No Snake Dance?
Earnest Prince of Persia hate seems almost nonexistent out there. People who should know better seem to be sighing and shrugging and going, “Oh God…effin’ Bruckheimer again. What are we supposed to do? We can’t keep fighting the same battle over and over. We’re getting tired.” Bruckheimer, in other words, appears to be winning simply because he keeps on coming. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” — quote from British philosopher Edmund Burke.
“For twenty years, audiences have been noticing the similarity between big action and fantasy movies and video games,” writes New Yorker critic David Denby, “but Prince of Persia goes beyond similarity; it actually feels like a video game.
“In order to work the dagger, you press a red jewel on the hilt, which suspiciously resembles a button on a game controller. After a while, backward motion ceases, and life goes forward again. The first time this happens, the effect is rather neat. By the third time, you think that the filmmakers have found a convenient way to avoid the difficulties of constructing a plot that makes emotional sense. Is this the future of screenwriting?
“As usual, the ancient world speaks with an Oxbridge accent. Sturdy players, fresh from triumphs in Shaw and Beckett, stand around in turbans and robes and say such lines as ‘Wise words, little brother’ and ‘In Alamut rests the beating heart of all life.’ The classy British diction is yet another luxury item. Even Jake Gyllenhaal, leaping about with a messy wet do and bulging shoulders, speaks like a gent walking down the Strand. Gyllenhaal gets linked up with Gemma Arterton, as Princess Tamina, the guardian of the dagger.
“Tamina is the kind of sexy, bare-midriff role that Debra Paget specialized in fifty years ago (she was the devastating Sharain in Omar Khayyam), though Paget fans will be disappointed that Arterton does nothing comparable to her lethally funny naked-with-diamonds snake dance in Fritz Lang‘s The Indian Tomb. (Hint to lascivious moviegoers: it’s on YouTube.)
“Instead, Arterton plays Tamina as a saucy young thing, and she and Gyllenhaal, like every couple in a romantic comedy, snap at each other relentlessly while slowly falling in love. The movie is pitched to adolescents, but the kids in the audience groan when the two draw near yet don’t kiss, only to lock lips, at last, just before fadeout.
“[Director] Mike Newell has made solid movies — Four Weddings and a Funeral, Donnie Brasco — but what he does here feels more like traffic management than like direction. Even the pop-Orientalist scenes that should be scary fun just skitter off the screen in a rush of action.”
And indeed, that is the video game’s mechanic. Screw up and fall in a pit? Rewind the last few seconds and try again. Overcome by the bad guys’ swords? Rewind and try again.
It’s a terribly effective game mechanic, and the game series is well liked for its general design. But I can’t imagine the movie having any weight or consequence as a result. Either the characters should be rewinding constantly until they get the perfect result they want, or situations are going to have to be invented to constantly prevent them from doing just that…
it really is a kids movie. hopefully i can get some other schlub to take my kid to it (that is, if my young son even wants to go.)
It’s hard to imagine this or SATC 2 burning up the boxoffice for more than a couple of weeks. Worst Memorial Day offerings ever.
Wells, you’re confusing lack of hate with approval, when in reality the lack of hate equals disdain.
I think a lot of moviegoers don’t care enough to be bothered to hate the movie. They’d rather not even think of it at all.
I’ll be really shocked if this is a hit. Anything these days can sadly make their money back, but I just can’t see this breaking out past the break-even point, holiday weekend or not.
People just don’t seem to care about it. At worst, they say it’s boring. At best, it’s an old-fashioned adventure. No strong feelings either way.
It’s also hard to get worked up about any of the talent involved. Mike Newell is solid and semi-respectable, Jake Gyllenhaal is generally well-liked, the likes of Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina are bullet-proof. It’s just a standard summer blockbuster that doesn’t stir passions either way.
Sex and the Shitty 2 is getting all the hate.
Jeff, are you asking us to divide our attentions?
yes this is exactly what Edmund Burke was talking about
Debra Paget is almost certainly better known as Lilia in the Ten Commandments, Joshua’s squeeze that ends up as Edward G. Robinson’s concubine.
BTW, that sock puppet thing she does with her hands in that clip is flat-out awesome. She probably performed that dance for many a casting director back in the day.
Your man Hammond is quoted three times (!) in the TV spot I saw. “A must see!!!’ etc. I have no reason not believe him. Do I?
Yeah, there’s a lot of goodwill behind the games, the first of which came out over 20 years ago for the Apple II. The series reboots in the last 10 years with the ability to rewind the “sands of time” (like Meekay describes) were also very highly-regarded, and also a lot of fun.
Possibly why there’s a little less venom than usual for the Bruckheimer-ness of it all. Oddly enough, the new game, which is based on the movie (which was based on the game originally…yikes!) is supposed to be pretty good. It really makes you question why they even trade to adapt it for the screen, when all the mechanics involved seem best-suited to playing a game.
