Marco Polo (2014)

:

Season 1
  • Network: Netflix
  • Series Premiere Date: Dec 12, 2014
Season #: 2, 1
User Score
8.0

Generally favorable reviews- based on 499 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 411 out of 499
  2. Mixed: 31 out of 499
  3. Negative: 57 out of 499
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User Reviews

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  1. aelredus
    Apr 28, 2015
    3
    I'm disappointed. Marco Polo wasn't a Marvel hero. He was a real man. I wanted a credibly historic serie here, not the Nth version of American ninja. Mongol girl fighters? Come on, that is the most ridiculous historic abuse ever seen.
  2. PixelIntruder
    Dec 17, 2014
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. It’s starts out amazingly well, at least it did for me. But by episode six or so you reach some absolute ridiculousness with a big “whodunit” where your seemingly smart protagonist goes around vulnerable and unreinforced asking potential guilty mastermind villains, “Hey, do you happen to the dangerous bad guy were looking for who’s trying to stay hidden, is very powerful, and possibly dislikes me? And if not could you give us directions to where we can find him? Please be truthful!!!”

    Then by that point the once quite large show of massive armies and wars between giant nation empires of legend becomes infuriatingly small and limiting. There is no interaction with “extra-level” peasants or army-folk or anybody, you start to just bounce between the same seven or so characters and a formula starts to stick out and poke you in the eye and you start to notice just how cheesy and B-movie the lines and dialogue actually are.

    Worse, with the great and terrible Kublai Khan character who’s keeping the entire show together, it unintentionally just becomes more and more apparent that the actor playing the character MUST BE in real life a quite jovial, comedically funny man, always laughing and telling a joke. And so the earlier well-crafted illusion of the larger than life, dangerous, unpredictable character slowly unravels (after already being gravely wounded in believability by a clumsy earlier physical confrontation with another character).

    Then the already goofy, cheesy, and cartoonish Kung Fu aspect of the show that has pulled you out of the good character drama from the start with a funny-looking blind Kung Fu master who spins around seemingly more than a man really needs to, causing loud whooshing sounds, grates on you worse and worse.

    And you can no longer forgive the show that the opposing force and power in this supposedly enormous scale opera for the great Mongolian Horde is confined to a unexplainably, scared, crabby old woman and a two-dimensional, run-of-the-mill, ever-so-flimsy, psychopathic bad guy that never has made any sense.

    And the biggest thing to bug the viewer’s mind is your lovable protagonist is an apparent, crazed, lady-stalker who becomes obsessed with a woman simply because she is the only woman on the continent to wear blue garments rather than drab, Mongolian-Horde-fashions, and likes to mysteriously ride out to the only tree that grows in all of Mongolia.

    And this unexplainable fascination continues on and on, made worse by the fact the show’s writers never give us a reason to like her. Not a one. They actually provide us with a separate female character who wrestles men that we love and would love for our protagonist to love but we’re stuck with some random girl who wears blue clothes and does nothing of note and who there is nothing remarkable about.

    Oh, and the continuous assault on the viewer with naked women and breasts gets ever so tedious. It’s hard to understand that the show writers don’t realize that most people have internet access and far more intimate stuff is a click away for most viewers. So enough is enough as it becomes very distracting at times from the plot, characters, and drama. (And not distracting in a “good way” even if you are a young heterosexual male viewer).

    So now at episode seven or eight with my protagonist having appeared to have “completely drank the Kublai Khan Kool-Aid” more completely than I find credible for the character and his arc at this point in the show, I think I have to pull the plug on Netflix’s Marco Polo.

