Marco Polo (2007)

MARCO POLO is a two part Hallmark TV miniseries chronicling the life and times of the famous Italian explorer who found himself at the court of Kublai Khan and famously wrote about his endless travels. Sadly the material is given an insipid, family-friendly feel in this resolutely silly and rather dull evocation of the material.The silliness is to be expected given the pedigree of British director Kevin Connor, who made the likes of AT THE EARTH'S CORE and THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT back in the 1970s - films that look like masterpieces in comparison to this dull-witted nonsense. The plot sort of slides from scene to scene, with lukewarm melodrama throughout and a distinct lack of realism despite location filming in China.Ian Somerhalder is completely wooden as the uninteresting lead, although BD Wong (the scientist chap from JURASSIC PARK) is a little better as his wise slave. The oddest casting choice comes in the form of the larger-than-life Brian Dennehy, playing Khan; surely the most inappropriate choice for playing a Mongol since John Wayne played Genghis back in the day? For what it's worth, I much preferred the Shaw Brothers martial arts extravaganza MARCO POLO made back in the 1970s, starring Richard Harrison as the erstwhile explorer.

This movie is so bad. It's seem that nobody in the film crew try or care to read the Marco Polo's book. Everything is wrong. Cheesy romantic and non-sense plot, to many fiction intrigues so badly glued in the script, tons of inaccuracy in facts, use of English for every character, bad casting (Brian Dennehy has Kublai Khan). For example, Marco Polo learn has is wrote in is book Le livre des Merveilles, the dead of Kublai Khan only in 1298, 4 years after is real dead. In the movie, Marco learn the dead of Kublai Khan while escorting the love of his life (awkward). It is easy to get they organized the plot for helping the romantic twist. But seriously, the life of Marco Polo has enough drama, discovery and hole to disorgonize facts in such big way. The movie has that texture of poor b series of the '80. Talking of the 80', the series (1982) made in those year is by miles superior. First, good historians had been hired has consultants with a clear desire to follow what we know about the travels of Polo.Next time, just thing of not using a prestigious name like Marco Polo or any historical name mater of fact just to get viewer interest.

I gave a 2 (instead of 1 - awful)because of the attentive grand costuming, scenic beauty, and the breathtaking Asian girl that is the love interest of Marco.But in this day and age it is outrageous that a Caucasian plays the Mongol king. Plus that incongruity continues to break the story flow thru out the movie. I was hoping to see a story that included more about the travels of Marco, the technological and cultural discoveries of the lands he visited. Instead, we get about 5 minutes of that, gunpowder its main obsession. The rest of the movie seems to be fabricated love triangles, invented King and Marco interactions, ridiculous "uprisings" with a smattering of poorly choreographed kung fu fights, internal convoluted political machinations with a sprinkling of "wise" Chinese sayings, and discussions of "freedom" that are extremely unlikely to have occurred. Save your money, save your time do not watch this movie unless you want to see a long boring soap opera.

It obviously isn't a historical movie, nor a movie that should be taken as "educational" material either. It's just a plain fiction on Marco Polo, a very free adaptation of his travels, the four points are for locations and sightings. Yes, the acting is really bad, some characters era annoyingly out of character, (sorry for the repetition). Though, I think the costume and production is very good, alas, the script is not. Even though, if you want to see a cheesy history of a guy that can make his way into a society by accepting the system in a supposedly "rebel" way, definitely, you'd like to see this one, it's message is simple "obedience pays".