Some books should remain books...

So I have just sat through John Carter, a film by Disney and boy does it show.  The best way to sum it up was confused mess.  There was zero chemistry between the leads playing John Carter and Dejah Thoris.  Now I have read the books so I know what is going on between the Red Martians, Green Martians and White Martians, but I feel sorry for the general audience that has not been initiated via the pulp novels.

The story jumped around and even utilised a device to transport our hero to Barsoom, in the books it was a matter of will power. But I guess our modern audience needed a device to allow the transmission and duplication of our Earth man.  After some initial awful wire effects of John literally finding his feet he seemed by the first battle sequence (the one with the airships) to have found some amazing coordination even though a few hours ago film time he was stumbling around, he appeared to have miraculous accuracy when leaping between moving air ships.

To be blunt this film deserved to bomb, and in a way I am glad it did, the plot was all over the place, acting wooden the only saving feature was the effects. But given the level of CGI these days that is not particularly hard to do.

My better half left part way through the film, and I don't blame her.  I even checked Twitter a couple of times and scanned a text book on Active Directory, yes folks the film was that entertaining. But I stuck it out till the  bitter end and the confused battle sequence at the end that seemed to mainly shot a night. We had a "twist" ending that was obviously trying to set up a sequel.  Thank goodness that is not going to happen.

So basically you have here a confused and boring film, trying so hard to look epic in places.  A few of the standard Disney pieces are there including the cute comic relief dog character. But even that can't save the cruddy dialogue, wooden acting and zero chemistry even between the live actors and the CGI Green Martians.

Luckily this was a £3 rental from a well known UK DvD outlet.  It is going back tomorrow and I won't be sad. I enjoyed the books as an early twenty something and those memories will remain. Here's hoping I can forget the film and move on. Avengers Assemble.