    ADDITIONAL NOTE - The cinematography, musical score, the casting, the majority of the acting, and more is all very amazing. This is an incredible production in many, many ways. A lot of very talented people worked on this. It's just certain weaknesses in regards to certain aspects of the show drag it down, at least for this humble viewer.    … Expand
  3. Aturro
    Dec 24, 2014
    3
    Just boring. Always fell asleep while watching. Beautiful pictures but not story, no drama, no nothing.
    I am big fan of recent hbo and netflix tv series but this one is a waste of lots of money...too bad.
  4. daTruth
    Dec 13, 2014
    3
    I get the feeling that most of the positive reviews are from people that haven't actually watched the show. The writing was atrocious and boring. That's fine if the action makes up for it, but it doesn't. There are only a handful of actions scenes throughout the 10 episodes and the rest of the show is just terrible dialog (like someone with no writing skills was simply dictating aI get the feeling that most of the positive reviews are from people that haven't actually watched the show. The writing was atrocious and boring. That's fine if the action makes up for it, but it doesn't. There are only a handful of actions scenes throughout the 10 episodes and the rest of the show is just terrible dialog (like someone with no writing skills was simply dictating a conversation). They spent 90 million on this thing and I honestly don't know where it wall went, but it certainly didn't go toward writing a decent manuscript.… Expand
  5. bluetea
    Dec 5, 2015
    0
    This show makes me sick. It is just knockoff Game of Thrones, orientalism version. The tragedy is the show is not based on fantasy fiction. But you know nothing Jon Snow... This show is joke. I am so disappointed in Netflix.
  6. Readsalot
    Dec 13, 2014
    0
    I agree with the critics, the pilot was so terrible I probably won't watch the remaining episodes. I am so disappointed in Netflix. This kind of low brow fodder is what I expect from the Major Networks sans the nudity. These positive reviews from viewers are kind of frightening.
  7. aviterra
    Dec 19, 2014
    0
    I can't stay awake watching a plot that goes nowhere and horrible acting. I.These Mongols look like they came out of a B-movie. Not even slightly fearsome.
  8. sundangkalis
    Dec 14, 2014
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This original Netflix series premiered on 12/12/14. I have since watched the first 4 episodes and will not watch it anymore. It basically is a combination of Game of Thrones, and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. It copies a lot of the graphic nudity and violence of GoT, but it doesn't provide the varied and diverse number of characters of that series nor does it develop many of its characters motives well like GoT did. It is only in some of the supporting roles that you see any interesting characters. Kublai Khan, played by Benedict Wong, and Chabi, Kublai's Empress, played by Joan Chen are very well played and deep. Olivia Cheng as consort, Meilin is also interesting. Sadly their talents are wated in this production by the boredom provided by the other actors. Lorenzo Richelmy, who plays the lead role, is flat and sleep inducing as the lead, Marco Polo. He tries to provide the naivety of youth in his role, without providing the same wonderment and curiosity that a role like that would require. Even the actors that play Marco's father and uncles seem unmotivated and uninteresting. Also, some of the non-Asian advisers of Kublai Khan, such as the Yusuf, played by Amir Waked are lifeless and two dimensional.

    The other thing horrible about this show is the fight choreography. In original Chinese martial arts movies, the moves and techniques are meant to be spectacular and impossible. The characters fly around, and attempt moves that a real person could not do. It is far removed from real life fighting. What makes the fighting in this series bad is they copy some of the elaborate, flowing movements of Chinese movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but try too hard to tone it down and make it seem realistic. What eventually happens is the martial arts in this series is neither fantastic nor realistic, and is rather unimpressive when compared to the originals. If they wanted to make Kung Fu more direct and realistic they should have tried to imitate the choreography of Bruce Lee in his movies like Game of Death or Enter The Dragon, as Bruce Lee was trying to make Kung Fu more realistic and brutal in those movies. In copying the choreography of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but trying to make it more graphic and raw, they eliminate everything that made the fighting in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon so spectacular and that was how unbelievable and fantastic it was.

    Overall I would not recommend this series. It is trying to be too many things at once and does not do any of them well.    … Expand
  9. kevlarcardhouse
    Jan 15, 2015
    2
    Unbelievably bad. It certainly looks like it was expensive to make, so it does look gorgeous, but other than that, there isn't a single positive thing to say about it. The acting is so wooden, even the actor playing Marco Polo fails to be convincing as someone anyone would follow. Although it's hard to tell how much the actors are at fault here. Between the clearly poor direction of scenesUnbelievably bad. It certainly looks like it was expensive to make, so it does look gorgeous, but other than that, there isn't a single positive thing to say about it. The acting is so wooden, even the actor playing Marco Polo fails to be convincing as someone anyone would follow. Although it's hard to tell how much the actors are at fault here. Between the clearly poor direction of scenes and the incredibly corny dialogue, they don't have much to work on. It didn't even have a "so bad it's good" quality, and I had to stop watching after episode 4.

