Marine sharpshooter swordfights Iraqi bartender, Aging whore looks on.
Ok. I am back after a lengthy absence. I will try to post a new movie review at least once a week. What brought me out of blogtirement, you ask? Oh, a little movie called "princess of mars." Here is the IMDB listing for the film:
Princess of Mars
As you can see by the credit that it was written and directed by Mark Atkins. I don't know who Mr. Atkins thinks he is but boy does he have some balls. Here's what Mr. Atkins decided to do. One day he thought it would be a great idea to take Antonio Sabato Jr.
For a good laff check out this guy's track record:
Antooooonioooooooo!
and aging former underage porn star Traci Lords
Likewise:
Traci Lords
And team them up to act in Edgar Rice Burrough's classic science fiction story The Princess of Mars. Now the last time I read this story was junior high school, but I don't seem to recall any of the plot elements in Mr. Atkins version of the story having been in the book. Because they weren't. The book was about some cavalry dude in the civil war being transported to Mars and getting to ultimately kill a bunch of dudes and bang the princess.
In Atkins' version a marine sharpshooter is teleported to mars where he stands around and watches people say things that don't affect the story. For emphasis he jumps. When standing around he is clearly in some studio. When jumping his cgi avatar is shot from such a distance that he most closely resembles a gnat.
The difference between the Atkins version and the burroughs version can best be seen by the comparison of the movie poster and the book cover
Movie poster
Book cover:
We can see here the total badassness of the book and the wtf wierd not really trying nature of the movie. Weird things about the movie include but were not limited to:
A lot of emphasis on people on mars eating pudding squirted out of maggot's butts
The planet in question not even being Mars proper but some other Mars 216 in the who gives a fuck cluster.
Dialogue that seemed almost intentionally avoiding anything that might sound quotable.
Seriously, when Antonio stabs a bug on some lizard guys back his reply is "thanks".
A desert planet with no apparent infrastructure, inhabited by warring nomads which still somehow contained industrial artifacts such as the oft mentioned pumping station.
A villian who only appears twice in the movie. In the beginning as an Iraqi bartender in a hut in the middle of the desert and as a mean Iraqi bartender on fakey Mars. Not exactly Darth Vader is what I'm driving at here.
Still, if you want a laugh I recommend this film for it's crappy dialogue, crappy set design and crappy direction, acting and everything else. Here's a clip:
Watch Antonio Jump
Anyway it's kind of like watching a bunch of LARPers who got a hold of final cut pro.
Here's the explanation of this film that I posted on an internet forum:
ReplyDeleteIn which the Edgar Rice Burroughs classic is transformed into a story about a marine sharpshooter that can jump ridiculously far and an aging, tired-looking hooker who run around together with some weirdo aliens trying to stop the machinations of an inexplicably angry Iraqi bartender who has an evil, never-really-explained plan that has some vague connection to something called a Pumping Station. Not to be confused with Traci Lords' earlier film, "Pumping Station," which is about a gas station attendant having frequent sex.
This film has it all. A lizard man gets a bug on him, which John Carter stabs with a knife. The lizard man says "thanks." That is a scene. That is a scene in the film. All the other scenes involve either Traci Lords trying desperately not to look like a spent vagina or the nameless actor who plays John Carter jumping out of the frame, then landing in a different frame, and none of the other characters in the film taking very much note of his abilities.
Five Stars.