Ah, just the thing! John Carter!
This truly fun picture lost money at the box office because it was old-fashioned and stupid (that's bad?), and also because some idiot decided "John Carter of Mars" wasn't as good a title as just "John Carter," so nobody knew what it was about, and didn't come to see it.
I liked it, I liked all the retro silliness of it, and the 1920s style alien technology, which helped remind me, the viewer, that it was the 1920s and I was reading this from a pulp magazine. And it was fun that Deja Thoris was a scientific prodigy instead of a mere damsel in distress. But the pulp magazine melodrama was preserved without apology.
I notice a lot of people are discovering this film lately, the way people eventually discovered other box-office sleepers like Blade Runner.
Anyway, John Carter sits on my Old Time Scientifiction Fun shelf, along with The Fifth Element, which I love because it's gaudy and wacky and irresponsible like those old Jack Vance books.