Princess of Mars

While we're waiting for the real John Carter film I decided to check a really cheap interpretation of the same story. The film is maybe the best Asylum film I've ever seen before, but, boy, if this was made some twenty years ago I could understand it... Tharks' got two arms and legs, horrible masks and hardly green skin. And Dejah Thoris was badly aged... The script follows the book only on paper.

By Asylum standards, one can tell they still *tried* to follow an actual plot and some of the novel's bits. At least until the end. But that's about it.

"Princess of Mars" draws from the robust storytelling foundation laid by Burroughs, but the execution is so clumsy it's a struggle to get through. The combat sequences feel staged, just a jumble of clashing swords and abrupt cutaways. This adaptation isn’t worth viewing, even for a John Carter enthusiast.

It's unbelievable that those special efects were done by anything but a kid in 1991, so I assumed it was an early 90's film but the effects were so much worse than what I could do in about 5 minutes each-if I had to do them frame by frame.

I like films by The Asylum, but this is my least favourite of the ones I have seen so far. It shares the same traits as other Asylum films - bad story, bad acting, bad dialog, bad effects etc but because this film is ripping off Avatar, they've felt the need to try and make this a special effects extravaganza but the problem is that, not only are their effects crap, but they have made the same mistake that every other sfx spectacular does - relying too much on them and ignoring everything else.

What do you expect and/or who gives a shit, it's The Asylum. At least the existence of this film has the benefit of making the more recent John Carter film not look like a piece of shit.

The parts of the story taken directly from Burroughs aren't too bad. The rest is mushy and probably written by someone who had just watched Jacob's Ladder. The acting isn't very good. Tars Tarkas only has two arms, Sola's character is barely there, and while Traci Lords is great-looking for a woman of her age, she's just not the proud, brave Dejah Thoris. Still, this may be the best Mars picture we'll ever get. Which is very sad.

Enjoyably stupid! :-)