John Carter ***

Short Take: Disney’s $350 million “upgrade” of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars is a prime example of studio overkill that is poised to be the biggest money loser in movie history.

Reel Take: In a lukewarm defense of John Carter, it was not as bad as previews indicated. They made it look like Star Wars on steroids with a liberal dose of 300 thrown in for good measure. While that was not the case, it certainly transcended its humble pulp fiction roots to become gargantuan eye candy designed for the 3-D process and the IMAX theaters and that is its Achilles’ heel.

The film follows the basic outline of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ first John Carter novel called A Princess of Mars which first appeared in 1912. In 1881 a fictionalized Burroughs known here as Ned attends his uncle’s funeral in Richmond and is given a journal which recounts his strange adventures. In 1868 John Carter is a Confederate officer who is mysteriously transported to Mars (which the natives call Barsoom) where he becomes a Superman like character and gets involved in the local Martian wars while falling in love with a Martian princess.

This scenario is excessively realized by director Andrew Stanton and his visual effects team. Prior to this film Stanton had made the animated hits Finding Nemo and Wall-E for Pixar and Disney obviously hoped to strike box office gold a third time. Unfortunately John Carteris not an animated film and the task of producing a live action film with these kinds of effects costs far more. Just how the budget ballooned to $350 million, I’m not sure, but now Disney is stuck with a film that will lose around $200 million making it the biggest flop in movie history.

That’s too bad for John Carterhas a high powered cast headed up by Taylor Kitsch as the titular character and Lynn Collins as the Princess. The juicy character roles go to Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton, Ciarin Hinds (he’s everywhere!), Thomas Haden Church, and Mark Strong. Watching them display their green scenery chewing skills made the movie far more enjoyable for me than anything else it had to offer.

In addition to the CGI overkill, the film is way too long and lacks a storyteller’s pace so that it moves in fits and starts. Ultimately the biggest problem with John Carter is that it is B movie material given an A+ budget. Some would argue the same thing about Avatar but Andrew Stanton is no James Cameron and now Disney must pay the price since audiences don’t seem to be willing to.

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action.

Review by Chip Kaufmann

 

Thin Ice ***1/2

Short Take: The story of a shyster of an insurance salesman who thinks he’s too clever for his own good, a trait that the film shares as well.

Reel Take: Thin Ice tells the story of a shyster of an insurance salesman who for some reason [unbeknownst to the viewer] thinks he’s the cleverest man in the room. Unfortunately the film suffers from the same character flaw. That’s not to say Thin Iceisn’t entertaining – it is. It just that is isn’t as clever as it thinks it is.

Filmmakers and sister team Jill and Karen Sprecher have good intentions, emulating the Coen brothers in style and story but unfortunately they don’t quite share the flare for dialogue that Joel and Ethan Coen do. For my money, you can’t make a good movie out of a bad script. While this script is far from bad, it is far more mediocre than its plot, twists, turns and Kaiser Soze-like reveal would lead one to believe. The result is a film that is ok, but isn’t nearly as good as it could have been.

Greg Kinnear is Mickey Prohaska is a hack insurance salesman with a gambling problem, an estranged wife (Lea Thompson) and a habit of thinking he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread and everyone is dumber than a bag of hammers. When he happens on to a kindly, half addled old farmer (Alan Arkin) who has inexplicably gotten a very valuable violin, Mickey hatches a plan to dupe the old man out of the fiddle, make the score himself, pay off his debts and win back his wife.

What he doesn’t plan on is a nosy neighbor (Mike Hagerty), a cagy locksmith (Billy Cruddup), and a hapless insurance agent (David Harbour) getting in his way. Oh, and everything that can go wrong does indeed go wrong.

When everything does indeed go from bad to worse, the film goes from dark comedy to very dark comedy. So much so that two people walked out of screening I attended. If those folks are reading this now, they should have waited it out; beyond that I’m not saying because I don’t want to give any of Mickey’s troubles or the convoluted plot twists away.

Did I mention convoluted? Thin Iceis simultaneously entertaining and convoluted at the same time. Unfortunately, the Sprecher sisters do nothing to endear Mickey to us, so as things go from bad to worse and the film’s Fargo-like tendencies emerge, one wishes a wood chipper would indeed come into the picture.

All of this is not to say it’s a bad film. Indeed its cast does a bang up job. Kinnear is somehow born to play roles like Mickey, roles that Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Fred McMurray would have reveled in back in their day. The problem is there’s a whole lot less charm now than then. If you can take Thin Ice for what it is and not place expectations on it for what it isn’t, you’ll enjoy it well enough.

Rated R for language, and brief violent and sexual content.

Review by Michelle Keenan