Review - Prince of Persia (2010)

“My friend, has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?”

Director: Mike Newell
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina
Screenplay: Boaz Yakin, Doug Miro

Plot: Adopted from the streets of Nasaf by King Sharaman of Persia, young Dastan grows up amongst royalty and quickly earns his place as a mighty warrior and prince. However when Dastan is accused of the murder of King Sharaman, he flees with a princess on a harrowing mission to not only clear his name, but stop an evil mastermind's plot for ultimate power with a mystical weapon that can control the very fabric of time.

Plan 9 From Outer Space is a bad movie, the catalogue of Uwe Boll is just a lesson in what not to do in movies, I could go on and on but I’ll say this. Behind these movies there is some passion, Ed Wood thought he was making the next big thing, and while some may say Uwe Boll is just in it for the money he makes enough movies for me to believe he loves what he does. That brings me to Prince of Persia which is not as bad as what was mentioned before but it’s so mediocre I find it worse in some respects as it has no real heart.

Let’s start as always with the acting. Just across the board people came in got their pay checks and left. I’ve read some reviews complain about Gyllenhaal’s accent in the movie, honestly it was fine I just didn’t give a damn about the character which is a huge problem seeming he’s the leading man. Gemma Arterton was a pretty cliché princess. She hates the main character, she falls for him, cut to kissing scene, end movie. Yet again another character that I didn’t care about. Out of Dastan’s family the only real actor is Ben Kingsley and while he’s good he isn’t exactly memorable. Now Alfred Molina on the other hand as Sheik Amar was memorable and I enjoyed every moment he was one screen, he seemed to be really enjoying himself. If it wasn’t for him I would have probably fallen asleep.

This being an action fantasy movie, it is probably not a surprise that there is action. For the most part it does a good job in seeming like a Prince of Persia movie, plenty of nods to the game. It does have a little bit of the jump editing that is so in this decade but for the most part you can see the action on the screen. CGI looked okay and overall the movie is well polished but it just seems to be going by the numbers. Action scene here, chase over there, fight, but through and through I just didn’t care. Not only do you need characters to care about in action scenes but you need a good story to drive the action and it’s a pretty standard story. Nothing special. It’s almost like a check list of clichés and damn it the writers are going to tick everyone.

I can’t say I was disappointed by this movie because I wasn’t really looking forward to it but yet it still managed to astound me at how dull it was. Clichés out of the butt and two lead characters I couldn’t give a flying dagger about. Honestly people if I had to show you this or an Uwe Boll movie I would suggest you go watch Mr Boll at work because at least he’s trying to be original.