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Princess of Mars Format: Widescreen 1:33:1 Studio: Asylum Home Entertainment DVD Release Date: December 29, 2010 MPAA Rating: NR Running Time: 90 minutes Hermit Rating:  = Poor. Don’t put your DVD player through this.
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Oh, this is bad. Not bad as in cheesy bad. Just bad. The script is bad. The directing is bad. The acting is bad. The special effects are… what you would expect from a cheesy B-movie. So, they are acceptably cheesy. So how bad is bad? Let me state that about the only thing this movie has in common with the beloved tale from Edgar Rice Burroughs is the title, a few characters with the same name as characters created by Burroughs and an odd reference here and there to people, places, and things in an ineffectively poor attempt to try and legitimize this desecration of the John Carter of Mars series.
It might have been bearable if Antonio Sabato, Jr. or Traci Lords knew how to act. They don’t. Or had any kind of onscreen chemistry. They have zip. Or if the script had offered any kind of storyline that grabbed you or came close to being interesting. It does not. It might have been watchable if it offered one or two decent battle scenes. It does not. After 80 minutes or so, I would have settled for an exciting, well-choreographed sword fight. What I got was an embarrassment – two grown men clanging prop swords against each other while making faces so it looked like they were really trying to kill each other. They failed. Instead, they looked like two grown men clanging prop swords against each other.
I kinda thought I was in trouble when right off we are not meeting a John Carter, former Confederate officer, wounded by Indians. No, we meet a John Carter, U.S. Special Forces operative in Afghanistan. I’m sorry, but there are some tales that just do not need to be “updated” or made “relevant to today’s audiences”! I can respect a filmmaker who tries to bring a classic to the screen and falls short. But these filmmakers did not even try. This monstrosity does not deserve our respect or our time and it certainly does not deserve our money.
There is currently a film in production tentatively titled “John Carter of Mars” that will star, among others, Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton, Polly Walker, Thomas Haden Church, James Purefoy, Dominic West, and Mark Strong. Do yourself a favor and wait for that film. The rancid taste this film leaves in your mouth may never leave and poison your appetite for another try at seeing John Carter brought to the screen.
