Real Brick wrote:Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Best of the group.
AGREED (though since 5, the movies have got better again)
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Unless Robin Hood yells "THIS IS SHERWOOD!!" - I'm not interested. How can the new one possibly top Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham? So, with that, I chose this movie - and I don't regret it.
Now, if you go through every scene and nitpick – it sucks. But if you went through into that much detail, you can make any movie suck. So I’m not going to do that, besides, I can’t remember every nitpick, and I don’t want to – because I liked this movie. I realise that is the problem with me recently, I nitpick, which ruins the cinematic experience.
The acting is at points awful. The Prince and the girl have as much chemistry as Anakin and Padme, and the dialogue is just as good (“QUICK!! START TALKING ABOUT SAND!!”) And the other Princes change allegiances in the blink of an eye, going from – “I HATE YOU TRAITOR!!” to “I LOVE YOU BROTHER! I WILL DO ANYTHING TO DEFEND YO - *arrow through chest*” in the space of 1 minute. Seriously, I am not exaggerating, they act exactly as I describe.
The love interest is as predictable as ‘Avatar’. As soon as the girl is like “I hate you, but I’m going to save your life” I was like “How long is it before they start kissing?” (About three quarters into the movie BTW – it’s no spoiler) I have not facepalmed during a movie since 'Quantum of Solace'.
The story plays out like a video game. Cinematic, fight, cinematic, fight resumes, cinematic, cinematic, new fight etc etc. At the points when he uses the sands of time, I can clearly imagine a play-by-play sequence (Press X! Now O!) And even when the movie began, I was expecting a ‘Press Start’ option to appear on-screen. This is odd considering the plot has nothing to do with the game apart from the ‘Sands of Time’ plot point (press R1 to use) and the ending, which I won’t spoil since it is really good. But to be fair, the plot of the game wasn’t anything astounding, and I would take this plot over that plot.
The story is clearly Bruckenheimer. All of this BS about ‘Gods’ (what gods?) and supernatural stuff. I’m willing to accept time travelling sand and magic, but when you bring in gods and don’t explain it at all apart from “DON’T QUESTION THE GODS” (every time they were mentioned I wanted to yell at the screen “WHAT GODS!?” At least ‘Avatar’ explained about THEIR fakey made-up god) I don’t like it when gods are introduced; it’s just never believable - particularly when you give the movie a real geographical location and time setting.
And why doesn’t the villain know that messing with the sands of time has the slight drawback of the FREAKING WORLD ENDING. Surely you would have to study to know that this thing exists and therefore would know that this would happen?
The editing is at points horrible. When the king gets Murdered (no big spoiler) everyone is like “OH MY GOD!! THE KING IS DEAD!! IT WAS HIM, HE DID IT!! KILL THE TRAITOR!! TRAITOR!! PRODUCT OF FILTH!! YOU WILL DIE!!” the Prince and the woman jump out of the window (Press X twice) and then it immediately cuts to him later saying “I DIDN’T KILL HIM!!” No emotion, no realisation, no suspense…horrible editing. And at the end, you are left wondering “How the hell did he do that?” The solution is shown, but the editing is so quick and unclear you can’t tell unless you rewind and watch in slow motion (which you obviously cannot do in a cinema)
And it’s hard to create an impressive atmospheric opening when you have the Disney logo popping up whilst you have dramatic music building up. Just a tiny thing that I found funny for some reason….
But this is nitpicking. On a whole, the music is great, cinematography great, the plot isn’t that bad, the action is great, and its overall a good and enjoyable movie. Not perfect, but it’s a nice escape from reality into the live action video game. I can say without hesitation it is the best Videogame movie out there, and is the first to realise what its source material is – and it does capture the overall feel of the game despite deviating from the original plot.
-MRB
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