Before you know anything else about the movie, you know it’s going to be bad. Being a movie isn’t a great start. Being a movie based on a game is like a contract with the devil written in blood that it will be awful. I recall the posters proudly proclaiming that it came from the same folks who made Pirates of the Caribbean, which would’ve had at least some chance of fooling someone if there had only ever been one, or maybe even two. But by World’s End, can you honestly say you trust their judgment anymore?
Once the movie begins, we see the first reason that the movie will suck. The prince is not a prince, but a rascally street urchin. D’awwww. Ain’t that cute? Oh wait. No. It’s not. Also, why is ancient Persia filled with pasty white dudes? Also, wait. The King ADOPTS the rascally street urchin because…he pisses off some soldiers and gets caught? By falling from a roof while attempting some acrobatic nonsense? So the story is already off on a bad foot and the Prince has been downgraded from eminently capable but emotionally retarded down to incompetent twat. The movie immediately skips forward about twenty years when we meet his adoptive brothers, One being a good person but a terrible leader and the other being an angry, shouty man. We also meet the uncle/advisor and if you couldn’t tell from his bald head, eye liner and Fu Manchu that he’s the villain the INSTANT he appears on screen you must be a complete moron. He might as well have walked around wearing one of those sandwich plate signs reading “Hello, I will be your villain today. Our specials are Backstabbing, and manipulation. Our goal is the throne.” I’d say the movie’s story follows the game, but only in part. There is no apocalypse for one. The Prince only ever reverses time like twice in the entire movie. The princess can’t decide if she’s a helpless flower or some snotty bitch but she’s never half as much fun as her game counterpart. The dialogue between the two is pretty much crap. Here’s an example.
Prince: I didn’t kill my father.
Princess: I believe you. Now Russ stands to inherit the throne.
Prince: I didn’t kill my father.
I’m not even joking. It’s like he forgot what line he was on and they decided it was too much work to refilm the scene. Meanwhile, what kind of name is “Russ” for a Persian Prince set to inherit the throne? Also, did you really think that you could convince us that his adopted brother framed the prince for murder when there’s an obsequious bald man with a Fu Manchu standing right fucking there? Like I said, it’d take a special kind of idiot not to know who the villain is. The Prince is a very special boy. It takes him half the movie.
At which point the writers panic because they’ve only got forty pages of screenplay. So suddenly they shoehorn in some backstory that might’ve been halfway decent if they’d mentioned it early (and they had many opportunities so I don’t understand why they didn’t) then they introduce the evil Uncle’s elite force of Hassassins, Persian ninjas. No that is not a joke. That really happens. Clever, right? Sticking an H on the word assassin. You know, I don’t even care if Hassassins were real. It’s too stupid.
The Prince convinces one of his brothers that their uncle is the real villain right before that brother gets killed. Then they do it AGAIN like two scenes later with the other brother. Christ. When you finally get to the ending, it almost feels like you’re on safe ground again, admittedly not as well done as in the game but hey. But then when he goes back in time he doesn’t stop the war from happening as happened in the game or as the movie repeatedly insists is going to happen. He comes back to right after his daring gambit to let in the Persian armies (resulting in a swift and relatively bloodless victory) confronts the evil Uncle, who cackles maniacally like a James Bond villain and more or less says “and what are you going to do about it?” while surrounded BY THE ENTIRE PERSIAN ARMY. What the hell kind of villain was he? It took an entire movie to take this loser down? I feel so cheated. Well, maybe it can be rescued. The princess will surely hate the Prince for what he’s done, right? Wrong! Rather than slipping out into the night, leaving the Princess with a confusing story, an apology and the time controlling dagger, in the movie THEY GET ENGAGED. So he gets glory and the girl, consequence free.
This isn’t even having your cake and eating it too. I never understood why that’d be a problem. Why wouldn’t you eat a cake if you had it? This is more like having a cake and eating everybody else’s. You know what? Fuck you Hollywood. Fuck you. Up the ass. With a hot iron poker.
Arbitrary Confectionary Rating: Laxative chunk brownies. You can scoff at video game writing if you want, but remember it could always be worse. It could be a movie.
It's nice to see that those court-mandated anger management classes have paid off.
ReplyDeleteArgh! Happy people! Rage, spit, death.
ReplyDeleteDYING LAUGHING. I am so happy they made this movie. I will never see it, but reading your review was so hilarious that it was worth it. Thank you, Robin. Thanks from the depths of my evil heart.
ReplyDeleteStop that laughing! One of these days you're going to DIE laughing, just like your idiot cousins the hyenas.
ReplyDelete