It’s kind of like when they try to make a film out of first-person shooters (i.e. Doom). They are destined to fail, because the inherent appeal of those games is to make you the lead character, which is a philosophy that pretty much goes against every rule in the narrative cinema playbook (I could see a truly experimental film working, but the chances of that seem super-remote — most licensed geek properties are bloated due to an over-reliance on CGI).
Someone’s eventually going to try to make Duke Nukem, and it’s going to suck horribly. And that’s a shame, because those games had a phenomenally wacky sense of humor about themselves. It needs to be animated traditionally, or French, or made by Spike Jonze. Or something.
Oh, and more on-topic (sorta), Paget had (still “has,” in that clip!) an incredibly smokin’ ’50s bod.
I could totally see an adolescent version of my old man losin’ his shit to the above clip (how fuckin’ odd is it to see a Fritz Lang movie with both sound and color, btw? I had no idea he was still a working director at this time).
Okay, that thought actually made me a little bit nauseous.
I know I’m preaching to the choir on this one and repeating all our sentiments, but what a shitty summer it’s been blockbuster-wise. More so than usual. I’m at the point where I actually kind of want to see Prince of Persia. So long and it doesn’t offend my intelligence, and merely tells a coherent story, I’ll love it.
“Worst Memorial Day offerings ever.” – pretty close. Although that year with the third Spidey, Shrek and Pirates might come close. Or the one with the crappy X-Men and DaVinci Code. Or…
Gogo- Hammond also claimed Shrek “The funniest comedy of the year”, which obviously should be bestowed upon MacGruber.
>The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
From an audience standpoint, isn’t “doing nothing” (i.e., not buying a ticket) the thing to do?
If I see a movie this weekend it’ll probably be Solitary Man. Maybe I’ll just hang at home and watch Silence of the Lambs on Blu-Ray again…
Meeky,
“It’s a terribly effective game mechanic, and the game series is well liked for its general design. But I can’t imagine the movie having any weight or consequence as a result.”
For what it’s worth, an odd point in the film’s favor (it’s about a C+, by-default probably the first good video game film) is that someone at the writing phase was demonstrably VERY aware of this fact – they “rewind” only ever gets used in an action scene once (it has a “usage limit”); instead it’s a moderately-clever treasure-hunt piece, though it’s use in the obligatory “prove I’m telling the truth” renegade-hero scene certainly woke the audience up.
“Earnest Prince of Persia hate seems almost nonexistent out there. People who should know better seem to be sighing and shrugging”
Isn’t this essentially what you did with Clash of the Titans, which is more or less the same kind of safe, sandy, studio adventure film?
I just saw it this morning, and its certainly cut from the same cloth as Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy, only given the slow-mo, physics-defying treatment. Honestly, it’s not terrible, which is why people are just shrugging it off.
Okay, that Indian Tomb clip was fucking HOT!
Just as well I never saw that as a kid. I would’ve lost my mind.
Funny at first hearing them speak German, but then it made me realize how equally ridiculous it is that they speak English, which I wouldn’t have found odd.
Thanks, Debra Paget, for turning me on. All we need now is for Lex to come in here and tell us how fat she is.
I really, really hate to side with DeeZee on anything, but Silent Hill actually wasn’t an awful piece of cinema.
Not groundbreaking or anything, but retained the eerie, off-kilter mood of the games pretty nicely. The script really starts to go off the deep end towards the conclusion, but the visual style is consistently good throughout. I’d give it a solid B.
Any other halfway-decent video game movies I can think of (Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil) are probably C+s, at best.
Looking like the most expensive Hallmark TV movie ever, Prince of Persia is shockingly so ordinary. Coupled with unfunny characters (yes, you, Alfred Molina) and a performance from Gemma Atherton straight out of the Keira Knightley School of Dramatic Acting, this has no emotional heart, tension or excitement. Even as a showreel for CGI it doesn’t cut it, with the effects on BBC Wales’s Doctor Who looking more impressive. Proof it’s going to be a grim summer.
I agree on Alfred Molina and Gemma Arterton, they’re boring. And it is ordinary, very much so, it just also happens to be harmless, which these days gets you a pass in my book. At least it has two celery sticks less than MacGruber.
Boring is never harmless. It’s the absolute worst thing a movie can be.
I’m starting to think that Lex is dead. Did he even pop up in the Megan Fox thread?
That snake isn’t phallic, nosiree…
it isn’t terrible. Terrible = fun. This is nowhere near good, but it’s just boring, like everybody says. I left after half an hour (I wouldn’t have gone, but the previewers tricked us).
The plot and dialogue is ‘Star Wars’ prequel boooooooring.
Wow, DeeZee really nails the ABSOLUTELY UN-SUBTLE subtext of the fucking SNAKE DANCE.
Does DZ stand for Dip Zhit?
Hahahaha I love how the snake looks like a pervert.
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