I saw John Carter on Monday night and I enjoyed it. If you have been reading the coffee philosopher lately, than you know that I’ve been looking forward to this more than a little.

While the plot diverges a good deal from the first book (A Princess of Mars), the spirit is firmly that of the classic adventure pulps. And it was pretty necessary to diverge, plotwise. Princess is more episodic than its sequel and lacks the single minded, narrative drive of a good adventure movie.

John Carter of Mars was created during the heyday of the adventure pulps and well before John Campbell used his editorship of Astounding to more or less invite modern, ‘hard’ science fiction. Before Campbell, science fiction (though the John Carter stories are often classified as a kind of sub-category called ‘planetary romance’ – a way to do science fiction where highly advanced species with advanced technology still find excuses to fight with swords; also to include buxom babes and strapping heroes of noble mien) was not so concerned with science and its implications (nor complex characterization, to be honest) and was more concerned with the adventure side of things, science be damned.

Anyway, this movie was fun. Everyone played it straight up with no irony. And Willem Dafoe was hilarious. I could have used some more shouting from the hero (instead of I’m on Mars… maybe do it I’M ON MARS!?!!??!), but I dive into a pulp adventure looking for strong willed women who are somehow forced by circumstance to less clothing than might normally be considered practical or modest and heroes who like to use swords and face overwhelming odds.

And there four a things that are generally guaranteed to make any movie better, and John Carter feature half of them – attractive women wearing the aforementioned inadequate (though still PG-13) clothing and fifteen foot tall sarcastic green men (for those people keeping track, the other things that make any movie better are Christopher Walken and Voltron, Defender of the Universe; I am hoping that one or more those will appear in sequel).

I do have one quibble with the movie. Ciaran Hinds is an amazing actor, but he should never be forced to wear a stupid hairpiece (is he losing his hair? I don’t know, but surely a Ciaran with thinning hair is better than a Ciaran wearing a thirty year old hairpiece salvaged from a thirty-five year old BBC production of I, Claudius). Also, in a movie where everyone wears navel revealing outfits, Hinds really stands out for being the only actor whose navel we never see. The reason why is obvious and gets to my point on the matter: Hinds’ role really didn’t need a quality actor and I would suggest that the casting director should have given greater consideration to actors of appropriate age who, while possibly possessed of less acting ability, were possessed of a reasonably flat stomach.