Director Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Donnie Brasco, HarryPotter 4 n Pushing Tin to name a few) sets out to bring us a new video-game-to-screen attempt. With previous efforts (not Mike's) like Doom, Street Fighter, Mario Bros n Mortal Kombat failing to even reach the shadow of their original games' glory, i was apprehensive about catching his flick. I mean in defense of the genre, a lot of stories in video games are absurd, with weird and crazy characters and moves, action and mind-blowing graphics almost impossible to match. But where there have been some respectable attempts (see Lara Croft, Final Fantasy*, Resident Evil (1st one only) and Max Payne (well i liked it!) I was still cautious about expecting much about it.
Surprisingly, well pleasantly though, i truly enjoyed this movie. Jake Gyllenhall managed to pull of the role of Prince Dastan who gets entangled in a time-skipping adventure with new 'it' gal Gemma Arterton, along with Sir Ben Kingsley and the awesome screen presence of Alfred Molina. Action packed, with some very cool CGI, good one liners and slick swordplay (well it's set in a loong time ago, no guns!) makes for a truly entertaining fare just short of 2 hours.
Story goes a little like this: an orphan is adopted into the royal family, but grows up to be the roguish hero of lot, and is always eager to please his brothers. As part of a campaign for their father the King, the princes lay siege to a holy city (after some dubious reasoning by their uncle {sidenote: very Mahabarata-ish this part}). This sets off a chain of events that leads thru an ostrich race, some Hassansins, sandstorms, snakes, and swords! Loads of swords!
* it was animated, but was damn realistic CG that one
verdict : nice one!
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