did with Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. He's helped by the fact that most of the film is animated to begin with, with almost all the backgrounds, effects and most of the leading roles created in post-production. The design of the alien Tharks is especially realistic, helping John Carter sport the best visual effects since Avatar. Stanton also perfectly captures the intended fictional vision of Mars, a wasteland that despite looking completely barren manages to support life on a grand scale. Top it off with excellent 3D and a musical score by Michael Giacchino, and you've got a perfectly realized Barsoom, easily the most realistic-looking setting for a sci-fi film I've witnessed in a long time.

It's an early twentieth-century sci-fi story... of COURSE there's a dog!

Sadly, the story doesn't quite live up to the standards set by the special effects. Though I haven't read any of the original novels, I'm willing to bet that the quality of the story can partly be attributed to the fact that the tale itself turns one hundred this year, and certainly not everything could be included for fear of simply not getting better with age. Thankfully, this is all but solved with liberal doses of humor that are scattered evenly throughout the film. Unlike last week's Ghost Rider, the humor here is 100% intentional, so there's never that moment where you're laughing at what a farce the show has become. Sure, sometimes the humor goes a little over the top or takes the obvious route to a laugh for the expressed purpose of ending a scene, but no matter what the reason for use, John Carter never fails to be funny when called upon to do so.

"Okay, yeah... I can take them!"

Really, the only disappointing aspect of John Carter is in the acting. It's not the supporting cast that fails us, however. Drawing upon substantial talent like Dominic West, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds (who seems to appear in everything these days), James Purefoy and Bryan Cranston in live action roles, the people on the screen would appear to be as mighty as any seen in the past few years. Add in the vocal talents of Academy Award nominees Willem Dafoe, Thomas Haden Church and Samantha Morton, and you really do have a cast to be reckoned with. Sadly, it doesn't matter how many excellent supporting actors you've collected when your leads are a pair of noodles just taken out of the water. Taylor Kitsch is at least decent, though I don't see anything beyond his rugged good looks that certify him as a star in the making. Sure, he COULD be the next Hugh Jackman, but Jackman was a theatrically-trained actor who can also sing and dance, regularly showcasing abilities surpassing his presence among the top action stars in Hollywood today. If Kitsch wants to make a name for himself, he'll have to take on a role (and soon) which requires more from him than a guttural regurgitation of simplistic dialogue. The worst however is Lynn Collins, who can at least state that her performance is better than the one she put forth in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. No, that's really not saying much. Perhaps it's partially the character's fault, as Dejah Thoris pretends to be a strong female role while being simultaneously disallowed the opportunity to explore that idea. I felt that the dog had better character development, not a good sign for this pretty but not talent-endowed actress.

Awww, he just wants a hug... of DEATH!

As I've said, the film has flaws. I would have loved to look more into the background of the Therns, a mystical race much like Star Trek's Q species, omnipotent space-faring people that manipulate world event not for evil, but because they can. Perhaps that can be explored in the future, as John Carter was always meant to be the beginning of a film franchise. Whether that happens or not will be decided by how much business it builds in the next few weeks, but in the meantime I seriously enjoyed this film, to the tune of #4 for 2012. Rarely last year did I witness an action film that was the match of what John Carter put before me (the only one surpassing it would have been Hanna, and that title wasn't blessed with the same level of amazing effects), and between this, Underworld: Awakening, The Hunger Games and The Avengers in the year's first half, it's turning into a good year for genre films. I for one was more than pleased to discover that catching this particular title on the big screen was indeed no mistake.

A Bloody Good Time

The legend of the Roman Ninth Legion is an interesting one. Supposedly, the veteran legion of over three thousand men who were stationed in Roman-occupied England in the waning years of the Empire disappeared in the woods of Scotland. Though this may no longer be the preferred explanation of historians who believe that the Legion was actually transferred to the eastern fringes of Roman occupancy and destroyed there, either in Judea or Parthia, it's certainly enough of an idea to capture the imagination of filmmakers. Next year, I'll likely check out The Eagle, which is about that very idea (though I'll likely enjoy Jaime Bell's performance more than that of the film's "star", Channing Tatum). But that film likely will have little improvement on a film that reached limited release this year, Neil Marshall's Centurion. When the film was first released this past summer, I was first entranced by the cast, which included The Wire's Dominic West and Quantum of Solace's Olga Kurylenko. When I discovered that Marshall was the director, I was hooked and determined to see the film at the earliest opportunity. Sadly, it's run in theaters was depressingly short, and my busy schedule meant I didn't get a chance to see it immediately. So it was only recently, when i re-discovered the film on DVD, that I finally got the opportunity to sit down and take it in. Would it be worth the wait?

Yeah, if I saw her chasing me, I'd run faster...

Centurion gets off to a quick start. In Roman-occupied Britain, the army is faring poorly against the Picts, Celtic warriors inhabiting the Scottish highlands. The Picts fight a guerrilla war that is foreign to the soldiers of the Roman military. They use sneak attacks and feints to defeat much larger foes, and the Romans have no plan or tactic against it. Under pressure from Rome, the governor sends the Ninth Legion north into Scotland under the command of Titus Flavius Virilus (West), their elite military army, to wipe out the Picts once and for all. That doesn't quite work out for them, as the Ninth is obliterated in an ambush that results in the capture of Titus and decimation of his soldiers in a battle bloodier than any you've seen in recent years. In the end, only seven soldiers are left, led by Centurion Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender). They decide to rescue Titus before returning home, all the while being hunted by the hunter and assassin Etain (Kurylenko), who has her own reasons for spilling Roman blood.

