Didn’t we learn the dangers of genre mashups with “Cowboys & Aliens?”
“John Carter,” the new wannabe franchise heading our way March 9, 2012, looks like another attempt to fuse multiple genres into one popcorn-pleasing adventure. The first trailer doesn’t offer much thematically to go on, but some of the names attached gives us hope that it’s not another “C&W” debacle.
Let’s start with the biggest name, and no, it’s not the star or any of the talented character actors fleshing out the cast.
Director Andrew Stanton is one of Pixar’s brightest minds. He directed “Wall*E” and “Finding Nemo” and co-wrote all three “Toy Story” features. “John Carter” is based on the writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs, the man whose imagination gave us the never-ending adventures of “Tarzan.”
The story focuses on a ex-military man (Taylor Kitsch) transported to Mars where he becomes an essential player in a world-wide conflict. Sounds like fine escapist fare, but “John Carter” still has a whiff of last year’s franchise flame-out “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.”
Kitsch, the “Fright Night Lights” TV actor who didn’t dazzle us in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” takes the he-man mantle from “Persia’s” Jake Gyllenhaal. And the whole enterprise, from the cool “JCM” logo to the toys you can almost see tumbling off the assembly line, makes the whole film feel a might too calculated.
The folks behind the film released a second trailer today, giving audiences a bit more to go on regarding the conflict as well as the sleek looking aliens John Carter finds on Mars.
Still, with a battery of solid character actors on board (Mark Strong, Bryan Cranston, Ciaran Hinds and Willem Dafoe), “John Carter” could be a great tease to the 2012 summer movie season. Extra points go to the cool tune playing in the trailer. That’s hardly the type of gooey pop song we’re used to hearing in modern trailers.
Plus, we all know what Arnold Schwarzenegger said about the Red Planet in “Total Recall.”