User Reviews

This movie stumbles badly right away. There's no real need to update it, it works better if it isn't updated. But that's not the real failing. The scene where he is in the hospital being told by some mad scientists that he is being sent to Mars as some sort of science experiment was one of the most absurd that I have ever seen. It was unintentionally comic. Why in the world did they need to declare that Barsoom isn't Mars, but a planet in another solar system? Yes, we know that the real Mars isn't like the Mars that Burroughs imagined, that doesn't interfere with the story.

There is a scene were he asks for something to drink, and he is given a rag full of sweat. Another scene where he asks for food, and he is given the excretion of some larva. Neither of these are in the book; they eat something that seems like cheese or tofu, and to drink, they drink the liquid of a cactus-like plant. Why they chose to make this change is beyond me. It seemed to be an attempt to disgust the audience, and didn't make the movie any better.

A good Phantom Edit would cut out entirely the portion before he gets to Mars. A minute of two of narration at the beginning could replace the entire first part of the movie. It would also be necessary to snip out the part where you learn the bad guy is from Earth. You don't have to eliminate him entirely, just the nonsense of him being from Earth.

I'd also delete the scenes where he is given sweat and larval excretions to drink.

Other parts are more minor. Traci Lords is a bit too old, too clothed and too blonde to be a plausible Deja Thoris. She seems more a cranky sitcom mom than a princess of Helium. The tattoos on John Carter seem unlikely, a tramp stamp on a man? But these are minor, the major flaws of this movie are overwhelming, but if they were cut out, this would be, well, not a great movie, but not too bad.

If you watch the movie, you see that throughout the movie, one of Tars Tarkas' tusks wobbles. A fairly minor thing, but it shows how quickly they made this movie was made.

The Asylum has done it again. Instead of waiting for the actual film they are going to be making a mockbuster of to come out, they have decided to cash in on the buzz surrounding it and beat them to the punch…to an extent. Completely scooping Pixar and Disney (yeah, right), The Asylum moved forward and made the first movie adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs's John Carter of Mars. Instead of actually having the audacity to tread on thin ice by calling the film John Carter of Mars, they opted for Princess of Mars. As an average uneducated sci-fi B-movie watcher, you'd never know the film was based on an Edgar Rice Burroughs's story or creation as they give him credit nowhere in the main titles. I don't know what that's all about. You'd think they would want to use everything at their disposal to promote and exploit this thing. It's their very nature to do so.

Once again, this feels like it was done on the fly, which is what gives these movies their charm. The film editing and direction suits it just fine and operates to keep the lowest amount of special effects shot possible to still make it remotely entertaining. You know the drill by now. Shoot all the action sequences very close as to not have to spend too much time on wide shots or digital scene editing. Show the actors lurch up to jump, cut to a far away shot of them flying through the air, and then cut back to them landing in a crouch. Its genius and The Asylum team does it best! I've got to tell you that the special effects are nowhere near as bad as you would think they'd be. The Princess of Mars' transport ship does look dangerously like the model crew broke into Skywalker Ranch and stole Jabba's Land Barge from Return of the Jedi. They even have these speeder bike looking things they ride. Coincidence or someone on the Asylum "special effects" crew having a weird fixation on Lucas' Ewok-tainted third film in the original Star Wars trilogy? You decide.

The actors. Ah, the actors. We've got Antonio Sabato, Jr hamming it up half-naked as John Carter with some of the worst badly placed tattoos I've ever seen. What male has a lower back tattoo? It feels like they actually paid him to be onset more than a couple of days. Then there's the cream of the crop – Traci Lords - using her same brand of acting she's come to be known for in flicks and TV shows like The Tommyknockers and Hercules. Strangely enough for a B-movie nerd extravaganza, she has more clothes on throughout the movie than Sabato, Jr. She suits the part of the Princess of Mars well, though. You can't help but feel a little stab of nostalgia for 80's movies like Red Sonja, Conan, The Destroyer, and Beastmaster. It does almost feel like they only paid her enough to be onset one day, however.

The Asylum should do great with this release. All the John Carter of Mars fans that have been eagerly awaiting some kind of movie adaptation of the source material will no doubt rent or buy it. SyFy Channel is guaranteed to get good ratings when it's aired in the token Saturday prime time slot they show these types of films in. Now I'm not saying Carter fans won't be disappointed, but they'll see it nonetheless and it really isn't THAT bad.

