Reviews

Often I get things I've wanted to see for some time, but for one reason or another never did. Or something I've seen before, but it was a long time ago, and I'd like to see again. Especially if there are DVD extras I HAVEN'T seen.

Sometimes, though, I like to get something I've never heard of, something which the blurb makes sound interesting, something which seems like it *might* be the sort of thing I might like, but which is a bit of a risk. Sometimes this results in my mailbox sagging from the dead weight of a real clunker, and I find myself wishing I hadn't been so adventurous.

But sometimes I wind up seeing something like _Valerie and Her Week of Wonders_, and I'm glad that I *was* adventurous. This easily makes up for the last clunker, no, for the last TWO clunkers I got in red envelopes.

Is Valerie dreaming? For somebody being burned at the stake, this barely-teen seems rather unconcerned. Is her father a dead bishop, a vampire, or the Weasel? Or is the vampire a bishop? Or is the bishop the Weasel? Is Eagle her boyfriend? Her brother? Is her mother not really dead, or is it that her cousin? How did she know that her cousin is actually...

Can Valerie evade lusty priests, incest which maybe isn't, and beware the Weasel? Can the girl ever get a good night's sleep? Or is she getting exactly that, now?

OK, gonna tell you what I think of it. May contain spoilers.

First off, it always bugs me when people compare movies of utterly different types. You don't go and compare Porky's to Citizen Kane or It's a Wonderful Life. No no no no no no NO! You compare Porky's to Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Losing It or at most to Sixteen Candles.

So in that spirit, I'm NOT going to compare The Asylum's Princess of Mars to Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings. No, I'm going to compare it to the Amicus At the Earth's Core or a couple of the more recent Tarzans. Also, I'm going to tell you WHY I think it is better or worse, and in what ways. So here we go.

Overall Faithfulness: about the same as At the Earth's Core, better than some of the Tarzan movies we've all seen. It's been so long since I saw the Amicus versions of The Land That Time Forgot or The People That Time Forgot (and I've not seen the Asylum version of Land) that I can't speak for them. The GF and I hope to see Amicus Land before the end of February.

Antonio Saboto, Jr.: OK I guess. He looks the part as much as does Taylor Kitsch, and more than some of the guys that've played Tarzan over the years. Well, except for the tattoos, but since they "modernized" it and made John Carter a GI serving in Afghanistan, I guess the tats fit the character.

Tracy Lords: Here I find that I must try to put aside my personal dislike for Lords, and I'm not sure that I'm succeeding. Consider that your ration of salt as you read the rest of this. About a decade and a half ago, I suggested Heather Hunter for the role of Dejah Thoris. I was at least half joking, of course: nobody's going to cast a porn star, or even a former porn star, in that role. Well, I stand corrected, and oh HOW I wish that Hunter had been tapped for the role instead. While she's only one year younger, the years have been kinder to her, and she's just better looking and doesn't have Lords' scandalous baggage. Lords is very severe-looking at all times in this film, and she looks like she'd rather be doing something else. I don't know why they couldn't have left out a couple of giant spiders and bought Lords some hair dye. I don't expect red skin, not on this budget, but really: a blonde Dejah Thoris? All of that said, whoever wrote the character had read the book, and even such things as "my princess" are skimmed over, instead of just left out. It is a bother that people in the film keep calling her the "princess of Mars," even though she does mention Helium. I suspect though that Lords' best work remains illegal.

Matt Lasky: I've really got mixed feelings about this one. He was a better Tars Tarkas than I was expecting. Not that he was that good, but considering what he had to work with, he did OK. Which leads me to...

The Tharks: Two arms, not that tall. It would've taken more budget to make them taller and four-armed, using a costume worn by two men. Enough more that the movie wouldn't've been made, or if made, would not have been profitable. So OK, the Tharks are two-armed in this movie. The masks weren't some generic alien or monster, but were green, inhumanly shaped, and had tusks. So they were deliberately made as Thark masks. They were certainly better than the Mahar costumes in At the Earth's Core, and maybe as good as the Sleestak costumes in the original The Land of the Lost. Not as good as the costumes in Planet of the Apes (1968 or 2001), but again, at this budget I don't expect that.

