The Incredible Adventures of Marco Polo (1998)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

As Good As It Gets

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Who plays the princess, Princess Marita, in this fantasy, which is loosely based on history, with lots of literary license? Her name is Lara Bobroff, and she's hot! She could bob on my roff any day! She looks like my favorite actress, Calista Flockhart. In fact, since they're both Shakespearean actresses, I wouldn't be surprised if Lara didn't play Calista in a biographical film about Calista Flockhart. The only other movie I find in her filmography is "The Double," in which she plays a "body double." With a body like hers, she must have made an incredible body double; I've got to find that movie! I liked the belly dancer, too! I also liked the plot. The good guy (Marco Polo) has to outwit a couple bad guys (one played by Jack Palance ) in order to get the girl (Princess Marita)!

As long as you go into this movie with the understanding that it's not going to contain any historical fact whatsoever, it's not bad.It's on par with Sam Raimi's "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys", as far as plot, acting, humour, and production values are concerned. You'll see the similarities at several points. Most of the fight scenes are not as good however and the film suffers from that.Jack Palance commands the screen as well as ever, and at no time do you have the impression he's giving anything less than his level best. Same for Oliver Reed. The problem is that their strong performances make square-jawed Don Diamont's less-than-stellar acting skills seem even more awkward. Perennial bit player Cas Anvar was very good as well, playing a character much like Salmonius in the aforementioned Hercules.If you enjoyed the low budget swords-and-sorcery movies of the early 80s, you're probably going to enjoy this show as well. It's actually a shame they attached the Marco Polo name to it. It really has nothing to do with Marco's life, contrary to the expectations of most of the people who will want to watch this movie.

Historical movies always take liberties -- conversations are concocted where no one could actually know what was said, customs are adjusted to be comprehensible to modern audiences, etc. However, historical films about actual historical personages should make at least a minimal nod to history. This film does not. The only scene I actually remember is when our hero surprises an assassin who creeps into his chamber at night. He confronts the dangerous intruder with, "I don't remember sending for room service". The main entertainment value is in its badness; I recommended my local video story put it on the "Turkeys" shelf.

This obviously was a "Made for T.V." movie. We rented this movie because there was not much we hadn't already seen. My wife thought that this movie looked good, judging only by the outside cover. Once again, the old cliche comes into play, never judge a DVD by it's cover.I'm not going to be too harsh on this movie because it IS a "Made for T.V. movie." They could have spent a little more money making the older Marco Polo really look old. What they did, instead, is make the young Marco Polo look like a young Marco Polo with a fake beard on.The action was really kind of dull witted. I know that scenes need to be choreographed to look real, but the movements were almost robotic. There was no realism in the fight scenes.There was also no real story.Well so much for not being too harsh, but in reality I could really tear this movie apart. So, I guess I was being pretty nice overall.