Movies based on video games suck. This is an immutable law of nature. The corollary to this law, that video games based on movies also suck, is no less true, but not the point of this post. Neither is the point of today's article to delve into the many, myriad reasons that up until now, there has never been a video game movie that didn't make me want to floss with razor-wire. We must simply accept that video game movies suck.
Besides, we all know the reason.
No, what I need to tell you all today is that this immutable law of nature has, as all rules do, an exception, and that exception is Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Because not only does this movie not suck, it's better than the other big summer blockbusters I've seen this year; Robin Hood and Iron Man 2.
"Take it back!"
I liked Russell Crowe T. Robot as Robin Hood. The film had some narrative missteps (like Prince John's heel-turn at the end of the movie coming completely fucking out of nowhere and not fitting the characterization the movie already gave him as a ruthless-yet-completely-reasonable leader handed the crown at a really shitty time), and it had some research failures (1199 is the turn of the 13th century, Ridley, not the turn of the 12th). But it was exciting and entertaining and at no point did I want to stab myself in the throat.
Iron Man 2 for me was a little more hit and miss. I absolutely love the first movie, but felt the sequel didn't really deliver on the promise of the first. The special effects weren't quite as good (especially some of the times with Rhodey wearing the War Machine suit with the mask open; it looked like a really bad photoshop of Don Cheadle's face in there), and the story was sort of a head-scratcher. It didn't reach Spider-Man 3 levels by any stretch, but the plot was meandering and contrived enough to irritate me.
"I invented a new element and then hid it in a theme park to cure the poison that will be killing my son forty years from now. Don't question me."
And then there was THAT scene. That one scene that turned me into George C. Scott in "Hardcore". The scene where Tony Stark gets hammered at a party while wearing the Iron Man armor and asks the DJ (a cameo by the late DJ AM) to provide a soundtrack for a fight between himself and War Machine. Just typing that sentence hurts me in parts of my heart I long thought dead.
Being in Iron Man 2 was the second worst thing that happened to DJ AM this year.
Now I'm not saying all of Iron Man 2 sucked. Ivan Vanko and Justin Hammer were great villains (even if not quite as menacing as Jeff Bridge's Obediah Stane) and the fight scenes involving Vanko were the best parts of the movies. There was just too much fluff, too much blah blah in a movie that should have trimmed all the fat. It was a C+/B- at best.
Stop sulking, Tony. You made this mess, now you gotta sit in it.
But wasn't this supposed to be about Prince of Persia? Right. Now I didn't even want to go see it. I went on a Sunday night with my girlfriend and my manager and as I sat in the theater I was prepared for a real shit fest. I liked the PS2 Prince of Persia series as much as the next nerd but I knew that they'd never make a decent video game movie. It can't be done.
But they did, somehow. I spent most of the movie really enjoying myself, more so than my companions, who were the ones who had wanted to see it in the first place. Now don't get me wrong, there were parts of this movie I HATED. HATED. In huge capital letters written across the sky HATED. Most of them involving our two main characters, Prince Smug-tits and Princess Stuck-up-McLack-o-Charisma.
"Wait...I think I see our personalities over there..."
Most of the dialogue is hackneyed, dime-a-dozen fantasy pap, with lots of talk of destiny and righteousness and *yawn*. But whenever Prince Dastan and Princess Tamina start talking to each other, it quickly takes a left turn into insufferable bullshit. They're supposed to have this smart-alecky slap-slap-kiss dynamic going on, but its neither clever or funny, and quickly becomes two smug posturing assholes slinging intolerable one-liners at each other while we try and figure out why in the holy hemorrhaging fuck they're still hanging out together.
But for whatever reason, the movie works. The action sequences are exciting when you can figure out what the fuck is supposed to be going on, and there's a nice little shout-out to Assassin's Creed early on which I appreciated. This is the kind of movie that's doing a million things at once and while it can be a headache to follow, it hits all the right notes for a dopey sword-and-sandal action flick and at no point did I desperately want the movie to end, as I did in Iron Man's drunk party/fight scene.
"Turn it off....TURN IT OFF!"
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