Spiderprince, spiderprince...

 While I realize that Jake Gyllenhaal did not, in fact, get the role of Spider-Man, the title doesn't work any other way.

 The new Prince of Persia trailer is out right now, and it's worth the look. When the promo stills came out on the geek-web, I was the first person to squash any legitimacy they might have, mainly because Ben Kingsley looked as if he walked straight off the set of Bloodrayne. Visual cues to bash a movie is not something that should be given out like...wait for it...Halloween candy.

 But I'm impressed! I would say that the movie won't win any awards, but that's a little overdone at this point. A more accurate representation of what you can find in the trailer is the promise for a movie that has all the cheese and useless CG of National Treasure 2 and The Mummy Returns, but the charm of National Treasure and The Mummy. This movie is going to fall somewhere in between with a dash of Pirates of the Caribbean. Of course, that dash could just as well be a ripoff, so the range of entertainment is still there.

 It was nice to see that they understood what players loves about playing Prince of Persia, and that is to pull off satisfying acrobatics and quick puzzle solving elements. It's strange how the game concepts actually translate pretty well into the formula of the two movies I mentioned. Prince of Persia would work best as a lengthened chase scene with a few elaborate set pieces to hang around at every ten minutes. Replace Rick O'Connell's gun blazing car rides with a bit of roof jumping, then do the same with Ben Gates' rampant "go here because the clue says so!" in favor of a hot Gemma Arterton saying "go here because the prophecy says so!"...

 In all seriousness, it looks entertaining and has a very non-Uwe Boll appeal to it, which is pretty good as far as video game flicks go. So long as Ben Kingsley doesn't choke on the easy money like he did the last time he tried this sort of thing, we may have a fun early-summer movie on our hands. Expect this to be a really enjoyable popcorn movie and nothing more. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit