Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)

director: Mike Newell

writers: Jordan Mechner, Boaz Yakin, Doug Miro, Carlos Bernard

starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Alfred Molina, Ben Kingsley

genre: Action, Adventure, Video Games







It's far better to go into one of these Hollywood super hyped films with low expectations. Believing that any of these films will be so easily better than the next is wishful thinking. Prince of Persia is an adventure film that doesn't dazzle, amaze or surprise us but nonetheless its still entertaining.

Prince of Persia is a video game series since the early 90's. With many video-games and variations to the story it was a great idea to make one of them into a film. They picked the Sands of Time and at least managed not to defile the original material while still managing to show what made the game so fun and famous.

In the film adaption of the game we follow Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) a street child who is adopted by the king after showing courage. While apart of the royal family and prince. He follows his brothers into the capture of Amalut. The capture is shadowed by treachery of Amalut's ties with enemy's of Persia and within the royal family. Dastan accused of treason has to run for his life accompanied by the princess of Amalut. He will soon there after realize the true reason for the capture of Amalut is for ancient artifact the dagger that holds the sands of time.

First let me get out of the way that finally a video-game film came out that was successfully made for the mainstream audience and that didn't offend fans of the game. Prince of Persia manages to be the best video-game film ever as not a lot have been made or been of any significant quality except Mortal Kombat and Silent Hill.

Even though its one of the best video-games film ever made its still an mediocre film. Its kind of sad to see that the same people who brought you Pirates of the Caribbean couldn't bring the same level of quality with them. Either from the costumes that looked plain, or from the sets that looked cheap and to the Arabian setting of Persia that didn't look magical, beautiful or at all interesting. Just compare this to the the production of Kingdom of Heaven and you will see for yourself the differences in production value.

After the production problems there is also the matter of the direction of the film. POP is directed by Mike Newell who had done Goblet of Fire. In my opinion the best of the Harry Potter films. Here Newell either pressured probably by the studio or the production not understanding that the audience is sometimes smarter than they think show off Dastan's skills to a insane rate. Showcasing his park qua skills the way they did made it more obvious the need for stunt-work and less effects work in the film. They could have just done it in a Jackie Chan method and it would have looked cooler and more realistic.

By the end I actually managed to enjoy the film. After the 25th minute of the film the slow storytelling, terrible direction went away and there was sense to the story and the pacing. Also the actors did a great job for the film, especially Alfred Molina. For all its mistakes its a good popcorn film and personally felt i got my money's worth and hope the same for you.

Personal Rating:

Review by Paul

Escape from City 17 Part 1 (2009)

directors: Ian and David Purchase

writers: Ian and David Purchase

genre: Sci-Fi/Video Games

I thought as a movie reviews blog, that we shouldn’t let ourselves just review feature films but also short films at times. Escape from City 17 is a short film based upon the video game series Half Life. It’s the first of 5 short films by the Purchase Brothers on Half Life. The short film is not awards worthy, it even has amateurish acting. But its want any fanboy would want.

The first short film of the Escape from City 17 series is placed right after the events of Half Life 2 with the Citadel’s reactor about to blow up. We follow two rebels as they try to flee the city and avoid the combine. As they try to stay alive we get to see a lot of Half Life trademarks as scientist Kleiner talking in the background or combine soldiers killing rebels and the classic feel of doom growing over the spectator.

With a low budget of 500$ and the Purchase brothers made a little fan film into an epic and mind blowing experience with the money at hand. They have combined live action with video from the video game Half-Life 2 which was graphically enhanced with the method of complicated tracking and rotoscoping. This makes the experience even more delightful.

What Escape from City 17 accomplishes is not groundbreaking to cinema but to extent of low budget effects filmmaking. It shows us that there is talent out there and with the right equipment it doesn’t matter how much money you have but talent. As well as the fact that videogame lore can continue on film or TV format in many successful ways in the right hands.

Any Half Life or by and large videogames fan needs to see this. Its one of those things that make fan boys tingle as they wish that one day they can see their favorite videogame in full glory. But for now we will have to just live with this and soon to be released second part of the short film series so stay tuned.

Personal Rating:

Review by Paul

Alone in the Dark (2005)

director: Uwe Boll

writers: Elan Mastai, Micheal Roesch

starring: Christian Slater, Tara Reid

genre: Horror/Video Games

There is no way that I can say all the reasons on why this film is horrific. And that's the truth. Uwe Boll is famous now for making bad films and again makes a film based on a video game. Not that video games don’t have interesting stories. For example Final Fantasy or even Metal Gear Solid. But the point is he couldn't find a project that could be a little more original and from his own let's say creative mind.

The film is based on the 1992 video game by the same name. The film doesn't follow the game that much. Alone in the Dark is absurd, clichéd and done already plot that is quite painful to even remember because its such bad film. In summary the film is about Edward Carnby (Christian Slater) a detective of the paranormal. There is threat upon the world of the Akbani some kind of a ancient evil culture which if unleashed and will destroy the Earth. Now Carnby his girlfriend and scientist Aline Cedrac (Tara Reid) and old co-worker who is in government organization (Stephen Dorff) work together against the paranormal into stopping this force before its unleashed.

The film fails as a story, action film, video game adaptation and as movie in general in so many ways. Fight sequences out of nowhere which are totally not believable. Not to mention a sex scene which had no point to it. No character moments where we invest and care about them. Gun fights that makes you sleepy. And the biggest problem of all a threat to mankind that we never get a proper explanation. What are the motives of this ancient culture? Why are they monsters? How they come to be? What kind of society is this? Maybe im asking too much. But when you make a film you’re supposed to make it yes for a profit but also for the audience to be entertained and for it to make some sense.

The film is so bad its in IMDB's list of worst films ever with Uwe Boll's other films. Many people wondered as did I how does he continue to make films if there so bad and they make no profit. Well I looked up why he gets money and continues to make his films and the reason is that in Germany there is a special law that has a loophole that provides whole lot of the budget and if the film fails it repays the whole cost of the budget. That qualifies if the production is all German and if im not correct that they can only use this law for a very few number of films. Good for us so we don’t have to endure any more of his catastrophes.

Lets just hope a miracle happens and these kind of films never see the light of day. Because wooden performances, terrible special effects and weak scripts are things that put off people into thinking that cinema is a legitimate art form.

Personal Rating:

Review by Paul