The elephant in the room is the man whose name is nowhere credited on this film. Perhaps that is a good thing. That man is Edgar Rice Burroughs. 99 years ago he wrote a story called Under the Moons of Mars. He wrote it strictly for the money and for the fun of writing it. After that story achieved some success, he went on to create Tarzan of the Apes and many other memorable characters. Over the last century his dedicated readers have suffered time after time the hackneyed interpretations of Tarzan while this, his seminal work, has been left un-filmed. In the old days, it could not have been done justice because of the low cinematic technology, and the mores of the times, but we had finally entered an age when this tale could have been done justice. What we have here just makes me sad.

In fairness, this is an adequate and mildly entertaining b-movie, but it is not the movie we who love this tale wanted. This is NOT the movie that we have waited almost a hundred years for. Not by a very long shot.

This ultra low budget science fiction flick turned up for rental in the wilds of northern New Hampshire. Traci Lords as Dejah Thoris showed her age in her complexion. Her scanty costume wasn't flattering and her figure has seen better days. Antonio Sabato as John Carter was better looking, sufficiently hunky for the part, and hampered by an ugly costume. The rest of the cast were green martians, played by wearing cheesy looking masks, which makes any sort of acting pretty much impossible. The original Burrough's plot was heavily modified and not for the better. Dramatic scenes from the book, such as John Carter slaying a green martian for hitting Dejah Thoris, riding double as they flee captivity, standing off the hordes of Warhoon with a radium rifle and 200 rounds, are omitted. John Carter doesn't woo and win Dejah Thoris, the beautiful and gutsy martian princess, which was the strongest part of the book.

The low budget showed up in clunky looking weapons and props, mediocre costumes, and special effects that made the old Dr Who seem sophisticated.

The best I can say is it was a movie, I did watch it to the end, but that's about it.

Updated and pointless version of Edgar Rice Burroughs' first novel is moved to now and Mars in a far off galaxy. Antonio Sabato Jr is John Carter a fighter in the Middle East war who's injured to the point of being near death. Rescued by the military he's sent to the far off planet where he meets the a pouty Traci Lords and a weakly made Tars Tarkis (who's size varies and who only has 2 arms).

Not quite the worst film of all time that some have called it, it is rather a weakly made film that spent a chunk of its budget on computer generated monsters and space ships. Lords is okay as the title character, but in all honesty she's a bit too old for the part. Actually I think the cast would have been fine had the script and the direction been better. It was clearly made to cash in on the up coming John Carter of Mars, though its DVD cover says something about Avatar and Lord of the Rings. As something to watch it is at best background noise. This isn't something you really want to watch with your full attention focused on it since its really not very good. My attitude I've seen it and now I never have to see it again.

The one question is why isn't Edgar Rice Burroughs credited anywhere in the film? This is not a remake or a rethink but a "version" of a classic tale and the man who created the place really should be credited.

Burrough's Princess of Mars has been one of my favorite tales since I first encountered it in the 1953 comic version when I was 8 years old. I am looking forward to the big budget version now being filmed but until then, this cheap version is all we have. Understanding that this is a very cheap version made to cash on a major version in production is key to whether you rate this as terrible or barely acceptable. I can accept the Tharks losing a set of arms and the Thoats being reduced from 8 legs to two because of the cost involved but they could of at least hired someone who knew something about fencing. If you are going to make a movie about the "Greatest Swordsman of two worlds," you need to make it decent.

The original has influenced a number of science fiction efforts, especially the Flash Gordon comic strips. The opening sequence of RETURN OF THE JEDI has a very Burroughs feel to it, as does the arena part of ATTACK OF THE CLONES.

Making John Carter a modern Marine is acceptable (the 1953 comic did the same) but I did not care for the tattoos. I guess that is a generational thing.

Casting Traci Lords as Dejah Thoris has got to be the worst case of miscasting since John Wayne tried to swash buckle in THE CONQUEROR. She could only be hired because of the name recognition factor. She was too old, wrong complexion and hair, and wore too many clothes (especially for a former porno queen). Remember, the Martians walk around naked except for a leather harness to carry their swords (I don't expect the big budget version to be any better than this).

But the worst of all was that incredibly lame sword fight at the conclusion. That has to be the worst ever put on film. I had an 8mm camera when I was a kid and we staged sword fights in the back yard with sticks and cardboard cut out swords that were superior to this piece of crap.

I bought a copy of this out of curiosity. I watched it once and I don't expect to watch it again.

Princess of Mars starts in Afghanistan where Green Beret marine John Carter (Antonio Sabato Jr.) is badly wounded in a gun fight with Opium dealers, dying his superiors decide to use Carter for an experiment. They have found a Mars like planet in another solar system & intend to transport every atom of Carter there though the use of a 16GB flash key, once there Cater is found by a race of reptile like creatures known as the Tharks, Carter has immense strength & can leap fifty feet in the air which impress the Tharks & one of the Tharks decides to make Carter an honorary Thark. Then a floating barge is spotted & the Tharks attack it, Dejah Thoris (Traci Lords) the Princess of Mars manages to escape the ship but is captured by Cater & handed over to the Tharks. Thoris is handed over to the Thark leader Tal Hajus (Mitchell Gordon) but a sinister assassin waits with an evil plan to take control of all Mars unless Carter can stop him...