    If anything, the critics were overly kind to this slop. Based on how many of these ridiculously positive user reviews start with "I made an account just to tell you the critics are wrong", I wouldn't be surprised if they were fake accounts made by the production company. Either that, or it's yet more evidence that the quality of television can be complete garbage but spend enough on special effects and the brainless masses won't care.    … Expand
  10. tastelessparrot
    Jan 9, 2015
    1
    This is an expensive-looking show, but that lavishness is wasted on a dull pilot. The show starts off with a bunch of people we know next to nothing about. We have no reason to care what happens to them, and the pilot does very little to endear them to the viewer. I don't have any interest in watching the remaining episodes.
  11. BernieMargolis
    Feb 13, 2017
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I was very disappointed in this show. It started out well, and there were flashes of brilliance here and there, but the plot trudged along at a snail's pace. The show was padded with lots of gratuitous sex and violence that distracted from the plot. Honestly, if I wanted to watch porn, I would have just watched porn. I don't need to take a ten minute porn break from my historical drama every fifteen minutes. The sets are beautiful, and I have no fault with the acting, but the plot is simply sub par.

    Some have compared this show to A Game of Thrones, but the two are nothing alike. The sex and violence in A Game of Thrones are always in the context of the show's plot, and the situations are consistent with the participants' character. The most violent scenes are often the climax of an arc that was built up over several episodes. In Marco Polo, on the other hand, the sex and violence are so commonplace that they lose their impact. For example, there is a banquet that Marco Polo attends. Kublai Khan has instructed him to pay attention and report on what he sees. So what brilliant insights does he have? Well, he immediately gets into a wrestling match with a random girl for no apparent reason, and it quickly turns into sex for no apparent reason. Oh, and it later turns out that she's the clan chief's "virgin" daughter. Yeah, right. This is a thirteen year old boy's dream scenario, not the content of a coherent plot in a show for adults.

    There are plenty of women to be had, and the Khan has promised Marco free access to his harem if he can prove his trustworthiness. However, Marco instead fixates on the one royal hostage who has been declared off-limits. He spends 75% of his time on the show stalking her, and her supposed bodyguard seems to be 100% oblivious to Marco's activities. Most of the show's plot seems to focus on this ridiculous situation.

    I was able to endure four episodes of this nonsense before giving up. I was tempted to call it quits earlier, but every time I felt I had had enough the show would pull me back in with actual intrigue and beautiful sets. If only they had focused more on the geopolitical aspects and the relationship between Marco and the Khan, I think the show would have been pretty good, if not great. Unfortunately, I just couldn't spend any more time watching the story of a creepy stalker and his relationship with a temperamental psychopath who somehow refrains from killing him despite countless provocations.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

2
#2 Most Discussed TV Season of 2014
32
#32 Most Shared TV Season of 2014

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
48

Mixed or average reviews - based on 21 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 21
  3. Negative: 7 out of 21
  1. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: Margaret Lyons
    Dec 15, 2014
    30
    The show is vacant and uninspiring, so much so that I'd rather fill my imaginary home with ball utensils than watch Marco Polo.
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  2. People Weekly
    Reviewed by: Tom Gliatto
    Dec 15, 2014
    70
    A fun, body-flinging, old-fashioned epic.... As Kublai Khan, British actor Benedict Wong gives an impressive performance, one of the best of the year: You absolutely believe his ruthlessness, his power and his calculating thoughtfulness. As Marco Polo, on the other hand, Italian actor Lorenzo Richelmy, who looks like a more lyrical Emile Hirsch, mostly has to be put up with.
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  3. The Wrap
    Reviewed by: Mekeisha Madden Toby
    Dec 15, 2014
    70
    Ultimately, once viewers overcome the sluggish pace there’s something for everyone with Marco Polo. History lovers will enjoy Googling along with the series as historical names and battles are introduced while martial arts fans will appreciate the intricately choreographed fight scenes. Although the series isn’t as riveting as “Game of Thrones,” strong performances and impeccable visuals make it worthy of a watch on a slow and rainy afternoon.
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