'John Carter 3D' is an Epic-Scale Tragedy.

If there is a word to describe 'John Carter 3D', it is: huge.

An epic-scale movie comes with big set pieces, enormously built thrills, and stunning visuals--yes 'John Carter' is proof to that. But in chances like this huge-budget live action event, an epic-scale movie may come out as an epic-scale tragedy. It was convoluted, tiring and exhausting; it's tolerable if the movie was just stuffed with the right plotting and characterization--but it wasn't.

On earth, a former military, John Carter (played by Taylor Kitsch) curiously entered a cave of mystique and inexplicably transported to the exotic planet known as Barsoom, the one that we call 'Mars'. On Barsoom, he finds himself in the middle of an arid landscape and is found by the four-armed green slimy stick species leader, Tars Tarkas (William Defoe). He lives in Barsoom for a time, a planet that now seemed to be wealthy of oxygen to support the amount of fauna Carter have been seeing, and as he drinks a mixture fluid he magically understood the alien language.

In one exhilarating encounter, John Carter, now an excessively physically strengthened alien to the Barsoom-settlers, manages to save an entrancing Princess Dejah (Lynn Collins). Carter easily attaches with the beautiful princess (we know where this is heading, do we not?) and finds out that Dejah is fixed to marry a man she doesn't love (Dominic West) to cease the war of warring countries. This doesn't come near to happen because a mystery character is ensuring to ensue immeasurable darkness and John Carter is expected to fix all of this. The green slimy squad who raged at him after escaping; Sab Than, Dejah's fiancee and the mysterious guy of darkness. Isn't the film such exhaustion?

If you want to feel the pain and tiredness of Carter as he solve these problems, don't bother doing something to be, you'd feel it naturally. Because the movie attempts to stash a pile of problems and fix them in a duration of two hours, the audience's mind becomes tired and exhausted and will be filled with quandaries toward the convoluted plot line.

I recognize the movie's impressive visuals especially the CGI-work; it was a surprise as I put the 3D glasses on because it takes everything together and boost them up, say, the CGI-work with the green slimy creatures. They had looked as though practical characters. The acting is fine, Taylor Kitsch for acting almost alone every time had done good in this film. There are scattered sequences wherein we enjoy the adrenaline.

But the adrenaline seemed to be a variable thing; uneven pacing is proof to that, thank you very much. Characterization is badass except for that extraterrestrial dog which is just the most adorable thing in the movie. It felt like a film that robbed elements from 'Star Wars' and 'Avatar', though. Sucks in there.

In a movie this big, it is not beneficial to try to make it even bigger. That'd suck and you'd learn the lesson from the Civil War veteran of Mars--John Carter.