From filmmaker Andrew Stanton comes John Carter-a sweeping action-adventure set on the mysterious and exotic planet of Barsoom (Mars). John Carter is based on a classic novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose highly imaginative adventures served as inspiration for many filmmakers, both past and present. The film tells the story of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Taylor Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins). In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands.

I will be honest. I was not sure about how good John Carter was going to be. I thought the trailers made it look cool but it had potential of being really dumb. I will admit, I really like Disney’s Prince of Persia movie that came out a couple of years ago. In my mind, I was comparing John Carter to that. If it was like Prince of Persia, I would enjoy myself.

I was really happy with how John Carter turned out. I think that I can say that I liked it a little bit more than Prince of Persia. This movie has a lot of good things going for it. The strong points of this movie are definitely the awesome action sequences and the special effects. They were pretty cool. Another cool fact about this movie is that part of it was filmed in Southern Utah. I live in Utah. It was fun to see scenes and recognize the backgrounds. They have shots from Moab and Lake Powell.

I had the opportunity to view this movie in 3D. I am not a big fan of 3D. I will say that I felt that the 3D actually did enhance this movie. An example of this is that John Carter has some special abilities in this movie. One of these is the ability of jumping really high. Seeing these ‘jumping sequences’ in 3D was really cool. The 3D added some great dimension.

In my opinion, this movie is a more ‘mild’ PG-13. If you kids have seen Prince of Persia or the Pirates of the Caribbean films, they will be just fine watching this movie. The film is not any more violent than any of these other films.

I really liked John Carter and I will be seeing it again with my siblings!