Whew, that is one long title ain't it?
Ugh, I sort of reviewed this one on facebook as I was watching it but it was so bad that I need to warn everyone I can about it. I know many people, myself included, were vaguely interested in this movie. In fact, my love of Prince of Persia games caused me to ignore the bad reviews and say, "hey, maybe this is one of those movies that get badly reviewed that I enjoy". I wasn't expecting greatness, just entertainment. I didn't get entertainment.
Of course, most of you are likely aware of the fact that we have a bunch of white actors playing Persia or various middle eastern originated characters. We've all complained, and race bending is an unfortunate practice we need to break. if nothing else let this be your warning sign that yes, this is in fact much worse. now the one bright side I can say is that because Jake is playing The Prince(who has a bs name which is unforgivable), they actually crafted a tolerable origin. They didn't risk anything trying to pass him off as Persia so I am thankful for that, but beyond that I can't give them much. However, we are supposed to believe that Alfred Molina and Sir Ben Kingsly are Persian. For comparison, according to the wikipedias, Ben is English, his father of African/Indian descent, his mother of Russian or German descendant. A very English man, who was even knighted. Alfred's mother was Italian, his father was Spanish, and he was raised in England. So Englishmen. and no, they (thankfully) don't try to fake Persian accents, though they do put a considerable makeup on them. And worse yet is all of their acting is mediocre for mediocre actors, meaning that for these two titans of acting, it was especially disappointing.
The story was...Okay? It loosely follows the plot of the first game, and even has a few elements that improve upon the story. So the two major improvements are A) the female lead and most of the actions she takes make sense. Her acting is bland and really disappointing, but on a script level she works well. The other big change is that the betrayal is done via a magical artifact. This is a pleasant surprise because in all other incarnations our first introduction to this being a world of magic are via the Dagger. This sets a precedent for this world being bigger and more magical and that goes a long way. But then there is the execution. Every action. Every Betrayal, every shift, every reveal, feels forced and telegraphed. If you don't foresee the uncle to be evil from the very second he starts talking then you aren't paying attention. All in all the plot felt like a rehash of some elements of the games plot minus the good stuff. I mean, why couldn't we see an army of sand monsters? and then there comes the real, real problem.
Dastan as he is known, rarely if ever pulls off any Prince moves. A little bit of scaling the wall with arrows at the beginning, and jumping along a collapsing room at the end and that's it. This movie didn't need a lot of be awesome in action. Some running up walls, some swinging, some climbing, and some intricate traps. And then some fighting. Too much to ask for some awesome action in my action movie? Apparently.
In all, I'd rather watch Live Free or Die Hard because at least it had entertaining action("you just killed a helicopter with a car!"). This? No. This needs to be avoided at all costs. The acting is wooden and fake, the plot is predictable and boring. This is an F. A complete and total failure.
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