Its not SO good, but I enjoyed John Carter and the end gets you amped for a sequel that will never come.
I maintain that John Carter was a masterclass on how to fail at marketing and distribution.
That film, released at a different time and with better marketing could've been the Dune of the 2010s.
There is a lot of love put into it and its portrayal is epic in scope and ambition, I literally never forgot it after seeing it, but the odds were stacked against it in a sense. First off the source material irs based on predates most modern sci fi storytelling, all of which mostly ripped it off, so that the adaptation of it seemed to be derivative. Its an unfortunate consequences.
Its a very long movie, with a title that means absolutely nothing to anyone who isn't already familiar with ERBs work. They really should've committed to including the "John Carter and the Princess of Mars" title or something. I have to imagine that they thought putting the word princess in the title would turn off boys, but they were woefully misguided because some average name like "John Carter" doesn't incite enthusiasm either.
The marketing was abysmal, the trailers didn't give off much, there was briruslly no merch; no action figures, no comic book tie ins that I know of, etc etc. They basically left it today.
The movie still holds up, its solid science fiction.