John Carter

Here's the relevant plot points. I'm sort of fascinated by flops, and once it looked like John Carter was on that path (or as much as a film that'll probably break $150 million gross can be) I decided to check it out before it ended its run. Plus I started to hear some pushback reviews suggesting it wasn't as bad as the early word. After watching it, I guess that's true.

Now it does have problems, to wit:

-It's overly long (well over two hours)

-The script is better than the phantom menace, but probably worse than Avatar (expository at best, and sooooo self -serious)

-Taylor Kitch is incredibly miscast, though since I've yet to see him in something where I actually liked him I'm not sure what properly cast would be (Maybe the forthcoming battleship). Lets just say if Mcnulty had played the lead instead of the main bad guy I'd have been much more into it.

All that said, the action scenes are well done (you can generally follow what's going on) and it has a few nice moments. Plus when it ended with an obvious set up for a sequel I had enough interest in the characters to think I would probably check out a followup as a matinee if nothing I liked better was showing. So there you go.