John Carter Directed by: Andrew Stanton Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Mark Strong Rating: PG-13 Release Date: March 9, 2012
TRAILER SCORE: 4/10
Thoughts by TSR: I really want John Carter to be good. I love Andrew Stanton, so naturally I am interested in his first live-action film; Taylor Kitsch, best known as Tim Riggins on “Friday Night Lights,” is an actor I always root for; and I simply love fun, pulp sci-fi.
That’s why it hurts to say my interest has been fading fast. One of my biggest disappointments came when “of Mars” was removed from the title. The pull out reveal is one thing I sort of enjoyed about this Super Bowl spot, but I still can’t like it as much as I want to because the title is so mind-numbingly generic.
A film can easily overcome an uninspired title – heck, last year Scorsese’s Hugo did just that – but the unimpressive footage is much more worrisome. It's all making me flashback to the Star Wars prequels, and while I don’t think the prequels are the worst things ever, that’s not necessarily a comparison I want to make.
One might think the Super Bowl would be a time to bring out the big guns, but unfortunately this is just more of the same. I’m holding out hope that this is a case of the marketing being a terrible representation of what will ultimately be a fun film – sort of how things played out with Thor – but that is starting to feel like foolish optimism.