Bad on every conceivable level.

Rating: 4/10 (8 June 2010)

Now I'm not one of those movie goers that gives 1/10 for movies like 'Jingle all the way', and 10/10 for a movie like 'The Matrix'. No, I believe that I am a balanced critic that can see most movies for what they are. Which brings me to Prince of Persia, a movie I saw yesterday. How I wish I spent my hard earned cash on anything but this. Even the opening titles looked cheap and hastily edited, where was the Bruckheimer razzle dazzle that we were used to.
I'm actually a fan of Bruckheimer, I can run of a list of his movies that were half decent or quite good, though POP is none of the above. Let's begin with the bad as that would be a lot easier: the story is wafer thin, the actors all have cockney accents including the Princess, and why would the Prince of Persia speak in Cockney. Yes acceptable for a video game but on screen, embarrassing.
Then the acting, Kingsley it seems has made a niche for himself as Hollywood's Shakespearean trained darling, when in fact this is the man who makes crap like The Love Guru and Species. Someone please see him for what he is, which is an overly paid East end of London boy who struck gold starring in Gandhi. Then Jake Gyllenhal, oh Jake, a fantastic actor though his best scenes in this movie was when wearing a hoodie simply because seeing him play an Arab with long flowing Herculian like hair and a cockney twang just killed his actor status. Gemma Atherton, very volumptious and lovely lips but need to stop confusing acting with whining or crying. Empire magazine said that the Ostriches in POP were in danger of winning the award for best acting in the movie, nuff said.
What about the action? Well it is no where near the quality we have gotten used to, it would be foolish to even put this anywhere near a comparison with Gladiator or 300. Mike Newell is no action director, but by this he is also pretty bad at directing drama as well. For a summer block buster there are no great set pieces, no real explosions and Persia is shown as merely deserts and two castles. What did they spend the budget on other then Jake Gyllenhaal? Having seen movies getting bigger and more ambitious in recent time, the shoe string feel of this movie is like a throwback to the literal swords and sandal days of the 50-60s but without the charm or the mystery for the unknown.
Plot ? Well what may work perfectly for a video game doesn't ever translate to movies, I defy anyone to prove me wrong on that. And POP is no different, Bruckheimer may be able to make a movie out of a theme park ride but video games are still proving tricky.
Now the good. The movie is purely action driven so to that end some may be entertained, but we're talking kids type entertained. Some of the stunt work is commendable but ruined by slow mo's that obscure the depth of the scene and thus robbing the movie of ifs one potential plus. Finally it's a movie of a video game so fan boys will be pleased, a few anyway.
In conclusion those expecting solid entertainment or even mindless fun will be sorely disappointed. Those expecting a fun video game adaptation will be left unsatisfied. Stay away by all accounts.