Critic Reviews

The achievement of John Carter is that it takes the elements worn to nubs by everything from "Star Wars" to "Avatar" to TV's "Fringe" and makes them fresh again.

Old-school "Gosh, wow!" sense-of-wonder filmmaking is in short supply in these anxious days, and John Carter (of Mars!) left me with my disbelief in suspended animation and once or twice with goosebumps dotting my arms. And that's enough for me.

Rather than trying to overwhelm viewers by overloading the senses, John Carter's effects strive to create something new using as their foundation a book that's fired imaginations for the past century.

John Carter manages to be a ridiculous amount of fun, even if you are immune to the charms of Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights) running around in what amounts to a stylish loincloth.

Spirit counts for something too, and John Carter has plenty of that, in addition to the requisite dashes of wit.

Against the odds, John Carter is itself pretty amazing - an epic pulp saga that slowly rises to the level of its best imitations and wins you over by degrees.

John Carter is too wickedly strange not to recommend. Movies this expensive usually play it much safer.

The result is an entertaining diversion but it lacks the magnificence one desires in the opening chapter of a would-be franchise.

Did anybody expect it to be a metaphor for modern America?

Director Andrew Stanton's Disney extravaganza is a rather charming pastiche.