Based upon a series of books that began exactly a century ago, this is an intriguing tale of a Civil War vet jaded by the reality he found when he returned home. When asked to fight again for his country, he flatly refuses, and while on the run a series of events transpires that beams him to Mars, where he is also asked to fight for a country and a cause he does not necessarily believe in.
From the trailers alone, I had absolutely no desire to see this film. I understand that it's popular right now to blame poor marketing for the failure of John Carter, but I believe it really is true. Disney spent an estimated $100 million on this film's marketing campaign, but all I could tell you from the trailers was that some human with super strength had infiltrated the Geonosis scenes from Star Wars Episode II, sans jedi, which of course are the only reason to see any of the Star Wars prequels. It wasn't until my wife found a paragraph online detailing the premise of the film that I became interested. Had the marketing department actually focused on showing off the story's plot and its excellent characters then perhaps the film wouldn't have bombed as badly as it has thus far. This was a good, fun film with some interesting twists and turns and characters I honestly liked, but none of that translated in the previews.
Conversely, I knew exactly what I was getting into with The Hunger Games. Set in a dystopian future, where a Capitol rules twelve districts with an iron fist, this is the story of a young girl who volunteers to participate in a gladiator-style fight to the death with twenty-three other teenagers - one boy and one girl from each district - until only one is left standing.
I'm not really sure this film even needed a marketing campaign. I know a number of people who teach in middle school, and all of them say that every one of their students has read the entire trilogy. I read them two years ago and had been eagerly awaiting film adaptations ever since, but with the end of Harry Potter and the near-end of Twilight, it was only a matter of time before the next major teen franchise found its way into theaters.
They were smart enough to make sure that the brilliant author, Suzanne Collins, was involved with the screenplay, so of course the writing was good, the casting was perfect (ignore the racist idiots who didn't like that Rue is and has always been black), and the artwork for the sets and costumes and everything else were spot-on.
It was a good, good movie... when you could see it.
Perhaps you have heard of a camera effect in use these days called the "shaky cam". Fun side note: I know a guy named Cameron, and this is the term he uses for himself when he's had too much caffeine. Anyway, "shaky cam" is when the camera moves around as if it is being held by someone in the scene. You can see its effects in "handheld camera" films like The Blaire Witch Project (1999), Cloverfield (2008), or the recent Chronicle (2012) (which was excellent, by the way). Perhaps its best usage was in The Bourne Identity movies, where it gave each scene a certain gritty appeal that worked all too well for Matt Damon & friends.
I understand the concept behind its use for a film like this. The filmmakers were certainly in a delicate position: how do you make a movie about teenagers killing each other and keep it under an R rating? If your core audience can't even see the film, then how do you expect to turn a profit? The shaky cam allows you to sort of fudge your action scenes so that you can show action without explicitly showing the action, so I understand. However, there were several non-action scenes, such as the opening one depicting quiet scenes around District 12, where the shaky cam was used, and not only was it used but it was used to such a degree that a shot of an old man sitting on his porch looked like it was taken by someone doing jumping jacks in his bushes. There was no reason for it, and the shaking was so extreme that it pulled me right out of the movie and left me wondering just what in the hell the cinematographers were thinking. There were a few instances of this, not so many that I ended up hating the movie but enough to seriously annoy me. The director claims he used the shaky cam to "reflect protagonist Katniss Everdeen's point of view". Since the book is written in first-person from Katniss' POV, this should make sense, but when the film shows a number of scenes where Katniss isn't even present, that kind of argument holds no weight.
It was a tricky situation into which they placed themselves, and where the camera was concerned I don't believe they succeeded.
John Carter vs. The Hunger Games
So, back to the difference between John Carter and The Hunger Games. Both had great casting and overall were both good movies. I think I was more impressed with John Carter simply because it was unexpected - like the marketing sucked on purpose so that the five of us who actually went and saw the film would have a great time since our expectations had been lowered so far - with the exact opposite happening for The Hunger Games, which all too often felt as though there was a better movie going on than what you were seeing. I could have told you after seeing the first trailer for each film which would do well and which wouldn't: John Carter's is far too old a story to draw in the kinds of crowds that The Hunger Games has. If I'm not mistaken, HG made about as much on its midnight showings alone as JC has in its two weeks of release. That's a pretty hefty imbalance between what are essentially both good movies, but it just goes to show what kind of effect public demand and expectations can have on a film's success or failure.
