Taylor Kitsch in Some Delightful Kitsch

By Dan Hagen

Taylor Kitsch as John Carter of Mars

Chicago-born Edgar Rice Burroughs was a serial business failure approaching 40 who did know just one thing well: the daydreams of an American failure. 
What about being astrally transported to an exotic planet as a superman who could fight to rescue a breathtakingly beautiful princess? 
Claptrap that was just the thing to snare his first applause, as it turned out.  
It's taken exactly one century to bring ERB's daydream to the screen, and it's just about worth the wait. John Carter is lovingly detailed retro-futuristic pulp, with high adventure and sweet romance between Carter, an embittered Civil War veteran who has turned his back on men's battles, and the incomparable Dejah Thoris, a warrior-professor-princess turned political pawn. The Disney version of the tale improves Burroughs' plot in several ways while retaining its essence whole and intact. 
Taylor Kitsch is the perfect eye-candy man for this kitsch. 
ERB would be proud of this effort, as he was of his first success, the serialized adventure "Under the Moons of Mars." It gave him the confidence to write down other daydreams. Say, what if the son of English aristocrats were raised by apes...?

Can John Carter survive the dreaded white apes of Barsoom? He still lives!