Marco Polo

As long as you go into this movie with the understanding that it's not going to contain any historical fact whatsoever, it's not bad.

It's on par with Sam Raimi's "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys", as far as plot, acting, humour, and production values are concerned. You'll see the similarities at several points. Most of the fight scenes are not as good however and the film suffers from that.

Jack Palance commands the screen as well as ever, and at no time do you have the impression he's giving anything less than his level best. Same for Oliver Reed. The problem is that their strong performances make square-jawed Don Diamont's less-than-stellar acting skills seem even more awkward. Perennial bit player Cas Anvar was very good as well, playing a character much like Salmonius in the aforementioned Hercules.

If you enjoyed the low budget swords-and-sorcery movies of the early 80s, you're probably going to enjoy this show as well. It's actually a shame they attached the Marco Polo name to it. It really has nothing to do with Marco's life, contrary to the expectations of most of the people who will want to watch this movie.

This reminded me of the kind of movie that Douglas Faurbanks or Errol Flynn would have starred in years ago and maybe the script has been kicking around that long. Don Diamont has the athletic prowess and good looks as the aforementioned did but his on-screen persona is very different,more low key and California laid back. To his credit, however, he never gets upstaged by either Oliver Reed or Jack Palance,two of the greatest character actors of the twentieth century, a feat in itself. The same cannot be said of the actress who played the Princess, Lara Bobroff. I felt particulary sorry for her because she was in a completely different movie than everybody else. This is a sword fighting adventure romp and Bobroff I got the impression seemed to think she was making a serious historical drama, hence she never got into the swing of things and had the fun with the role that she could have had and would have made her performance more memorable. I split the difference on this one and rated it 5/10, meaning it could have been better and it could have been worse. In conclusion, and I could be way off base here, but I think that even though the movie is entitled "The Adventures of Marco Polo" the character Diamont played was actually supposed to be Marco Polo, Jr. And that is why he makes a number of references to his father's adventures in China and the plot has nothing to do with anything I can ever remember reading about the real Marco Polo and his adventures!

Who plays the princess, Princess Marita, in this fantasy, which is loosely based on history, with lots of literary license? Her name is Lara Bobroff, and she's hot! She could bob on my roff any day! She looks like my favorite actress, Calista Flockhart. In fact, since they're both Shakespearean actresses, I wouldn't be surprised if Lara didn't play Calista in a biographical film about Calista Flockhart. The only other movie I find in her filmography is "The Double," in which she plays a "body double." With a body like hers, she must have made an incredible body double; I've got to find that movie! I liked the belly dancer, too! I also liked the plot. The good guy (Marco Polo) has to outwit a couple bad guys (one played by Jack Palance ) in order to get the girl (Princess Marita)!

Historical movies always take liberties -- conversations are concocted where no one could actually know what was said, customs are adjusted to be comprehensible to modern audiences, etc. However, historical films about actual historical personages should make at least a minimal nod to history. This film does not. The only scene I actually remember is when our hero surprises an assassin who creeps into his chamber at night. He confronts the dangerous intruder with, "I don't remember sending for room service". The main entertainment value is in its badness; I recommended my local video story put it on the "Turkeys" shelf.

This obviously was a "Made for T.V." movie. We rented this movie because there was not much we hadn't already seen. My wife thought that this movie looked good, judging only by the outside cover. Once again, the old cliche comes into play, never judge a DVD by it's cover.

I'm not going to be too harsh on this movie because it IS a "Made for T.V. movie." They could have spent a little more money making the older Marco Polo really look old. What they did, instead, is make the young Marco Polo look like a young Marco Polo with a fake beard on.

The action was really kind of dull witted. I know that scenes need to be choreographed to look real, but the movements were almost robotic. There was no realism in the fight scenes.

There was also no real story.

Well so much for not being too harsh, but in reality I could really tear this movie apart. So, I guess I was being pretty nice overall.