Trailer Tracking: ‘The Amazing Spider-Man,’ ‘The Dark Knight Rises,’ ‘Dream House,’ ‘John Carter’

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Movie: “John Carter”

Best Parts of the Trailer: The reveal of the Tharks; super Earthman action leap; the Martian landscape

Worst Parts of the Trailer: The “Stargate”-ish tone; didn’t really sell us on Gambit being the next big action hero; no mention of “Mars” or “Andrew Stanton”

Our Take: OK, like many nerds, we’re not 100% thrilled about the title of this Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation being changed from “John Carter of Mars” to just “John Carter”, but that’s not our big issue with this trailer. Here’s the thing – we want to LOVE this movie. We do. This is a beloved pulp hero. It’s directed by Andrew frickin’ Stanton, who is a Pixar legend and directed “Finding Nemo” and “WALL-E”. And, even though this is a Disney flick, many people are regarding “John Carter” as the first unofficial Pixar live-action movie. Plus, it’s about warriors throwing down with 12-foot-green aliens on Mars. This movie should be an easy win. Pure razzle-dazzle. However, the first trailer… shrug. It shows off some very cool visuals, but, as a whole… meh. It’s certainly not bad, but it just doesn’t have that wow factor. It really, really doesn’t help that the trailer kind of makes the movie look like “Stargate” – the Kurt Russell/James Spader version. And, if there’s anything less cool than the “Stargate” TV show, it’s the James Spader “Stargate”.

There are extremely cool design elements featured throughout the trailer – the landscapes, the green-skinned Thark warriors, the mechanical-winged ships – but, so far, it just hasn’t shown us a world that we’ve never seen before. The world of “Wall-E” was more revolutionary and new than the world of this trailer. Plus the preview fails to introduce us to the most pivotal aspect of the entire film – John Carter. While “Friday Night Lights” fans might know that Taylor Kitsch is charismatic as hell, those qualities aren’t ever displayed in the “John Carter” trailer, and we’re a little worried that the “Carter” filmmakers are expecting that audiences will just accept Kitsch as a leading man. To date, Kitsch has never opened or carried a film on his own, and the public needs to be introduced to this guy. The “John Carter” team needs to tell us – THIS is why this Kitsch guy is awesome. THIS is why you should be excited that he got transported to Mars and has now become a bad-ass warrior and rescuer of princesses.

As the title change suggests, John Carter is the most important part of the movie and, for a first trailer, we wanted it to be more of a “Meet John Carter” thing than a moody “Conan in Fantasyland” thing. This is a nice first taste and is intriguing, but it just doesn’t give audiences enough to care about the story or want to follow John Carter to Mars. (It’s a whole other issue that the trailer makes it look like John went to Narnia rather than another planet. Was Stanton right to replace the sci-fi-ness of the tale with more fantasy elements? Only time will tell.)

TRAILER OUTLOOK: Good, but not great. Give us less “Stargate” and more John Carter dialogue next time.

By TOM BURNS
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
tom@hollywoodchicago.com