Prince of Patronising: The Most Bland For Some Time

Rating: Null/10 (3 September 2011)

Having read the generally bad press this film had I was willing to give it a chance. I mean, I like a good swashbuckler of a movie and the cast was certainly a draw. However even two old masters (Kingsley and Molina) and two normally very capable relative newbies (Gyllenhal and Arterton) couldn't save this mess of a film. The plot is thin, hackneyed and boring; the jokes are at best out of place and at worst really unfunny; and the action is far too repetitive – there's only so much jumping across building tops an action movie fan can tolerate these days, even if you are trying to recreate the look of the game on which a film is based.
The most appalling offence, however, is the writing. Why do the makers of these kinds of films (Bruckheimer and Disney both to blame here, I expect) think that the audience are so dense that they have to explain every plot point through the dialogue? Have a bit of respect for the intelligence your customer base. This is relentless in Prince of Persia, from the opening narration to the dialogue throughout. Anyone with any decent story sense knows that the emphasis should be on showing not telling. If we need to know that outcome A won't happen unless character B does thing C then this should come across in the action and through natural dialogue. Don't tell us this as if you're reading from a recipe book for pity's sake! This is film-making by numbers and they should be ashamed. It smacks to me of the filmmakers only having a general plot outline and no script when they got to the production stage. I don't care what the film is, how big a budget and how much or little action it has, this approach to film making (unless you're deliberately setting out to improvise the dialogue) is always the wrong one. The writing has to be the most important part of the pre-production. Get that wrong, be complacent with it or ignore it entirely and the film just won't work. Sort it out and don't inflict this kind of mess on us again.