Based on the acclaimed Video Game franchise, the story of a prince who teams up with a princess to stop the world from being destroyed by a ruler who wants to unleash the sands of time.

Jake Gyllenhaal stars in the title role as Dastan a street child adopted to become a Prince of Persia solely for embodying the personal qualities admired by the King.
Framed for the death of his father Dastan utilizes the help of Princess Tamina (Gemma Arteron) to find a way to convince his brother that he was set up and stop an evil plan that will destroy the world.

It is very rare that a movie is any good that is based on a video game especially when it’s a stellar franchise such as Prince of Persia. This isn’t one of those times.

Gyllenhaal is woefully miscast as the prince its amusing to watch a white man speak with what appears to be an English accent trying to pass himself off as Persian. Gemma Arteron appears to be playing the exact character that she played in Clash of the Titans and Ben Kingsley has gone from respected actor to a caricature of Jafar from Aladdin.

This is a movie that displays the varying shades of evil the character is, by the amount of eyeliner the person is wearing.

It’s rated PG-13 but unless you are under thirteen skip this one and play the superior video game franchise this is based off of.

Grade-72

Will Forte stars as Macgruber the mullet wearing Macguyver spoof from the minute long snl sketch.

I was hesitant about seeing a full length feature based on a sketch that is mildly amusing at best. The sketch can be summed up as macgruber says something, asks for some odd items to diffuse a bomb, is unsuccessful and everyone blows up.

When a nuclear warhead is acquired by his nemesis Dieter Von Cunth, Macgruber is called back into action to save the day.

The film version goes in a similar yet different direction; After his wife is blown up during the wedding ceremony by Dieter Von Cunth (a pudgy and ponytailed Val Kilmer) Macgruber pretends he is dead and goes into exile. Upon finding out that Von Cunth is set on detonating a nuclear warhead Macgruber gets back in the game together with Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig) and Lt Dixon Piper (Ryan Philippe) Macgruber has the team he needs to take down Von Cunth.

The film interpretation fleshes out what the bumbling Macgruber is really all about, Not just a one note Macguyver rip off, now Macgruber is a more fully formed Macguyver rip off, with a penchant for sweet rides, sweeter ladies and tearing throats.

Macgruber doesn’t break new ground but what it does, it does well and is surprisingly enjoyable, It is Violent and Vulgar the combination of profanity and blood was a great direction to take a not quite funny sketch and stretch it to an hour and a half.

Macgruber has laughs, action, violence and the best Mullet since Patrick Swayze in Road House.

Grade-84

The Story of how an archer from Richard the Lion Hearts army, one Robin Longstride becomes the legendary outlaw known as Robin Hood.

Ridley Scott teams up for the fifth time with Russell Crow to tell what amounts to the prequel of what everyone conceives to be the tale of Robin Hood.

At the inception of this telling Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) is an Archer in King Richard the Lion Hearts (Danny Huston) Army, upon Richards death Robin escapes with his band of “Merry Men” they come across a group of knights including a Sir Robert Loxley who’s dying wish is for Longstride to return his family sword to his father Sir Walter Loxley (Max Von Sydow). Robin and his men assume the identities of the deceased knights and Robin Longstride assumes the role of Sir Robert of Loxley.
Upon delivering the sword to Sir Walter, Robin meets the only woman in all of England who is headstrong and filled with resolve and thus destined to be Robins love interest Marion Loxley (Cate Blanchett)

The Second half of the film follows impersonator Robin as he finds out the truth about his own father and a conspiracy that involves taxing the north of England to incite them to fight the kings army and thus makeit easier for France to invade England.

Robin Hood is two and a half hours of an origin story that nobody was clamoring for, nor did this tale require the long-winded screen time it was given. While there is a lot going on, not much is really said in terms of motivation for why things are done. We are introduced to Robins Merry Men yet we are given no reason as to why they look up to Robin or anointed him there leader, particularly when they were peers in the army. The major villain is Godfrey (Mark Strong) who while being under charge of King John (Oscar Isaac) is a double agent conspiring with King Philip to get France to attack England, Even though there is no explanation given for his actions.

