Testosterone Fueled Romp Full of CGI Blunders.

Rating: 2/10 (16 June 2010)

Having played many of the instalments of the Prince of Persia gaming series, I must say I was quite looking forward to seeing this film. Although it has to be said that I never really expected anything from it. I thought that going in with low expectations would be enough to get me through it, unfortunately I was very wrong. The film begins with the backdrop of a desert sunset and some very shaky digital writing, which may have been engineered by a child. The film then proceeds to introduce a whole host of CGI blunders in the form of snakes, slow motion back flips (every 2-3 seconds) and out of body time travelling experiences, culminating in an almost laughable shot of our hero surfing on a wave of CGI sand making lots of macho noises reminiscent of the Williams sisters in a Wimbledon final.
The film then proceeds to show us an ancient map of the world, zooming in upon Persia, patronisingly explaining to us that there once was a place called Persia...blah blah blah. This was a sign of things to come, with the film casually stopping to explain the plot at least every 5 minutes. This was clearly made an issue due to two things. The first is that the film is based upon a game, so there is no clear narrative and it does in fact feel more like watching someone play a video game. The second is an attempt to keep the children in the audience up to speed with the non-existent plot. There are ways of doing this that do not patronise your audience; a brilliant example of which can be found in Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers', in the scene where Faramir and his captain review there position on a map and make a plan. This helps the plot development, keeps the audience up to speed and doesn't patronise the audience as Mike Newell does. This also makes the film feel repetitive, which is then not helped by seeing the same fight scene replayed over and over again, followed by the same awkward 'almost' romance scene where our prince and princess exchange witty banter, explain what 'must be done' and are then interrupted.
Even with this films decent cast including a certain Ben Kingsley, it cannot be saved from its ultimately dull screen play, poor visual effects and non-existent plot. I firmly believe that this film was doomed to fail as soon as it was confirmed as a live action movie. I really believe that Disney and Bruckheimer could not resist the prospect of another 'Pirates of the Caribbean' cash cow, so they made it live action, when by rights it should have been a cartoon. All of the cheesy nonsense that we are subject to in this film would have worked if it was shot as a classic Disney cartoon. This would of course been forsaking seeing the beauty of both Gemma Arterton and Jake Gyllenhaal who I have to say are very well cast, as is Ben Kingsley who (spoiler alert!!) plays the most obviously covert Thunderbird villain of all time. If you watch this film with any expectations what so ever you will be disappointed, but if you want a fun film to take the kids to on a bank holiday I would recommend it...don't worry they will have no problem keeping up with the plot.