A Fair Movie with No Shelf Life

Rating: 3/10 (27 September 2010)

Back in 2003, Ubisoft made a wonderful story around an action and puzzle filled video game. Where you play a prince who is assisted by a princess/slave girl named Farra. The basic video game hook was a dagger that could reverse time and thus save your character from multiple deaths. Fending off sand zombies in a labyrinth palace maze the game plot was very riveting.
First I will state, the only elements to survive the game and was incorporated into this movie are the dagger and the prince. Farra is replaced by a different princess and we only see the dagger used four times in the whole 2 hours of the movie. While the game has the prince battling mystical monsters brought forth by the sands of time, no such action takes place in the film. The game has some very challenging puzzles that make you want to play again and again. No such mental puzzle solving feats appeared in the movie.
The movie, apart from the game, was just a run of the mill action flick. Something you might enjoy watching once and will be tossed on the shelf to collect dust. Nothing really stands out, the acting was nothing to rave about, the special effects were average for a Disney movie, the sword fights and acrobatics was less than expected, and no great revelation was made. Personally there has been worse done with the video game to movie genre.
I gave this movie a below average rating because I would expect better from Disney Studios. Lately it seems everyone has lost their imagination and cannot create something original. Today they resort to remakes, sequels, and borrowing from old video game plots. If they must resort to pulling stories from video games, at least stick to the elements that made the game great.