Reaction #1: Well, that was a pretty okay rental. And it's at least better than
John Carter: twenty minutes shorter, more straightforward, only one strand of unnecessary flashbacks rather than a whole Russian Dolls sequence of the same, no Confederate hero, Christoph Waltz, and an interesting if ultimately ill-advised take on historical atrocities (with an ahistorical happy ending).
Still, yeah, they should have passed up the well-intentioned but fun-dampening history lesson and gone
gonzo bright cheerful fantasy. (Ditto with
John Carter, which
could have given us a yellow/orange/red jungle planet, but whiffed with plain, boring deserts, which allowed Carter to believe he was still on Earth for an annoyingly long time.) Instead, we get Spider-Man-style vine-swinging (at physics-defying speeds, no less) and a laughable CG animal finale plagiarized from
Avatar. They should also have cut the lame origin flashbacks (apart from the campfire song, that one was fine), and given Robbie more to do. Instead of having her
kick ass in a leopard-skin bikini, she mostly has to settle for this:
Also, Samuel L. Jackson is way too old for his part. He filmed this in his mid-60s (though he
does look a good deal younger), and the real-life guy he's playing died at 41. An Anthony Mackie, say, would have brought a much better energy.
Reaction #2: Holy schnitzel, they spent $180
million on this?! It doesn't look anything better than $
100m.
Reaction #3: Well... they didn't even bother teasing a sequel, did they? (Neither did
John Carter or
The Lone Ranger, really.) I
sort of admire the restraint, but that's no way to build a franchise, folks.
Grade:
B-