John Carter

Based on the Barzoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, this movie from 2012 was one of Disney's efforts to get into the high spectacle blockbuster market that started halfway the new millenium.

Originally planned as a trilogy, this movie is created for the first book of the series, A Princess of Mars.  However, a trilogy never came as this wasn`t a big success, and then Disney acquired another license...

Plot

John Carter is a former confederate captain, who suddenly fings himself in a mysterious cave while being chased after a prospecting run.  A flash appears and suddenly he finds himself on Barzoom, or Mars as we know it, and in the middle of a civil war between the two rivalling cities.
He wants to help the Princess Dejah from the clutches of forced marriage with an evil warlord, and soons learns the events are manipulated by a race called Thern.

He manages to unite the native tribes in a big battle against the Zodanga and overthrow the cityforces, but the Thern escapes.  Carter then devices a plan to obtain the Thern medaillon...

Opinion

While this movie wasn`t a huge success, and caused Disney to pursue the Star Wars license and cancel further instalments in the series, I rather enjoyed it.
The whole film is a visual spectacle, from impressive scenery to great victorian sci-fi flying ships, and even a massively cute space dog...

Granted, the lead role wasn`t perhaps the best in acting, but never the less it is for me a seriously underrated movie.

Rating: 6.5 / 10