John Carter of Mars

I was very pleasantly surprised by this movie. It stuck reasonably close to A Princess of Mars (plus bits from some of the following books), and was done by people who took it seriously. And they managed to make it a complete movie, while still making it clear that there's more to come. Sab Than, the Zodanga jeddak, wasn't just a scoundrel, he was also fearless; Dejah Thoris wasn't just eye candy, standing around helplessly and waiting to be kidnapped, she could also fight and scheme (and in that sense reminded me of the princess in the Prince of Persia film).

Favorite secondary character: Kantos Kan, the Helium lieutenant who is "taken hostage". Generally a character in a movie is just a character in a movie, but Kantos Kan is someone I'd like to know.