Princess of Mars

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.

Clearly "Princess of Mars" is The Asylum's cash in on the "John Carter" movie that was out in March 2009, as "Princess of Mars" came out in December of the very same year. Is that a trademark of The Asylum, to take something that others made famous and then just sponge and leech of that success?

At any rate, and regarding the motivation behind this movie, then The Asylum actually managed to pull of a fairly decent movie here, compared to some of the other more questionable releases they have spewed out.

The story, if you are familiar with either the "John Carter" movie or the E.R. Burroughs novel, is about John Carter, a man from Earth, who end up on a distant red planet, where he have to save their world from impending doom.

Pretty straight off the copy and paste storyboard here, without anything new or overly interesting to be added to the story. But still, the movie was enjoyable for what it was. A word of warning though; if you have seen the "John Carter" movie that was out earlier in 2009, then chances are that you might want to stay clear of this version. Imagine a weird hybrid of the 1980's "Flash Gordon" movie mixed with Disney's "John Carter" movie, and you have the end result coming out as "Princess of Mars".

One thing that did puzzle me, though, with the technology and resources available to the human-like race on this red planet, why would their princess be clad so scantily like a common... Well, you get my meaning. It just didn't make sense. Or did it? Well, you have Traci Lords in the role as the princess, so of course, why wouldn't the director be having her running around half naked?

The creature effects were adequate to look at, except for those bipedal reptiles that they used for mounts. They were just horrible to look at. Awfully animated CGI and they walked like they all had bad indigestion.

I will say that The Asylum did put out a fairly enjoyable Sci-Fi movie here, but in the wake of Disney's "John Carter", then the movie pales in comparison.

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.

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.

I personally think it's great that you don't have to go back to the monster movies of the 1950s - the fact that they're still making movies like "Princess of Mars" today is fine with me. Surprisingly, the makers must have read the E.R.Burroughs novel, some elements of the story are recognizable with John Carter's arrival on Mars, being able to jump very high (due to lower gravity), meeting Tars Tarkas and Dejah Thoris, and fighting for the atmosphere station. Everything is put up to date, sometimes well (Carter being in Afghanistan instead of Nevada) sometimes not (the, uh, "technically explained" data transfer to another world, and that Mars not being our red neighbor planet, but a different planet accidentally also called Mars). Fortunately they did not use the Great White Apes, because how silly would that look nowadays with men in costumes? Despite the low budget, a funny flick if you have the sense of humor for trash sf.