To garner a PG-13 rating we have an extensive amount of swordplay with people falling to the ground dead even though they are unscathed by the fatal slash of the sword; Which is about as believable as when Robin is kissing Marion in the ocean while the French and English armies battle each other all around them. When a film’s title character is an archer and the poster has him holding a bow and arrow it would be fantastic to include this as a focal point of his fighting repertoire, aside from one shot at the end, the archery skills of Robin are just as good as anyone else’s.

This is a movie that was only made to create the sequel, the story is plodding and forgettable and so overly long. The existence of this film is only so they can milk the audience at a later date with a story people might have some interest in. While the concept of giving us a Robin Hood that is different than the one we all know about, is intriguing if it cannot be done in an interesting or entertaining way there really was no point.

Grade-77

After announcing to the world that he (Tony Stark) is Iron Man, The government wants his suit, he is sick with palladium poisoning, and a new villain appears.

The first Iron Man was a huge success, it was a fun film that had a good story, great action and a solid dose of humor, most importantly it had a natural flow to it and never felt forced. Rather than take what worked make a few tweaks here and there and deliver another entry into the Iron Man saga, We are given a film that forgets to be fun and feels more forced than it needs to.

The theory of less is more clearly was not even brought up during the filming, In fact it feels like you are suffering from over indulgence at an all you can eat buffet. There is so much put in here that it completely strips the fun from the film. There are moments that remind you of what this could have been particularly any scene with Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) who oozes douchiness while being a second rate version of Tony Stark.  Mickey Rourke continues his resurgence as the Russian villain Ivan Venko but for the amount of screen time they are given just as much time is wasted on Samuel Jackson (Nick Fury) and Scarlett Johannson (Natalie Rushman/Natasha Romanoff) both of whom could have been omitted and it would have been better. Samuel Jackson’s scenes feel like they are only in there to set up an Avengers film. Johanssons fight scenes border on the infuriating doing a ridiculous pose everytime she is done dispatching a bad guy. Don Cheadle an amazing actor who is wasted as (Rhodey) I would have thought that by acquiring his talents they would have been utilized more than just voice work for War Machine. Thankfully Robert Downey Jr is solid enough to right the ship before it takes on to much water without him Iron Man 2 would have been an abysmal tragedy.

The biggest issue is how uneven it, is the first three quarters of the film are all story with the final portion being an excuse for a lot of things to blow up. If the action and the story could have been interspersed throughout the film a more enjoyable experience would have been had.

Iron Man 2 is entertaining it just doesn’t live up to what you hoped it would be.

Grade-81

Freddy Krueger is after the children of Elm Street if he kills them in their dreams they die in real life.

A Nightmare on Elm Street is the reimaging of the iconic 1984 classic that introduced Freddy Krueger to the world (as well as Jonny Depp). The original has the distinction of being the only good one in the series as well as the only one that wasn’t played for laughs intentional or otherwise.

The problem with the original series was that they stopped being scary and instead increasingly relied on really lame one liners and trying to constantly one up the ridiculous ways Freddy would kill teenagers (who can forget claymation marionette Freddy in the Dream Warriors.)

This reboot had potential the casting of Jackie Earl Haley in the role of Freddy was solid and that was as far as they got on this one.  Had they returned to the films roots rather than plagiarize a couple of scenes this might have been a success however we are given a cast of characters who we have no attachment to whatsoever and cant wait for Freddy to dispose of them (as the more deaths we have the closer to the end we know we are going to be).

The back-story on Freddy is not consistent with the originals origins; Gone is the guy who killed children and was not convicted, who died in a boiler room. In his place is a creepy pedophile gardener, yet somehow the boiler room imagery still remains.

There is absolutely nothing new brought to the table on this “Reimagining”, To pull this off all they had to do was make a darker menacing version of Freddy and show more on his origins that were true to character. Instead we get a Freddy who likes to have conversations and actually at one point yells boo! Like he is working the Halloween maze at Universal Studios.

When the premise of a film is don’t fall asleep or you will die, and you would rather take a nap than suffer through more of this disappointment they call a movie, you know its not good.

Grade-48