John Carter

After three terrific animated films for Pixar, writer and director Andrew Stanton made his live action debut with this ambitious adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs story. A civil war veteran accidentally finds a portal that transports him to Mars where he experiences an epic journey while falling in love with a beautiful princess. Due to the restrictions of the graphic novel, the film succeeds and fails on several levels. While the story is a fantasy of a bygone era, Stanton fails to find a balance to update the story for a modern audience and staying true to its source which was an impossible task to begin with. He could have pulled it off with severe editing of the script by focusing more on the characters instead of the visual effects. Where he succeeded in the animation format, Stanton shows weakness with the actors whose performances are all over the place. Newcomer Taylor Kitsch stars along with Lynn Collins in the leads with a solid but wasted supporting cast including Samantha Morton, Willem Dafoe and Mark Strong amongst others. 1001 Films' coverage of films on DVD.