John Carter

Released: 2012
Action, Adventure
Director: Andrew Stanton (same guy that did Finding Nemo)
Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, and Willem Defoe
Running Time: 132 minutes
Rated: PG-13

The breakdown:  A civil war vet accidentally gets transported to Mars where he finds multiple aliens and humans fighting against each other for domination of the planet.

This was based on a book titled "A Princess of Mars", part of a 12 part series of books, written by Edgar Rice Burroughs back in 1912.
This civil war veteran is "asked" by the Army to join and he refuses.  They lock him up and he tries to escape several times as he's had enough of war.  Eventually, he does break out, but finds a far more dangerous enemy a little bit down into the movie.  Through this chance encounter with a dangerous alien who looks like a man, he gets transported to Mars, but doesn't realize it right away.  Through exploration of the new world, he sees aliens, and humans fighting for control of each other and the planet, at first, he still wants nothing to do with war, but once he sees the beautiful princess, things change a bit.

I know this was a huge bomb for Disney and I'm pretty sure a lot of people were not happy with the film adaptation (since it looks a lot like some other sci-fi films we all know) but I actually thought it wasn't too bad.  Certainly not the best sci-fi film I've ever seen, but not nearly as bad as I expected it to be.

I say watch it before you count it out and say it looks like Avatar or just plain rubbish.

3 out of 5 for being a decent movie with some good special effects.