Chacko Vadaketh: I do not like what they did with the character of Sab Than. I guess they felt that JC needed another Earthman to challenge him. No no no. The way you challenge John Carter is to send a BUNCH of guys against him.

Action: There is one, count it ONE sword fight in the whole movie. One sword fight in a Barsoom movie? We do get some super-jumping, from both John Carter and from Sab Than (in the Names of my Ancestors, why?!). There are gun fights against an airship and against spiders, big ones.

Setting: OK I guess. It looked otherworldly, and I even noted two moons in the sky ONCE, though maybe I blinked the other time. The Tharks hung out in rocky badlands instead of ruined cities, but again: budget. How much do ruined cities go for these days? The atmosphere factory was OK. We never see Helium. Or Zodanga.

I have to say that, if I knew nothing of this movie and happened to run across it, and it had been called something else and the names were all different, I would still have known exactly what it was based on. Overall, I'd say it's about as good (and about as bad) as At the Earth's Core.

And by the way, isn't it about time somebody did a big-budget remake of THAT?

This movie was one I had to beg Mom to let me watch, but after she saw it, she had no problem with it. I was fourteen years old at the time, and am forty-one now. I recently showed it to my niece (15 yo) and my nephew (17 yo). They both enjoyed it. When I told my niece that some people had complained that "they talk like they're eight years old," she remarked, "Well duh!" I have to agree: well duh. How else were Richard and Emmeline going to talk? They'd been alone together on that island since they were eight years old. To answer a few common questions: Yes, the movie has a lot of nudity. More than I had remembered. It's so natural and not in any way vulgar or tawdry. It's just as it should be. No, they are not brother and sister. Seeing as how Richard refers to Mr. Lestrange as "Father" and Em calls him "Uncle Arthur," I don't see where this sibling idea came from. Yes, they are (probably) cousins. First, second, or kissing cousins we don't know. It's possible they aren't actually related at all. And here's the big spoiler, not just for this movie but for the sequel... NO, they do not die at the end. Lestrange asks "Are they dead?" and is told "No sir, they are asleep." This is the same as the book. However, in _Return to the Blue Lagoon_, they are in fact dead and only the baby survives. This is also the same as the (second) book. The second movie (and book) changes the ending of the first movie (and book). In THIS movie, they are alive at the end.

Ready for the spoiler?

You sure?

OK

Clones. This movie has clones in it.

Now I'm sure you're saying "we KNOW that, silly," but you really aren't supposed to, so just in case you are one of the nine people in the world planning to see this who didn't know, you should stop reading now, and try to forget what you've read already.

Since at least the 1970's, whenever the subject of human cloning would come up, someone would always ask, "But, but what if somebody cloned Hitler!?" Well, what if somebody cloned Hitler? In typical Hollywood (or television) style, what would happen is that somebody would put a drop of Hitler's blood, or a lock of his hair, or whatever, into the cloning machine, which would then flash a lot of lights and make noises: whooooo, whoooo, Whooo, WOOT! And Adolf Hitler, full grown, would step out of the machine, complete with mustache, German accent, and all of his memories and twisted personality. He would immediately start to give a speech about conquering ze vorld (but would probably speak English). An episode of Wonder Woman did it exactly that way.

Of course, what would really happen if somebody cloned Hitler is that somebody would find himself having to care for a baby, a baby boy who, as he grew up, would have none of Hitler's experiences. A boy who would probably grow up to be an ordinary guy.

The Boys From Brazil recognizes this, and shows Josef Mengele (Gregory Peck cast utterly against type) trying very hard to duplicate Der Führer's upbringing. No whoo whoo WOOT here. Altogether the best cloning movie I have ever seen.