Prince of Persia

What: Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time


Who: Jake Gyllenhaal (Jesus on a cracker, that's a tough surname to spell), Ben Kingsley, Gemma Arterton


When: May 21st


This is an amazing film... it really is. You know why? Because it just teaches you so much. For example: did you know that Persians are actually British people in funny costumes? I had no idea but, apparently, it's true (or so the movie-making people think). I could swear Persians were Iranian but no sir, they're a hundred per cent British and proud of it.

But, apart from the poor characterization of the Persian people, the film was ok. It reminded me a lot of "Pirates of the Caribbean" but with sand... and horses instead of boats. However, as far as video-game inspired movies go, this one is not half bad (well, mainly because they managed to keep Uwe Boll away from it).

Anyway, Prince of Persia might not be a complete train wreck but it's not one of the best films of the summer. It tries to offer an intricate story-line but, apart from a minor plot-twist at the end, it's very predictable. It's just another one of those fun but incredibly dumb action movies. Sure, there's cool fighting scenes and good-looking people but the main characters aren't very likable and Jake Gyllenhaal's "now you see it now you don't" British accent is just plain ridiculous. Half way into the movie I found myself rooting for the hired assassin with the crazy-looking eyes who smoked a lot of weed and controlled snakes telepathically but, honestly, who can blame me? He had more personality than all the other characters combined, which, I might add, is not very difficult. I've seen dead badgers who are more original than any of them.

Personally, I like to think of "Prince of Persia" as a film about a young man with a disfunctional family who really enjoys parkour.

Rating: Meh +

She's out of your league...or is she?

What: She's out of my league

Who: Jay Baruchel, Alice Eve and bunch of other people.

When: March...ish (but I only saw it recently because of...you know... jet lag or something)

First reaction: zohmygoodness! No, the movie wasn't that good (far from it) but Trevor Eve is in it! He's so awesome I wouldn't be surprised if he was carved from the same block of awesomeness that gave us Robert Downey Junior and all his... awesomeness?

Wikipedia told me that Trevor Eve is Alice Eve's father, which is rather curious since she also plays his daughter in the movie (I'm a sucker for this kind of... coincidence? Correspondence? Heck, I don't know what to call it).

So anyway, the film itself was... average. I feel like all the writers in Hollywood have given up on writing interesting and original stories and started coming up with really boring plots about everyday situations that, without random and rather vulgar comic reliefs, would put us all in a coma.

"She's out of my league" comes very close to be a film about two people in a completely normal relationship except throughout the whole thing everyone acts like Jay Baruchel's character is the ugliest bastard alive that shouldn't even be allowed to be around beautiful women because he might, I don't know, spontaneously combust or something. Besides I don't think Alice Eve is that hot, I mean, the way they were behaving, one would assume she's so insanely hot she actually kills people with her looks. But, come on, not even Megan Fox can do that and god knows how much she has tried...

So, yeah. No one should be bothered with this film, you shouldn't waiste a second of your time thinking about it. Just acknowledge it's out there and move one with or life (or, you know...don't), unless, of course, you really want to hear Trevor Eve talk with an American accent. In that case, knock yourself out. Although I have to warn you all: it's quite disturbing.

Rating: Meh