Customer Reviews

Marco Polo

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Oh my! As a big fan of Ian McShane I had wanted the Mini-Series Marco Polo on DVD. McShane is NOT in this film thankfully!!! A friend gave this to me for my birthday, thinking it was the McShane version.

Actually, this movie is really good for LAUGHS. This has to the the worst filmed, worst written, worst acted piece of JUNK. Surely, they could not have been that bad on purpose.

Do not WASTE your money!

My long search for the worst movie ever came to a decisive end with Marco Polo. This movie is hands down the most horrible piece of filmaking imaginable. The acting, plot, dialogue, directing, and anything else that goes into making a movie should have been left on the cutting room floor. I am glad it wasn't however, for this ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE film is incredibly enjoyable for anyone looking for a hilariously bad movie. Trust me, it makes other "B" movies look like Citizen Kane.

Uh, your first clue that this is a bad flick are the opening credits. All you see for 5 minutes are the names of those who helped make this atrocious film over a map of medieval Europe. I managed to watch half an hour before falling asleep. I live in China and was curious about how Marco Polo would be depicted. Suffice it to say that the best actors in this film are the camels in the caravan across Asia Minor. A good high school cast could have given a better performance and I say this as a former drama coach. If "Gandhi" and "Lawrence of Arabia" are the best of British historical film making, this one has got to be the worst. Enough said.

I'm a high school history teacher and I though I might look at this movie to see if I could use it. Most Hollywood movies are not very accurate but they help students get a visual of the times. However, this movie is sooooo bad even ignorant teenagers would throw their books at the screen.

Do NOT buy this movie!

Dean from Knoxville

This account of Marco Polo abounds in inaccuracies and totally unbelieveable characters andd dialogue, comical even by cinematic standards. The real Marco was about 17 when he went with his father and uncle to travel to China. The Marco (Don Diamont) of this movie is a robust 30-something who travels alone except for his brother Nicolo (Jeff Saumier) and occasional nonentities he picks up as he goes. The banalites are too numerous to mention; you have to see to see this loser to believe it. But I'll mention a few: the countryside, whether in Italy, Greece, Outremer, or Armenia always looks suspiciously the same, much like a verdant rural Europe--the dialogue is too modern and overly cliched: no way they talked like that in Marco's time--Marco is a one-man army and karate practicioner:again, the bounds of credibility are sorely stretched--the inhabitants of Acre and Armenia are for the most part fair-haired and light-complexioned: hmmmmm... -- the "Templars" including the Grand Master, no less, drop everything to help Marco and his friends escape to Armenia. Not only that, but they invade Armenia later to rescue Marco and friends from the evil clutches of Beelzebub (Jack Palance). I always thought the Saracens had pretty well wiped out the Templars by Marco's time in Outremer; in any event, there is no way such a small band could have survived a ride from Acre to Armenia; let alone an invasion of Armenia--The Armenians look more like Hagar the Horrible vikings than Armenian soldiers--the Armenian princess and her lady in waiting look and talk very English--the fights, Beelzebub's "gauntlet" and escape scenes are puerile and unconvincing--I could go on, but why bother? Mercifully, this junkfest ends with the rescue of the princess and death of Beelzebub in Armenia. I doubt anyone could stand a continuation of this plotless idiocy all the way to China. Poor Jack Palance--he must have needed the money pretty badly to sign on to this piece of undistinguished tripe. Historically, histrionically, and cinematically this dog is a loser and should be condemned to the flame and cast out of the mind.

disappointed to See Jack Palance in this well made flop, things run slow, acting is for the dogs, only 1 channel of rather bad sound and very patchy plot, hero attempt fails from the start, made me go to sleep

Straight to video release of a very bad movie. The only actor you'll recognize (unless you're a big fan of soap operas) is Jack Palance. Unless you're into cheesy Barbarian-Sci-Fi, I'd recommend staying away from this one.

The name of the actress credited as the princess is "Lara Bodroff".

The back of the dvd case says it has interactive menus, like a trailer, cast and crew biographies and Spanish subtitles but I dont see them on the dvd itself. I dont know if I got a different version of the dvd itself since its a used one.

The scenes look like props really. Acting by most is amateurish. Don and some of the others in the cast, I am sure have done much better before and after this movie. Thanks!

I gave this movie a single bar so that you'd know that I didn't just forget to score it. Why can't I give it a zero?

No matter what I tell you, there's no way that you will believe just how very, very bad this movie is ... it's one of those movies that's so bad that it does, in some sick way, become funny - like watching those videos where Picabo Street falls and slides down the slope with arms and legs at angles that just can't be right.

I get the feeling that the movie is basically something that the stars, Donald Diamont, Oliver Reed, and Jack Palance, knocked together while on vacation with a few family members and the odd aunt and uncle.

On second thoughts, maybe it was filmed in Transylvania with Vampires for extras because - in spite of the violence throughout the movie - there's no blood even when swords appear to pass quite close to the people (I told you it was a bad movie). I'm always amazed at what you can do on a home computer these days with some of the DVD authoring packages to make even the worst home movies appear to have some production values but in this case they failed. Maybe they were running the demo version?

But look on the bright side, it's PG-13 (probably because there's a Camel in it) so you can watch it with the kids. Basically, this is "The Princess Bride" rewritten by a fifth grade class in two hours using Wikipedia and Disney for source notes and featuring Marco Polo as Wesley ... and it didn't win a prize.