...Faster than him, anyway

While "Seven Centurions with Swords" doesn't have quite the same ring to it as "Six Chicks with Picks", Centurion shares some similarities with Marshall's previous films. In seemingly all Marshall movies, a small group is cut off from all help and forced to fight the elements, each other and external forces in an attempt to get home, and Centurion is no different. Many of these men are damned to die never being able to see their homes or families again, as they are killed off one by one the closer they get to their homeland. Not all the soldiers are noble, either, and some downright villainous, and this thankfully leads to something of a mix of character types. But the thing it truly shares with it's predecessors is the blood flow. Marshall never shies from spilling blood, guts, or anything else in his battles, whether they be one-on-one or hundreds against hundreds. When someone, good or bad dies, you wince automatically, as the death is as brutal as you can expect from a Marshall film.

Not a zombie film, but from this shot you'd be forgiven to think so

The film, though similar in tone to Marshall's previous works, still manages to keep the tension high. Though the film is at it's heart a chase/action film, it doesn't feel samey and the audience doesn't feel like it's been sitting through the same sequence over and over. And any time Kurylenko is on the screen, that tension is tripled, as even playing a mute assassin she manages to convey with her mannerisms most of what you need to know to get the character, with what little else to know spoken of by others. Simply her presence is performance enough, and as a physical embodiment of revenge she's the real star of this film. Fassbender, before this best known as the Inglourious Basterds officer who couldn't count to three in German, is noble and strong as the film's lead. He comes across believably as a leader of men in dire circumstances, consumed with getting these soldiers home. Dominic West, best known (and amazing) as Det. Jimmy McNulty in the HBO series The Wire (The best show you've never seen, or in many cases ever heard of), has only a small role in this film but as a General who commands the respect of his men by leading them into the fight and will sacrifice anything for them, he works with his usual charismatic style. West is one of the best actors who hasn't made it big on the mainstream stage, and any chance you have to see him, you should take it.

They're not exactly "merry men"

It's a shame the film's secondary characters don't get as much presence as the film's stars. Far too often are characters confusable with one another, and it's not until after the scene is over that you realize who has died and who is still around, or which character committed a particularly dastardly deed. This isn't helped by the fact that most of these characters get precious little time for introspection, so we know very little about them before they are wiped from the slate of the film. The most recognizable of them creates his own problem, as while Noel Clarke is a talented actor, somehow a black Centurion seems a little too far-fetched to be believable. Marshall has stated that the film was never mean to be historically-accurate, but still. Are there any historians out there who can tell me whether this was at all feasible? Regardless, the handling of the film's cannon fodder could and should have had more time attributed to it. The best of them is actually Imogen Poots as Arianne, a Pict outcast that the survivors meet late in the film, with Liam Cunningham a close second as a veteran Roman soldier named Brick.

She just watched Quantum of Solace for the first time

The best thing about the film might be the moral ambiguity of it all. Though Dias is obviously an honorable man, and Etain more or less a monster (though justifiably so), the Romans are not necessarily the heroes of this tale. Though the Picts are shown as "tribal" and "barbaric" in their living styles as opposed to the "civilized" Romans, they almost certainly could be seen as the "good guys" from a different angle. After all, the Romans committed atrocities against the local British populace during their invasion and occupation in expanding their Empire. The Picts simply want to drive the Romans from their shores, to live free apart from the Empire. The legendary fate of the Ninth Legion is not so surprising when you consider the expansion of empires over the centuries, and their inevitable weaknesses from becoming stretched too thin. Getting back to the film, however, we still only have Dias to root for, and Etain to root against. That it could easily be the other way around is an interesting, and no doubt there's some who saw this movie thinking just that. In the end we're just hoping someone chops the head or arm of somebody else, to sate our apparent blood lust.

There's a LOT of blood in this film

It might not have been as good as Marshall's best film, The Descent, but Centurion was in my opinion well worth checking out. It's a shame when small imported films like this get overlooked for U.S. wide release, with Hollywood instead deciding to churn out their own story shortly afterward. I have no doubt that 2011's The Eagle will be nowhere close in quality to Centurion, despite it's assuredly larger budget and billions of camera filters to get the look "just right". It's a shame because Marshall is one of those directors who will never get any real attention from the mainstream until he makes some film about a far-east boy who finds the love of his life thanks to a corrupt quiz show (Sorry, Danny Boyle). But Marshall doesn't do that kind of film. He makes bleak, non-heroic action films in which the characters are often running away from danger instead of into the thick of it. And that's good enough for #7 on my Top 10 List. A little more character development would have gone a long way, but blood and guts and strong acting from all corners makes this not only one of this year's faves, but one of the year's more unappreciated flicks. It's not for everybody (Understatement of the year), but for those it appeals to, it is worth a watch.