Prince of Persia, Prince of Puke

Last night MB and I saw Prince of Persia, despite its dismal ratings on Metacritic.  We figured a) Clash of the Titans did even worse and we didn’t think it was that bad, and b) how terrible could a film be coming from the guy who did the Pirates of the Caribbean (at least the first one)?

How bad?  Very very bad.   A stinker.  Literally.

First off, Jake Gyllenhaal looks about as un-Persian as you can get.  It’s not just the blue eyes, but his features are so, I dunno, American.  I even accept all the British accents.  It’s a way to make the movie seem old and otherworldly, otherwise we can never forget that, say, Tom Cruise is heiling Hitler.  But Jake’s face?  No, sorry.

Second, it was boring.  Yes, there’s lots of action, but that’s all there is. No build up, not much susspense.  I found myself daydreaming throughout much of it, and at times thought, Goddammit, just do whatever you need to do with that fucking dagger so we can all go home!

Third, love story = lame.  A contrived love interest in an action flick is a pet peeve of mine, but this was worse than usual.  The I-hate-you-but-secretly-want-to-do-you “banter” between Gyllenhaal and that same chick from Clash of the Titans (playing basically the same character) was, how can I put it. . .wanh wanh waaanh.  No Brendan Fraser-Rachel Weisz were they.

And by the sixth almost-kiss scene, I wanted to throw my shoe at the screen.

Fourth, the whole time traveling thing is a cop-out.  Might as well as say it was all a dream.

Fifth, and I have to admit this is not the movie’s fault, someone’s feet smelled.  We were sitting there, peacefully watching the movie, when suddenly a cloud of stinky foot odor washed over us.  We looked at each other like, What the hell is that? I can only guess that someone near us thought it’d be a good idea to take their shoes on and off throughout the whole film so we could be intermittently enveloped in vapors of odoriferousness.

The only redeeming quality of the film was Ben Kingsley, who in my book can do no wrong.  He was the only one who got Jake Gyllenhaal to actually act instead of just flexing his guns and batting his pretty eyelashes.

But good ol’ Ben wasn’t enough to save Prince of Persia.  When I got home, I had to take a shower to wash off the stank, from both Mr. Stinky’s feet and the movie.

1 comment

  1. I swear if Persian guys looked like Jake I would have no problem dating them!