Another adulterous faecal stain on the slowly diminishing brand of Prince of Persia

Rating: 4/10 (2 June 2010)

Frankly, I'm flabbergasted at the positive reviews bestowed upon this movie, seems like Hollywood is the (anti) Sheppard and the masses are the sheep – well NOT ME! Occasionally, I'll have a happy thought and it happened again a few days ago when I thought, "let me don my happy-go-lucky cap and tinkle skip to the cinema to watch my favourite prince in action." Only to be roundhouse kicked in the face whilst freerunning off the cinema seats by my metaphorical prince representing bafometic Hollywood.
The difficulty is choosing where to begin, so I'll start with the storyline. Prince of Persia (POP) fans will be horrified to know that the storyline is some made-up dribble, an iota of which doesn't follow the game with an opening scene which has a shameless and uncanny resemblance to Disney's Aladdin. Why can't "adaptation" movies just follow the already established and much loved story of its original? Wouldn't that make for easy writing too? Another theft is the "leap of faith" and panoramic cinematic views stolen from the Assassin's Creed games, although like in the game – I loved 'em!
Okay now some positives; the costumes and actors are perfect for their roles. Jake Gyllenhaal (who plays the prince – I'll come back to this bit) plays his role convincingly and has the costume nailed to the "T", but Gemma Arterton (who plays the absolutely divine Princess Tamina) schizophrenically flits between Selene (from underworld), Vicky Pollard and Bridget Jones which is exasperating.
Okay that last bit wasn't really a positive, but oh well, back to what's wrong with this movie. A strange indecision regarding the characters' accents looms throughout the movie! One minute they're (and I'm using plurals because all the characters do it – bar the cockney, Grant Mitchell wannabe merchant guy and the black guy who just mumbles a bit) American and next minute they sound like they work on a market stall selling fruit in the East end of London!
Back to prince himself – firstly, why the silly name "Dastan" (which means "story" in Hindi/Persian/Urdu). Subsection; The Prince has always been known as The Prince. Subsection two; if you ARE desperate to name him, why not something fitting like Kismat (meaning "fate" in Hindi/Urdu). Now the Parkour, OH the parkour, the prince we know effortlessly combines his slick yet daring parkour moves with his neck snapping butt slicing attacks, here he barely moves with grace of a retired nursing home dwelling circus acrobatic these days using a Zimmer frame! As a loving fan I wanted to see more impossible wall runs, at least one ripping slide down a curtain (they took time to tantalise us with a wonderful shot of a carpet on a wall but alas no sliding partook) and especially more matrix style super flips whilst cutting people's heads off! Fight scenes are too fast, short, few and far between that if you blink you'll not see another for 30 minutes, gone are the days movies like The Matrix slowed time to ultra slow-mo showing off every mind-boggling moment so the viewer could savour every moment whilst dribbling uncontrollably on our seats staring exophthalmically at the screen.
In conclusion, this movie is an embarrassment to POP, the storyline is ridiculous and doesn't follow the game, the central element of parkour blended with gratuitous broad sword violence is pretty much absent and every time you start twitching with frustration close to having a seizure they just show you some beautiful scenery or Princess Tamina's illustrious beauty to calm the brewing storm (if not to start another *wink* *wink*).
Advice: watch the trailer and that should be enough to satisfy your carnal needs, anymore and you'll only be disappointed, like when you walked in on your wife and your best friend... or erm something similar!