Genre Guesstimation – John Carter (2012)

The idea behind this feature (Genre Guesstimation) is for me to watch a bunch of new movies (or ones that I haven’t seen many times) from the chosen monthly GG genre in order to expand my knowledge of movies within that particular genre.

This month’s genre has been chosen by DJ Valentine of Simplistic Reviews and we will be reviewing our favorite Reluctant Hero Movies.

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of May by sending them to reluctantdj@movierob.net

Try to think out of the box! Great choice DJ!

Let’s see if I felt that this movie would be worthy of being in the company of my others favorite movies in the genre of Reluctant Hero Movies..…

“When I saw you, I believed it was a sign… that something new can come into this world.” – Tars Tarkas

Number of Times Seen – 1 (11 May 2020)

Brief Synopsis – A former soldier of the US Civil War is transported to Mars where he must help save a princess from doom.

My Take on it – This is a film that I heard about when it came out, but never had any desire what so ever to see what it was all about especially given it’s Civil War/Mars crossover idea.

This was extremely boring from start to finish and it was so difficult paying attention because it all is absurd the whole way through.

They fail to develop any of the characters on more than a superficial level and that hurts things even more because it makes it so hard to care about any of them.

The overall idea is actually one with potential, yet they squander it over and over.

The cast is quite weak and even with actors like Willem Dafoe and Taylor Kitsch, things feel as if they are standing still instead of having momentum to move forward and make things interesting.

The special effects are pretty sloppy and fail to mae things more interesting to watch unfold.

This is basically a mess that gets worse and worse as things move on.

Bottom Line – Terribly boring film that doesn’t manage to work on any level. None of the characters are developed well enough and it’s so hard to care about what happens at all. The cast is pretty weak and they all seem to mostly be mulling around instead of doing something more productive. The special effects are quite eak and don’t help make things more enjoyable to watch unfold. The idea is an interesting one, yet it ever pans out at all here.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Financially, the film was considered one of the largest box office losses in Disney history. Even though the film performed stronger than expected outside the US, it contributed to Disney’s Studio Entertainment division reporting an $84 million loss in the first quarter of 2012. Such a large loss was attributed to issues with marketing, management changes at the studio, and a lack of merchandising normally associated with such a large budget film. As a result, any plans for the two sequels that were already in development prior to the film’s release were scrapped. (From IMDB)

Genre Grandeur Worthy? – Not even close. Even the special effects can’t make this any more interesting to watch.

Rating – Razzie Worthy (3/10)