Les chroniques de Mars

I've gotten through half of Princess of Mars. Not sure I can do the 2nd half. It's not that it's bad--in fact it's OK as far as super low-budget fantasy flicks go (I love the old Amicus Burroghs flicks with Doug McClure). They only used a few of the original story elements, but I guess putting six arms on Tars Tarkus or red body paint on all the "humans" would have been cost prohibitive. But what's up with casting Traci Lords as Deja Thoris, the princess? Even if you're kind in your estimation, Lords is well over 40. Not bad looking for a woman her age, but certainly not a good enough actress to make you forget that she's WAY too old for the part. I just couldn't go on with the film once she became a big part of it because I couldn't' stop thinking how virtually ANY young Hollywood actress would have been more watchable. In fact just about any woman who works at a Hooters would have been more watchable! I don't want to sound age-ist, but if a female actress of marginal acting ability is going to be running about in a skimpy outfit for over an hour on screen, she'd better be super-exceptionally hot for her age or young enough for it not to matter. I mean, really--did anyone rent this because they saw the name Traci Lords? And I want to reiterate--this is not a personal attack on Ms. Lords. I just don't think she's doing herself, or us, justice by still trying to be "the hot young chick." And Deja Thoris should be a hot young chick.

Well. This is by no means the worst movie I've ever seen. I've seen (if you can call it that) one or two Asylum movies before, and some of them are physically painful to watch. 2012: Supernova? Arrrgh!! AVH: Alien vs. Hunter? I nearly gnawed off a limb in an effort to dull the excruciating experience. The Asylum exist to produce unbearably cheap knock-offs of well-known sci-fi and horror movies, and they survive purely by tricking the ignorant into watching their deliberately and deviously diluted versions by mistake. Someone should give these guys a good spanking and ground them for life on a deserted island.

Anyway. You can understand that my expectations for "Princess of Mars" were very low indeed. But I wanted to check it out, just in case they had actually read the original book. And I was surprised: they had. But in a characteristic fit of plagiarism (and, probably, because filming in the desert is cheap) they'd also decided to fuse the concept with Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. Even so, I was actually mildly entertained by Princess of Mars (and yes, I can still stand to look at Traci Lords). The acting was hammy and the production values were unimpressive (but at least they were there); it looked like what it was: a thoroughly derivative low-budget C-movie bordering on the farcical. But that can be entertaining, too! As the movie went on I was thinking that, hey, this was in the same league as Bloodrayne and stuff like that, and I might actually end up rating this a 4 out of 10! A good rating for a craptacular excuse for a real movie, appreciating that it might be trash but at least it's funny and entertaining trash.

Unfortunately, the ending was so stupid and pointless that I have to cut that rating in half, and end up with a 2 out of 10 mark. Properly, the movie doesn't really deserve more than 1, but for maintaining a certain watchability almost all the way to the end, and for being funny despite its ROTJ derivation, I retain one more star.

All in all, still a massive disappointment that can in no way be recommended.

1) Find a big-budget movie you can somehow associate your cheap knockoff with. That's easy, they are in development for years, while your ripoff can be made in a few weeks.

2) Try to claim it is linked to some book in the Public Domain. H.G Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Rice Burroughs won't turn into literary Zombies and march on your offices. (Although that would be more interesting that most asylum films, come to think of it.)

3) Get some washed up actors. People that you might have heard of, but aren't getting good roles these days.

4) Cheap Special Effects- Get some of those kookie You-Tube kids to make your monsters...badly edited them into the film.

5) Pad out 10 minutes of plot with an hour of fight scenes and wandering through the desert scenes.

Okay, Really, I'm going to say some nice things about this film. It's actually better than your average Asylum film, but that's like saying it's the least trampy Jerry Springer guest.

They've actually remained somewhat faithful to the Burroughs story, updating it a bit. (Carter is still from Virginia, but now he's an ex-Green Beret instead of an ex-Confederate officer.)

Honestly, the weakest part of the film was Traci Lords. She's never been a good actress, and you can tell she's in her forties every time they did a close up. Honestly, the girl who played the lizard chick was more attractive. Or at least firm in the places a woman should be firm.

Hey, I noticed something else. Ever notice in an asylum film, they have a lot of gunplay, but the muzzles of the weapons are almost always out of frame when they are being fired? I guess someone didn't budget for blank ammunition, but sound effects are always cheap. And Martians have 50 cals and Kalishnikovs, just like we do on earth.

Transferring a book to the screen is never an easy or simple process. Often, a lot has to be left out... exposition, subplots and plot lines, characters and internal monologue. What can go up on the screen is further constrained by the money and time available, by the talent in front of and behind the screen.

Is this the "Worst movie evah!" Not hardly. If pressed, I'd give that honour to Tim Burton's 'Planet of the Apes', a work which cost more than the previous Apes franchise of five movies and two TV series all put together, but which was appallingly stupid - unbelievable talent and money went into making a painfully awful movie.

On the other side of the coin, here we have an action adventure movie made for very little money, with little in the way of resources. Yet it's amazing how they managed to actually make an enjoyable, watchable film.

I'm not necessarily a fan of Asylum films. A lot of them suffer from the worst sin of film-making, tedium.

But Princess of Mars is anything but tedious. There are no shortage of rocky moments, including awkward scenes with Kantos Kan, and there's definitely stuff to dislike. Shortcuts, or shots where there was no time or money to do more than get something in the can.

But flaws aside, it's a relatively faithful telling of the novel. The biggest changes are the reduction of the role and backstory of Tars Tarkas, and the elimination of the Zodangan war, as well as the cosmetic stuff - short stubby two armed Tharks, riding giant birds instead of eight legged horses.

A lot of the true heart of the novel and the characters remain. John Carter is light hearted and heroic, Dejah Thoris is regal and idealistic, Tars Tarkas is noble. The relationships develop naturally between them, the acting is usually decent and sometimes quite good. The location shooting in the Vazques rocks is a highlight, the place looks genuinely weird and alien. The script, apart from the occasional clunky line, moves quickly and efficiently, there are witty lines.

Frankly, my advice is to go look at the trailer. A lot of times, the trailers are better than the actual film. Or the trailers contain all the good parts of the film and the actual film tends to be mostly filler. In this case, the trailer is actually a good showcase for the film. If you liked the tailer, you'll enjoy the film.

In the meantime, I'm pretty happy with it.

If this film had only used different character names, I would have rated it higher, because it would have been a dumb, laughable Science Fiction flick, possibly even enjoyable at some "it's raining and there's nothing else to do" level. You get the feeling that the writer had read the first John Carter book a long, long time in the past and remembered the characters' names without remembering what the story was about, or even what a thark was supposed to look like (I'm sure that Burroughs' warrior tharks didn't have tusks that wobbled). This plot was silly; Burroughs' was engrossing. The biggest disappointment was Traci Lords. While it was her body that was ravaged in many films, here, it was her face that looked ravaged - she just looked so OLD. (Fortunately, I never expected her to know how to act, so I wasn't disappointed there.) The big sword fight seemed to be performed by two actors who'd never held a sword in their lives; all the intercutting didn't cancel that out (why couldn't they have used stunt men?). A truly bad film.