Marco Polo

A surprising film. For the pretty gray way to reflect the life of Marco Polo. Indeed, correct but far to be impressive. It is a conventional, decent story. It not gives nothing significant. Only the same well known story, Brian Dennehy in a role who is only a force shirt, In Somerhalder as a Marco Polo who seems be only shadow of the author of The Million, costumes and locations for suggest but not convince, two romances - both imposible, dialogues who try be profound reflections about power and the status of stranger. After its end, the only question is about purpose. Because it is not a real historical movie, it is not an adventure one, just a blank adaptation , not bad but under each reasonable expectation. A conventional story about Marco Polo. Only memories about superior films about the same theme.

What is that blue eyed surfer doing playing Marco Polo ? Simple, another Hollywood cheap production directed by budget director Kevin Connor. The actor playing Polo is badly miscast (he looks like Alice Silverstone brother), he's devoid of any appeal and subtlety, Brian Denneny is just laughable has a Chinese ruler. Connor's poor direction doesn't help, set pieces are uninteresting, acting is generally poor and the whole thing is uneventful and lacks passion. Music is by numbers and boring too. If you want to watch the best Marco Polo film available then I recommend you watch Giuliano Montaldo's version starring Ken Marshall, a RAI/BBC production with a great score by legend Ennio Morricone.

This looks wonderful - great costuming and locations - really impressive.

But all horribly let down by terrible acting, script, and above all, direction.

The filming looks so "made for TV" both in angles, lighting, but above all in tones: just some filters, and better use of film would have made a huge difference.

Historically accurate, this could have been really great: it really looks expensive and expansive; but it is living proof that nothing can cover poor acting.

Left me neither wanting more, or expecting less, I cannot recommend this for schools, or homes -- it just is so uninspiring -- and that is unforgivable given the material and the locations.

It obviously isn't a historical movie, nor a movie that should be taken as "educational" material either. It's just a plain fiction on Marco Polo, a very free adaptation of his travels, the four points are for locations and sightings. Yes, the acting is really bad, some characters era annoyingly out of character, (sorry for the repetition). Though, I think the costume and production is very good, alas, the script is not. Even though, if you want to see a cheesy history of a guy that can make his way into a society by accepting the system in a supposedly "rebel" way, definitely, you'd like to see this one, it's message is simple "obedience pays".

Don't you just love the fact that everybody, and I mean everybody speaks English in this movie. Regardless if they're Italian merchants, afghan doctors, poor Mongol peasants, Mongol nobles or even Persian warriors. At first the actors at least speak with an accent. But further into the movie the actors forget to add the accent. I thought that the first problem an Italian guy would have when he arrives in 13th century China is to communicate, but not in this movie. The makers of the movie doesn't even pretend that there are difficulties in communicating, which is common in other movies, even if they both speak English.

To add to the credibility of this movie the roll of Kublai Khan is played by Brian Dennehy. Don't get me wrong, I like Brian Dennehy as an actor. But he hardly looks like a Khan of the Mongol Empire. The makers of the movie, again, doesn't seem to care. At least his character gets old. Which is not something you could say about Marco Polo, played by Ian Somerhalder. The only difference in his appearance is when he's in the prison in Genoa. And the difference? You guessed it! They add more beard to his face.

Overall a very bad movie. It's not worth wasting your time on.