Well now, it's pretty much a scientifically proven fact that video game based movies suck more dick than a polynesian crack whore, and as such, I was predisposed towards hating Prince of Persia before I'd even seen it.
In fact, such was the extent of the discrimination that nobody wanted to go with me to witness this travesty. In the end I went alone, sacrificing myself so that others may know how much this undoubtedly laughable attempt at film-making would gargle testicle.
Surprisingly however, it wasn't that bad. Sure, the storyline resembled the game's about as much as my nutsack resembles Abraham Lincoln, but who wants a word for word adaptation of a video game as a movie? Might as well replay the game so you could at least pause it every time a pair of tits pop up.
One thing that annoyed me from the get go was the star wars rip off in the opening narration. "A long time ago and in a place far, far away" or something along that kettle of fish. Persia really isn't that far away, especially if you're living in the middle east or central Europe. Oh wait, I forgot, Americans think they're the only people that have televisions. My bad...
Now, despite a few of the supposed "A-rabs" looking so goddamn caucasiany, I found the film's cast to be rather believable. Prince Dustbin (Jake Gyllenhaal) was somewhat snarky and slightly angsty but lacked the princey asshole-ishness that had been one of his major personality traits in the video game, which ended up just making him look like a naive daddy's boy for just about the whole f****** movie. It's probably because Gyllenhaal thought he was shooting another Brokeback mountain and forgot to bring his big boy pants.
Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) probably did more than her fair share of keeping the audience entertained with her rebellious antics and tight corset. A corset that was ultimately far too tight, judging by the lack of tits in the movie. Don't get me wrong though, I would string her ukulele any day.
The storyline progressed well enough, despite the somewhat clichéd plot twist that resulted in the Vizier/Uncle being the villian all along and betraying Prince Dustpan in order to go back in time and do something or the other that may or may not have involved cackling evilly. It was such a give away too, I mean, the guy had a bald head, goatee and waxed eyebrows. He was obviously the bad guy. It could only have been more obvious if he wore a neon sign and pranced around handing out leaflets that colourfully illustrated his sinister plot with helpful notes detailing exact methods of execution thoughtfully penned in.
Then, of course, there was the token black guy. You know, that guy who sacrifices himself for the sake of his light skinned comrades so they can wipe a tear from the corner of their collective eye and say "Poor Deshaun, he was such a jolly good bloke, eh wot?" and share a moment of sympathy for the helpful negro.
Despite my nitpicking, I have to admit that I was actually entertained by the movie. Director Mike Newell managed, in my opinion, to maintain a somewhat steady pace and keep the audience interested long enough to stop them embarking on a 4 month journey to the slopes of Tibet in a search for their spirit animal.
Pros: Reminds me of Aladdin; Good Parkour scenes; Good pacing; Decent acting; Decent Action scenes.
Cons: Clichéd and fairly predictable; Lack of tits; Mediocre Special effects; Questionable casting.
Consensus: 6.5/10 Token black guys. Good popcorn flick, while nothing to write home about, at least provides more entertainment that was expected from a video game adaptation. I would probably watch it again and might not mind some sort of sequel. Provided it has tits and possibly llamas.
I disagree with you on so many levels regarding this movie (that and Robin Hood) Niron. It was a good movie and there aren't too many movies that I would give the rating 'good' especially for those of you who know that I'm a hard ass when it comes to movies.
ReplyDeleteIts unfair -if not unreasonable- to judge a movie from a game/books which is what a lot of people (you inclusive I might add) do. The games, movies and books are three completely different things that follow completely different guidelines that would ALWAYS set them apart from each other.
I would also very much like to know how exactly do you rate your movies? Granted I know that a completely objective view is not possible but your reviews -particularly this one- seems to shift more towards the subjective side of the scale. You give a couple sentence to the plot and story line of the movie yet you spend an entire paragraph explaining to us about the token black guy. You fail to mention the movie's soundtrack which was good, or the character development during the story, also good, or the overall plot development, which admittedly was a bit linear but still rather good, or the battles scenes which were also good. In my opinion this was a good movie and is sure as hell better than Iron Man 2 which was an utter disappointment. I would have given Prince of Persia an 8/10. And by the way I've never played the game.
I did not judge it based on the game. I specifically said this. If I had, then I would have termed it even more irrelevant that Robin Hood. I judged it as a movie, and while it was decent, it was by no means worth an 8. It was very cliched, the special effects were mediocre for the budget it had and the character development was pretty standard.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I would give Iron Man II a 5. Just sayin'.
Don't you think that in this day and age, everything is somewhat cliched. By no means should a movie be predictable and cliched is only a bad thing when you can predict a movie down to the next word that comes out an actors mouth. However as far as I'm concern the special effects aren't even though big of an issue if you ask me. Its not like the movies, the matrix, lord of the rings, or anything like them where special effects makes up the awe and wonder of a movie (or part there of). That being said, I believe the special effects were par not mediocre by any means. Nothing to write home about, but nothing you can actually find fault with. I'm not exactly sure what you call standard character development so I'm not going to comment on that just yet.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way when you start a sentence such as "Sure, the storyline resembled the game's " then that pretty much means that you've already started a predisposition towards judging the movie based on the game. And exactly what movie would you consider an 8 anyway.
Well alot of the dialogue was that predictable. The special effects were mediocre in comparison to say, Avatar, which had much better special effects with only a marginally higher budget. As for quoting me comparing the game to the movie, you should quote whole sentences since "Sure, the storyline resembled the game's" was followed by "but who wants a word for word adaptation of a video game as a movie?"
ReplyDeleteIf the movie had been a direct port of the game it would have gotten much lower.
In any case, as far as critics go, I've been extremely lenient with this movie. Many professional critics call it trash, but I call it decent. How about you go argue with Roger Ebert, who gave it a 2/4 and called it uninspired, or the general rating of 37% on Rotten Tomatoes?
I stand by my rating and you're welcome to write your own review.