After fighting in the American civil war (on the wrong side), cavalryman turned prospector John Carter is mysteriously transported to Mars, arriving in a time of great calamity. War is raging here as well, can Carter’s presence change things for the better?
According to some reports the film is a costly flop and I can see why. Up until a couple of weeks ago there was a giant billboard for this movie right next to the train station I walk to each morning, a billboard that made John Carter look like one of the stupidest films ever made. The trailer also looks terrible, and I am not sure why they went with the most generic title possible. I went into the theatre with low expectations.
I am glad to say that the advertising campaign is misleading, John Carter is actually pretty cool. Based on a very old book by Edgar Rice Burroughs (who appears as part of the framing story), its hero is forced into all sorts of action-packed scenes as he bounds around Mars aided by his Earth-gravity adapted muscles. The pacing is excellent, the plot covers a lot of ground but everything is well explained and the film knows when to stop, unlike a certain other human-hanging-out-with-large-aliens-and-horning-in-on-the-princess film I could mention. The characters are only drawn with the broadest strokes, but the ink is colourful and such a pulpy canvas cannot be expected to take a finer brushwork.
A decent addition to the list of watchable popcorn films. Recommended.
Yes, rape. What is it about 70s Science Fiction and rape? I have noticed this trend – up until the late 60s scifi was all space ships and aliens with heroic main characters. Not that they all portrayed woman as equals and complex characters in their own rights, but the protagonists at least had good intentions. 
The planet of Pandora (Who names these planets? What were they thinking?) has some stuff that humans want to mine. Unfortunately, the best place to get it is right on top of where the indigenous population (8 foot tall skinny blue people called the Navi) live in harmony with their world. The Navi are distrustful of the humans, so in order to investigate the Navi a bit more, the humans create the titular avatars – mindless Navi bodies that certain individuals can “drive around” remotely. The main character is just such an individual, and he (or his avatar) quickly becomes involved in the local tribe. Although the humans would prefer that the Navi move on without violence, it is clear that a military solution, led by a crazed marine, might be more expedient…
As a stand-alone work, Watchmen is less of a success. It is very, very long and filled with talky scenes whose purpose only becomes clear later and sometimes not even then. It’s not that it is a terrible movie, just that a viewer not familiar with the source material might easily lose track of what is going on. So much of the plot hinges on the motivations of the characters – the book provides extensive back stories that the film cannot linger on, leaving the story feeling a little flat.