Photographed, edited, written & directed by one man band Mark Atkins this is yet more shameless pilfering from the folks at The Asylum, not content with ripping-off current Hollywood blockbuster films with the likes of The Da Vinci Treasure (2006), Transmorphers (2007), The Day the Earth Stopped (2008), 2012 Doomsday (2008), Paranormal Entity (2009), The Terminators (2009) & the Haunting of Winchester House (2009) this production company is now ripping-off films which haven't even been made yet as a big budget Disney version of John Carter of Mars (2012) is currently being filmed with both sharing the same literary source A Princess of Mars written in 1912 by Edgar Rice Burroughs & is now in the public domain. I have no idea how the Disney version will turn out but surely it can't be as bad as this, the story is updated a bit as instead of being a confederate soldier John Carter here is a special forces op in Afghanistan but that's where the problems start. Carter is injured & absurdly he is told that every atom of his body has been stored in a 16GB flash key, I kid you not, & that he is being teleported to Mars but not our Mars another Mars. There's no explanation how this happens or why Carter suddenly gains superhuman strength but logic isn't something Princess of Mars concerns itself with. The fact that everyone there speaks English is by the by, the fact that some of the inhabitants look exactly like human beings is a mere coincidence & how would that fat Thark guy know what a Grasshopper was? Then there's a ridiculous twist in which the guy who shot & nearly Carter back on Earth has also been teleported to this Mars just to make things personal although why the US military would send an enemy soldier I don't know, also why didn't they send someone who actually wanted to go anyway? Why force someone? What did they hope to achieve anyway? The poor Star Wars style sci-fi goings on are dull, dull war like alien race fights peaceful human race with Carter stuck between the two & just to rip-off Avatar (2009) a bit there's the whole interplanetary romance thing going on as well. At 93 minutes Princess of Mars is a mess of ideas that never comes together, the lack of budget, sense & charm totally kill it although at least it moves along at a decent pace but that's just not enough. Predictable, badly thought-out unconvincing sci-fi that is downright ridiculous at times Princess of Mars may be a cult classic among bad film lovers but for everyone else wait for the Disney version.

The special effects vary, they aren't all as rotten as we have come to expect from The Asylum but none particularly impress, the CGI creatures look poor although some of the spaceship's look alright. The Thark masks look terrible, at first I thought they were human beings with protective masks on but then I realised that's how they were supposed to look. There are a few tame fights but the films sole highlight is a vomiting Martian maggot, need I say more? Even though Princess Dejah Thoris was supposed to be the most beautiful creature across two world here the film casts 40 year old ex-porn star Traci Lords who I didn't think look too bad in her costume, but then again I'm just strange.

Shot on a zero budget with apparently a 12 day shooting schedule in the Californian desert Princess of Mars could have been an OK fantasy sci-fi adventure but comes across as cheap & boring with huge script problems which kill any sense of logic, drama or tension. The acting is pretty bad, the film is miscast & the actors here seem uncomfortable.

Princess of Mars is a silly film with lots of plot holes & bad acting, it's cheap & I am sure the only reason it was made was to con money out of people & ride on the success of Avator & the upcoming John Carter of Mars from Disney. Fun in a bad way on occasion but generally terrible.

Let me start off by saying, I only listened to about one chapter of the audio book, then like many things, I got bored, started listening to Asimov instead. I liked the movie, the pacing and storyline seemed to go pretty well, I was disgusted at some points with the bugs, found it funny when carter killed the guy that held his chains with just a flick of his wrist and loved the funny nature of the alien species that took him in. The movie could have potentially been great, had it not been for other factors.

Now, the other factors, in sequence, 1)gravity, mass, carter has to slow down in an arc and somehow stop himself jumping between peaks at the start

2) Do not have a shot of a slow moving hovering land barge with an entire paragraph of dialogue being said by an actor

3) do not have a long drawn out escape from the land barge during the initial vicious attack of the land barge

4)the flying bug attacks on Traci lords, we see her swarmed, but as we know, not actually swarmed because the hero's woman does not get injured, they should have simply surrounded the cage and freaked her out, way more plausible

5)the martians somehow got outside the climate control station?

6) I was very confused about the atmosphere effect at the end, going away? coming back? they looked reversed, it was only when i saw the second graphic that I went "oh the first one is the atmosphere going away"

Anyway, alright movie, just be ready for things beyond your control